The force is weak

A long time ago in a mythical Modesto childhood, a boy sat in a darkened movie theater week after week and watched thrilling adventures unfold on a screen. Later, in a non-mythical adulthood, he watched some of those adventures again and was struck with how bad they were. “Loving them that much [as a child] when they were so awful, I began to wonder what would happen if they were done really well.” The boy was George Lucas and the eventual result, inspired by the Flash Gordon serials of his youth, became the most enduring film franchise ever.

Does anyone remember how miserable the ’70s were? A lost war, a presidential scandal and resignation, stagflation, and dwindling fuel supplies—to many astute observers, it looked like the beginning of a USA decline. Star Wars opened May 25, 1977, on fewer than 40 screens. Studio execs dismissed it; the project had been plagued from beginning to end and labeled as “weird” by viewers of the early cuts. Its success took everyone by surprise, including George Lucas.

Star Wars, later titled A New Hope, recalled the old Saturday-matinee serials but cast them in gold. It strode boldly across genre lines, smashed previous notions of what special effects could do, and solidified the term “summer blockbuster.” All mixed blessings, we can see now, but at the time the movie signaled “a new hope,” not just for filmmaking but for the nation. “Morning in America” (cue the Reagan revolution) waited just around the corner.

That was almost 40 years ago; plenty of time for disenchantment. The two sequels carried the franchise forward successfully, but the three prequels, beginning in 2000, bitterly disappointed first-generation fans. Elsewhere in the film industry, what was new and exciting became derivative and calculating (“Another comic-book movie? Can’t we get back to story and character development?”). Lucas himself experienced legendary flops, costly divorces, and severe burnout; more than once he declared himself done with Star Wars.

Lucas himself experienced legendary flops, costly divorces, and severe burnout; more than once he declared himself done with Star Wars.

That’s the way of the world: Earth-bound obsessions will inevitably disappoint. Disappointment is a major theme of history, but few ask why our hopes should be so high to begin with, or why a movie or a song or a stunning baseball play plucks invisible heartstrings. Why are we this way—and why continually disappointed, as though expecting something that never seems to arrive?

C.S. Lewis called it “joy”—the mysterious longing that could never be fulfilled on earth, at least not permanently. The substitutes we invent for Pascal’s God-shaped space or Augustine’s restless heart can be as grandiose as a film spectacle or as pedestrian as a new job. At the end of another movie, Boyhood, the title character’s mother sees him off to college with something like despair. “You know what I’m realizing? My life is just gonna go [snap] like that. A series of milestones: getting married, having kids, getting divorced ... finally getting the job I wanted. ... You know what’s next? My [expletive-deleted] funeral.”

Our name is Ichabod: “the glory has departed” (see 1 Samuel 4:22). But Hollywood has an antidote: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opening in December. The first words spoken on the new trailer—“The Force was strong in my family”—are meant to stir the jaded heart. Hop aboard the Millennium Falcon for one more thrilling ride, with droids and light sabers and Sith lords and Han Solo—yes, it’s Harrison Ford, visibly battered after 30-odd years and some unfortunate career choices, but sporting the same goofy smile, saying to the bandolier-strung Wookie at his side, “Chewie. We’re home.”

No, not yet. Huge crowds will surround theaters on opening day. Some will love The Force Awakens and some will not, depending on how closely it lines up with their idea of glory. Those ideas vary infinitely, as “star differs from star” (1 Corinthians 15:41). That’s because our individual notions are not the real thing but only point to it: the one glory we were all made for. It’s the fantasy of our childhood, “done really well”—done perfectly, at last.

Email jcheaney@wng.org