The latest Star Wars movie premiered in Hollywood yesterday. Everybody loves it. The force is strong. As it needs to be for Disney, who paid George Lucas $4billion for the rights to his franchise. They’ll probably sell $6billion worth of Stormtrooper models this Christmas. Another few bil on Millennium Falcons and other assorted Chinese plastic shit and $47.33 on Princess Lieya hair-slides.

But this isn’t about finance. Nor about Disney. Its about saving the entire Universe.

When the first Star Wars came out in 1977 it had been written, directed and produced by George Lucas. But only because no-one else wanted it. Thought it had no potential. Weren’t prepared to invest in a hi-tech, SFX potential loser. So George begged and borrowed and funded it himself. Mark Hammill was unknown, Carrie Fisher was a famous daughter rather than a famous actress and Harrison Ford was whisked away from being the on-set carpenter just because Lucas thought he looked like the image he had for the Hans Solo character.

Everyone was convinced it was a failure. And because most of the movie had been filmed in front of ‘blue screens’, to later add the very high proportion of special effects, no-one had any idea what it might look like. Lucas did but wasn’t confident. Until it premiered in LA and he saw queues round several blocks of proto-fans desperate to see it. The rest is history. And a rather lucrative history at that for Lucas. Because he who puts up the money takes the profit. And the profits were humungous.

Hundreds more Star Wars movies came out (that’s what it felt like) introducing a whole host of animal/humanoid hybrids, robots, monsters and anything else that could be cast in plastic for children to play with.

I got bored at about episode 9. It became a bit James Bond. Repetitive and saccharine and predictable. And people rated Return of the Jedi as the best movie ever, and I thought, ‘blah, blah, blah’.

But I never forgot that moment in the very first movie when I was sitting in the cockpit with Luke Skywalker as our plane entered the channel in the Death Star and Alec Guinness’ voice, resonant with Obe Wan Kanobe gravitas, implored us to ‘feel the force, Luke’. And we cast off our satellite guidance systems and automatic missile launchers and just went ‘au natural’. And blew the fucker out of the fucking sky.

And apparently, this new movie, ‘The Force Awakens’, goes back to basics. Back to the original. The fun, the wit, the simplicity. Before it actually became ‘a franchise’. So now I can’t wait to see it. Just can’t wait.

Live long and prosper. (I know, I know…)

A xxxx