A trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens dropped today:
It’s nice. I smiled while watching it, and seeing Harrison Ford at the end certainly filled me with some excitement.
Enough excitement to go see it? Perhaps not.
Here’s the thing. The Star Wars series has always been something I’ve liked, but not necessarily something that I’ve loved. I had (and still have) a radio-controlled R2-D2 from the late-70s. Otherwise, I didn’t have the toys, or the trading cards, or the comics. In many ways, I came to Star Wars late, after high school, with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire. I can’t say I grew up imagining myself on Hoth or Tatooine, playing with lightsabers, or fighting the Empire. Star Wars was a nice place to visit, but I tired of it with a few years; Vonda McIntyre’s The Crystal Star may be the worst novel ever written by a Hugo Award-winner, Kevin J. Anderson sucked all the fun of Star Wars, and even the comics became interminable.
The special editions I’ve never seen. The prequels I did, two of them, anyway, and parts of the third at random moments. I enjoyed The Phantom Menace, and I think it’s the best of the prequels because it’s the one with the most creative freedom. Once it lays down the marker as the “start” of the story, it becomes a matter of lining things up to match up with the original films, resulting in Revenge of the Sith, one of the least surprising films films ever made that wasn’t based on previously existing material. (It’s Attack I’ve not seen, though I did read the novelization. The novelization contained a very interesting story that in the hands of a director like David Fincher probably would have been brilliant.)
But I did love the first LEGO Star Wars game. The second, not as much. The third, not at all.
The point of this is, Star Wars is something that’s been in my life, but not necessarily part of my life. It didn’t fire my imagination as a child. As an adult, it became a place of tedium. My emotional connection to Star Wars simply isn’t strong. So as I watched the trailer, I enjoyed it, but I also felt indifference to it.
It’s possible that feelings may change as we approach December and the film’s release. As more is revealed about the film, something will entice me and excite me and I’ll want to go see it.
Or maybe I’ll just wait until The Force Awakens comes out on DVD.
Seeing and hearing Harrison Ford in character as Han Solo, though, was nice. It would be even nicer if there were another Indiana Jones film in the offering. 🙂