Danny ChaiMy mom had surgery this morning, to remove some tissue that was blocking the connection between her kidney and bladder. They were afraid it was a cancer, but it turned out to just be tissue, although the origin of it is unclear. But it’s a major relief.
At any rate, you probably know about my mom, and everything is still kind of tentative, so thanks for praying. I also hope we can all keep a perspective on things. I know that many people might be going through a lot, but really, all things considered, we should be thankful for what we have, and I’m constantly reminded of that.
My bold claim is that no one of this generation, that is, the generation that only saw Star Wars for the first time, will get it, or like it, or understand it in any way. And here is why. It’s just that the movies were so popular that they totally pervaded the American culture. I mean, just little phrases, like “Use the Force, Luke”, and “Luke, I am your father,” and stuff like that. And light sabers. It’s all ingrained now in American pop culture, and so people won’t get it. Because since it’s all part of the collective unconsciousness now, people won’t understand the effect it had when it first came out. But when it first came out, it was just so original. But now, because everything is known, I don’t think anyone can understand it.
So I totally agree with Dave that A New Hope is brilliant, but people now won’t understand that unless they think with the mindset of what it must have been like when it first came out. When it wasn’t known that Darth was Luke’s father, I mean, that was a shock, right? Even when he says that, no one’s really sure if he’s telling the truth. Everyone had to wait a couple years for Return of the Jedi to come out. And other stuff like that.
Another thing too is that A New Hope doesn’t have the same pace as movies today, so attention span deficient kids today won’t be able to get through it. When the new releases came out, I went with some people, and some of the younger ones couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I bet they were bored.
Anyway, thinking of Star Wars brings back memories. I think here is one defining difference between my class and maybe 3 years below us. But when we would like go camping or nature whatever, I mean, we’re out in the woods like late at night, and we had flashlights, we would without fail, pretend they were light sabers and fight with them, making the sound effects and everything. Me and my friends also enacted the scene where they’re in the Millenium Falcon and they sit in those seats that kind of move around and shoot at the ships attacking them.
Star Wars was so huge. My friend Yash had so many Star Wars action figures it was crazy. Even though as action figures go, they were totally inferior to G.I. Joe. Because they had a totally limited range of motion. People who owned these know what I’m talking about. But you could barely pose them. You bought them because you liked Star Wars, not to play with them. If you wanted to play with figures, you got a G.I.Joe figure, which has an incredible amount of posability. My favorite G.I.Joe pose was where you twisted his torso around 180 degrees.
Anyway, Star Wars was huge. The video game was very big too. One of the biggest games at Chuck E. Cheese’s when we would go for birthday parties and stuff. It was a great game. I don’t know if people remember this, but there was a sequel, Empire Strikes Back, that was the same kind of game, you know, black and white, polygonal line action. Then there was Return of the Jedi, which was radically different. It pretty much sucked. It was more like video games now, and was centered around the bikes on the Ewok planet.
Another huge game was Tron. If you don’t know Tron, you are not part of my generation.
My boss is back so gotta get back to work. Peace!