Alec Guinness (who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy), recalling a fan encounter:
A sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times… Looking into the boy’s eyes, I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form; I guessed that one day, they would explode… I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy-world of second-hand childish banalities.
In this excerpt from his memoir, Guinness instructs the young Star Wars enthusiast never to watch the films again. The actor feared that the boy would “mature” into a man-child, still obsessed with a shallow children’s movie.
Of course, millions of similar “lads” (and lasses), now in their “thirties” (and forties), will eagerly revisit this “fantasy-world of second-hand childish banalities” when The Force Awakens premieres tomorrow. Sir Alec would likely disapprove. Even before production wrapped on “A New Hope,” Guinness was deriding its “rubbish dialogue.” In the decades that followed, the late actor eventually grew to despise the franchise altogether.
And he had a point. Some extreme Star Wars fans do lose track of reality in their love for that “galaxy far, far away.” Check out this fake commercial from last week’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ episode; it ridicules grown men who collect kids’ action figures. Or recall another SNL sketch, in which William Shatner (Captain Kirk himself) tells obsessive Trekkies to “Get a life!” These parodies make us chuckle, but they also reflect the pathological fixations of some hardcore sci-fi devotees.
Of course, I probably shouldn’t cast stones here. I’ve written more blog posts on Star Wars and Star Trek than any other topics. “Second-hand childish banalities” are apparently my cup of tea.
Matt Hauger 