Obviously, Star Wars didn't teach me everything there is know about life, but it certainly helped. I can recall watching the Darth Vader / Luke Skywalker clash in Return of the Jedi and thinking of my own problems with my father. The older I get, the more I identify with Obi-Wan Kenobi, particularly when he's urging caution at following the supposedly stray tie-fighter, but the younger, impetuous Han Solo won't listen. And, the sequel trilogy struck me with the already-creeping realization that the vicious circle of good vs. evil is cyclical, rather than final, in nature.
When I first watced A New Hope, as a kid, I of course identified mostly with Luke. I didn't see a ton of similarities between us in that first movie, but he was the youngest male character, and so I latched on to him in that regard. Han Solo had the cool charm factor, but I didn't see myself in him at all. "Old Ben Kenobi" was nice, but I had nothing common with an ageing man at that time.
As the years have gone by, I've appreciated so much more about the Obi-Wan Kenobi from A New Hope. He enjoyed his solitude -- a trait I increasingly admire. He was also cautious. If I'm ever around younger people nowadays, I tend to feel more like Obi-Wan, sitting in the back of the Millennium Falcon cockpit, urging them not to chase after whatever is standing-in for the tie fighter, all the while they're too young and brash to listen.
One day in early 1996, I was driving around and thinking of my dad. Several months prior, I'd noticed how he never seemed to initiate communication between us, that it was always me doing so. I therefore stopped trying, to see what would happen. Radio silence is what happened. So, that day in the car, I was cursing his name. All the years growing up of how I'd been scared of him, all the attempts as a young adult I'd made to stay in contact were met with little enthusiasm -- I was angry. I hated him. In fact, driving through the streets of Champaign that day I wished cancer upon him. 'All those years of smoking,' I thought, 'Would be a shame if it caught up with him.'
Later that year came the news that dad had terminal cancer. Now, to be clear, I don't for a minute believe that I somehow delivered cancer upon Lewis. Yet I felt immense guilt and shame at having viciously wished it upon him. That is why the Luke/Vader throne room duel in Return of the Jedi speaks to me so much. There, more than A New Hope, more than at any other time, I identify with Luke. He is a man struggling to connect with his father, and it isn't going well. And then there's Emperor Palpatine, representing my darker side, the part of me that took control that day, hoping my father would get a terrible disease.
In the car that day, I was Luke fighting Vader in the Emperor's throne room. My hate had made me powerful. I was figuratively lashing out at Lewis, striking at the thought of him with malice and anger, like Luke was hitting Vader when he was down. Finally, like Luke, I snapped out of it. After learning of dad's cancer diagnosis, I visited with him frequently. The thought occurred that it would be an opportune occasion to air grievances with him, before time ran out. I didn't, partly because I was young and timid, partly because it just felt wrong to lash out at someone while they were sick and dying. And, overall, I chose to believe that Lewis was ultimately a good person. I decided to be a Jedi, like my father before me.
Fast forward two decades later, and I'm faced with digesting the sequel trilogy. The Force Awakens was a fun romp, though an obvious carbon copy of A New Hope. The Last Jedi was divisive, and I didn't much care for it. All of it has the feel of a cash grab, which of course it is. There's always a commercial side to art, but much of it isn't so in-your-face as the new Star Wars stuff feels like. Oh well. If nothing else, the new trilogy (though we haven't seen the final part yet) has crystallized the notion that war and conflict never ends.
See, when I first watched Return of the Jedi as a wide-eyed seven-year-old, I thought that good triumphed over evil, and that was that. The Empire was done -- yay for our rebels! Of course, the intervening years began to show that wasn't necessarily the case -- not in the real world. And then the new trilogy comes along in 2015 and, well, the First Order is pretty much the Empire in every way but name, and the rebels are still plucky and fighting against all odds. It both centered my pessimism that such battles are constant, and also made me groan slightly with the notion of, 'They're gonna keep regurgitating this Star Wars shit until we're long gone. It's never gonna end.'
And so, there you go. Life, death, good, evil, fathers and sons, age and (hopefully) wisdom. All of it has tied-in to Star Wars in some way for me during the last forty years. I'm a pop culture kid of the '80s, what can I say? Hopefully, my father -- wherever he is -- has forgiven me for those hateful thoughts some twenty-three years ago and, hopefully, I don't end up like Luke from The Last Jedi. That's some intense, salty bitterness right there. If I ever do become a recluse, better to be like Obi-Wan than Luke. Obi-Wan was a cool hermit.
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