StarWars-ing: Episode VIII Breaks A Weird Streak For Me

We have our tickets for Thursday all lined up.  We are doing the special six o’clock thing at one of the local movie chains.  We have been doing our best to steer clear of spoilers.

And seeing the second installment of a Star Wars group of three is a first for me.

I saw A New Hope and Return of the Jedi in their original runs. I saw The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith in their initial runs. I missed Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones in the theaters on their original runs.  I did see Empire in the 90s.

I remember learning about the plot of Empire from one of those read along 45 rpm record storybooks.  I also remember grilling my friend on it on the drive from our small town to the theater.  He handled my twenty-minute interrogation well. Attack was a little different, in that I did get to see it before Sith thanks to the DVD.

The reasons for missing those installments was basically me putting other people ahead of myself even if it was begrudgingly.  The one time we did go to the movies during the Empire run we saw Airplane instead.  Now, Airplane is a classic, and it’s what a sick relative wanted to see.  I don’t regret going see it.  I just wish my mom would have trusted me to go see Empire alone (I was 6 going on 7). I could actually hear the sounds of the Empire attacking Hoth through the small twin cinema walls. And there is only one scene I actually remembered from Airplane because it was very impressionable on a young lad.

In 2014, we attended the London Comic Con during a break in a study hall in Edinburgh.  I got to meet Robert Hayes, the star of Airplane.  I told him the above story.  He responded with, “I bet the only scene you remembered was the boobs jiggling across the screen.”  We both then just laughed, and he signed my photo and took a picture with me.

I really wish I had a cool story for Attack, but I don’t.  In fact, like the film, the story is best left untold.