The Excitement Of A Terrified Fanboy
There's no running from it now. The Skywalker Saga is coming to a close and one Prequel born fanboy isn't ready to say goodbye. My entire life I've been a fan of the stories of this mythic family. My fandom has always been a profoundly big part of my life. Luke Skywalker, Leia, and Han Solo captured my imagination and the lore and themes of the prequels sucked me in as I devoured the Expanded Universe material even as a young kid. Video games, comic books, novels, hours just browsing Wookieepedia. Before long I knew all the Masters on the Jedi Council, all the great Sith and thousands of years of fictional history that I could recite and discuss on command.
The older I got the more I stopped being as attached to the flowery story of Luke and began to love the poetic and heartbreaking tragedy of his father. With age I better appreciated the big ball of paradoxes that is Anakin Skywalker and could appreciate the intense performance of Ian McDiarmid and the sinister glee he brought Palpatine. I loved seeing the way the actions of one man sent tremors through a galaxy for centuries. His legacy of darkness and how complex and psychologically deep that darkness was. As a teen Anakin was my guy. His fiery need to prove himself spoke to me, as did his profound dedication to those around him, and as your resident emo kid, Darth Vader is hard not to gush over.
As my admittedly edgy days came to a close (though the emo never really goes away), I began to develop a new found appreciation for the bright hopeful role Luke played. His importance to this story and the way he is on the level of Superman of heroes with unwavering morals. Around this time, The Force Awakens was released. My teary eyes and shaking hands spent the entire film spellbound, and a new favorite character, one whom I saw myself in emerged: the misunderstood Kylo Ren. Beyond my own infatuation with Ren I saw another thing of beauty for the fandom; representation hitherto unknown in the franchise. My little sister latched onto Rey, Leia, Padmé, but Rey was her first love. I saw a young woman who I always knew loved Star Wars truly beam it out when she met BB-8 and her favorite Scavenger, and it struck a chord with me.
Star Wars is back and if you ask me, better than ever. In this age of constant conversation on the internet we have gotten to hear and see everyone's Star Wars story! My own of being too afraid to watch because of Darth Vader to being obsessed with the story of his rise, fall, and legacy.For the franchise and all of us. I've gotten to see people begin their own Star Wars story and watch fandom build in people. The information age has given rise to people like Star Wars Explained, Eckhart's Ladder, and Star Wars Theory and so many many more to bring our deep knowledge of the lore and franchise to people who just got here! That is amazing and beautiful. We are all here experiencing Star Wars together and each release brings so much emotion my little fanboy heart can barely take it. Star Wars is far bigger than the Skywalker story, but this is where it all began. This is where we all fell in love. The Sequel Trilogy is a love letter to the institution that is Star Wars and my life has for as long as I can remember been entangled and captivated by it. I'm not ready to say goodbye to this story. Yes, I can rewatch the films whenever. Yes, comics, novels, games, television will continue the story. But you can't tell me that the yellow words disappearing in deep space as we pan down to the story awaiting us won't be missed in theatres or that whatever that final shot maybe won't break your heart as we close the book.
I'm not ready to say goodbye yet I am beyond excited to see this final chapter take my breath away. As this story concludes we have whatever these other two trilogies will bring us to say nothing of seeing the sweeping ending of The Clone Wars, the gun-slinging high adventure of The Mandalorian, or the intrigue of Cassian Andor. Star Wars has no shortage of stories and legendary tall tales to continue filling out this modern mythology, but I still can't let go of my Skywalker-Solos. I cannot help but to think of a poignant quote from Doctor Who: “Everything ends and it's always sad, but everything begins again, too. And that's always happy. Be happy.”. It's time for a bittersweet finale and I cannot wait to experience it with all of you. May the Force be with us all, now let's get ready for Episode IX!