The Fault in Our Star Wars

I was 11 years old when I had my appendix out. The year was 2001, so at this point there were only four Star Wars movies but a fifth was on the horizon. I received the diagnosis of appendicitus at about 6:30pm on a Tuesday 5^th March. I remember the trip to the hospital as every speed bump bought about a sharp pain to my abdomen. Six hours in A&E later, a surgeon named Alex said that 12:30am was no time to be doing operations and the procedure had to wait until the following morning. Flash forward twelve and a half hours and the whole thing was a success. Life without an appendix had just begun! I remember everything about the whole misadventure, from diagnosis to discharge, vividly.

There are some childhood memories I have where I am unsure wether I remember them at all. One of my earliest “memories” is playing in a paddling pool on the patio with Emma. I was about two and a half. I don't know if I actually remember this or wether I simply remember the dozens of photos of that particular day. Memory is a strange thing.

Picture the Scene: 1996. I am seven years old. The Saturday afternoon ritual of going to Moonlight Movies, our local video rental shop, situated on the same roundabout as Hepworth's Fish and Chips is well established in the Bateman household. One fateful afternoon, we rented Star Wars and I was introduced to the world of Luke Skywalker and friends. I have no recollection of watching it at all. I have no memory of watching the second Star Wars film but I know for a fact that I have. Unfortunately, I never got around to renting Return of the Jedi.

Flash forward to 1999 and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released. I saw that one at the cinema but remember very little of the experience. However is that the video game tie in was nothing short of incredible. Sure, It had a few annoying bugs and it was actually possible to save the game whilst dying which meant if you loaded the game you would be greeted with a game over screen. As for the difficulty, it was incredibly stressful and I never got to the end. In fact, I don't know anyone who finished that game. The point being, most of my Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace knowledge, the characters, plot and setting, come from that game and not the actual film.

There were two other Star Wars films made after that but I have no emotional connection to either of them or the circumstances in which I saw them.

My friend Chris made this in 2006. I never fully understood it. That's me on the left.

Star Wars is everywhere. This reminds me of my paddling pool story from earlier. I have seen most of the films but I do not actually remember watching them. Miraculously, I have managed to cope. It is impossible to exist alongside Star Wars Fans without absorbing tidbits of trivia via osmosis. That is not enough. One cannot be a fan of Star Wars fuelled by second hand memories and hype. It is not enough to know that Admiral Gial Ackbar's most famous line is “It's a trap” without experiencing it firsthand for yourself. I've spent most of my teenage and adult life not even sure if I actually like Star Wars.

Then the new Star Wars film was announced. A lot of my friends were excited but unsurprisingly I was fairly nonplussed. In the build up to the release of The Force Awakens, I finally found time to watch Return of the Jedi this year and it was a good film. I was surprised that, despite being friends with thousands of Star Wars super fans I had no idea how “The Whole Of Star Wars” ended. Shrugs all round.

I made a conscious decision to go see The Force Awakens on my own. Being a fairly contrary fellow I figured that other people would influence my decision. I would rebel against the general consensus for the sake of controversy. I was so confident in my mind that would be the best approach, I even dreamt I saw it on my own. One can't argue with prophesy. I would pay my money, watch the major motion picture on my own, and my opinions would be pure, untainted. I didn't watch the trailer, I didn't read anything about the film, I didn't even know the names of any of the new characters. I avoided everything I could as I was determined to discover, for myself, wether I actually liked Star Wars or not.

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens is 137 minutes long and is really good.