Traitor to the Cause

In 1977, I was a hardcore science fiction geek. Translated, that meant I was a fervent reader of nuts-and-bolts science fiction (back then, the term "hardcore" described the seriousness of the fiction, not the fandom). Thus, I would only read stories that were scientifically accurate, ones that would go to great lengths to test the feasibility of, say, interstellar space travel or life on an artificial planet. Novels or movies that dared to cheat the vacuum of space with ersatz on-board gravity or–the horror!–audible explosions with visible fire were meant only for disdain.

So, one night as I was listening to my dad's stereo via giant headphones (it was all we kids had before the Internet), I heard an ad for a new movie that made me snort in disgust. Amid a flurry of bleeps and whistles, the voiceover described how a young farm boy had to travel across the galaxy to save a beautiful princess. Then there were these laser-blast effects and some kind of weird swooping sound. "Star Wars," the ad called it.

Christ! What a load of crap this was going to be.

I mean, a princess? A freakin' princess in outer space?! What the hell were they thinking? Hadn't any of these Hollywood hotshots seen 2001: A Space Odyssey? Now that was science fiction filmmaking. Once again, the movie industry had screwed up. After years of putting up with bullshit like Silent Running and Logan's Run, now we faithful science fiction fans had to endure yet another idiotic travesty.

Nevertheless, it was my duty to see it, if only to dissect the sad remains afterward. So I went with my dad that opening weekend to the Americana Theater. It had a true 70 mm screen, absolutely humongous, now long gone–first chopped up into three theaters in the '80s, then closed down during the expansionist '90s. The sloping floor of the main theater looked like a football field packed with people. That surprised me–this was a science fiction movie, after all–but everybody seemed a little excited, as if they were looking forward to Star Wars. Were there more science-fiction fans out there than I had thought?

Finally, the lights dimmed, the 20^th Century Fox fanfare tooted, and then whammo! I suddenly didn't care whether you could really hear cannon blasts in outer space. George Lucas had created such a detailed, fully realized universe, I was sucked right in. When you're a kid, movies have the power to take you utterly outside of yourself, and I was completely transported. In fact, that summer I existed far, far away from my suburban existence, zooming along narrow sidewalks that doubled for the Death Star's trench as my Schwinn/X-Wing darted past mailboxes/laser turrets. I was a traitor to true science fiction fandom, leaving Stanley Kubrick's mysterious monolith behind me, but I was having much more fun.

Of course, that turned out to be the same attitude of the Hollywood film industry, too–for decades to come. Fun, fun, fun. But while my youthful attentions moved on to other (more frustrating) matters, mainstream moviemakers remained fixated on their own arrested development, hoping to recreate Star Wars' childlike abandon. No one has, least of all George Lucas. Isn't it time for somebody to come up with some new myths? I know I certainly have come up with my own.

–Coury Turczyn

This Is a Joke, Right?

I was sure it wouldn't last. It was the mid-'70s, after all. Life, we knew from all the movies, was bad. Anybody who attempted to deal with it in any tones other than black humor, absurdist irony, or dark sarcasm was a chump. Some poor saps were obviously in denial about how bad life really was, and lapsed into nostalgia, attempting to resurrect things that could never be again. A few revivalists thought they could resurrect the passenger train, the radio show, representational art, the convertible, romantic love. Immobile in our beanbag chairs, we teenagers knew they were all doomed.

Pop songs we listened to on the radio were about divorce, heroin addiction, race riots, being ugly. Movies were even darker: Klute, Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, The French Connection, Taxi Driver, Easy Rider, Shampoo, Last Tango in Paris, The Exorcist, Deliverance. The dark empire of Hollywood dealt only in gore and sex, preferably lots of both, preferably with no moral except there's a lot of both in this bad life. We'd go see them because we were now old enough to; we'd go and pretend we weren't shocked, and soon we weren't shocked at all. Gore, hard sex, and nihilism–that was for us. Adventure was for kids, heroes were sandwiches, and happy endings, of course, were for old folks and dopes. We hadn't seen an altogether happy ending since we were kids and Roy Rogers was on TV.

Even the whole art form of the motion picture, which required people to get away from their rec rooms and entertainment centers and assemble in public places, seemed old-fashioned and naive. By 1975, many observed that movie audiences were dwindling. TV was obviously sending movies the way of vaudeville and the magic lantern. By the end of the 20th century, movie theaters would be empty, neglected, peculiar relics of a frivolous past.

Star Wars seemed another indulgence in nostalgic denial, like "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" and Amtrak. I'm not sure why I went to see it except out of morbid curiosity. I sat there through the royal princess stuff, the cute robot stuff, the dashing hero stuff, the benevolent supernatural force stuff. So accustomed to having the rug pulled out every time a hero appeared, I kept flinching, expecting rednecks to show up our of nowhere and blow Princess Leia's head off and gang-rape Han Solo. This was a movie, after all, and I was 18 and plenty old enough to know what always happened in movies.

At the end, the credits came up and nothing horrible had happened. I sat in my seat. Was it a parody? I wondered, convinced it must be too subtle for me.

But in the weeks to come, something odd came over my cynical, slow-moving stoner chums. They were suddenly talking more than they used to, quoting Star Wars dialogue, getting up out of their beanbags long enough to re-enact scenes, and driving their Gremlins much, much faster, playing the Star Wars soundtrack in the 8-track. Unaccountably, youth had returned to American culture, and almost too late.

Over the next few years, as people of all ages rediscovered youth, there were more and more Star Wars: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, E.T., Ghostbusters, Batman, all the Star Trek movies–not to mention the Star Wars sequels themselves. Heck, most of the big movies made in the last 20 years have been, more or less, versions of Star Wars. But today, watching another Star Wars remake like Independence Day with my kids, I still find myself flinching, waiting for the dark Empire of the early '70s to strike back.

–Jack Neely

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