I Missed An Important Anniversary

Last Monday, I had my four wisdom teeth extracted. I don't remember much of Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday due to the steady flow of Vicodin pumping through my veins. It was probably good that I was sedated last Tuesday or else I would have not been able to help myself from screaming over the agony that now goes in hand with May 19th. It was the ten year anniversary of my childhood ending. It was the ten year anniversary of the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Now, faithful reader, you must fully realize the role that Star Wars had played in my life. It was an obsession at the very least. I knew every word of every movie (something that comes with watching VHS tapes until they wear out, forcing {no pun intended} me to own no less than three copies of the trilogy at that time). I knew every character who popped on screen for more than half a second, and most of those who were on screen for less. My locker made the school paper because every square inch (literally) was covered in something Star Wars. Action figures. Comic books. Magazines. Trading cards. Video games. It was unhealthy, but ridiculously awesome.

It goes without say that come May 19th, 1999, my fifteen year old self was ready to have my mind blown by the all powerful Lucas. After somehow sitting through school all day, I headed over to my best friend's house. I went to the theater in jeans, a green sweatshirt, and a rocking Boba Fett helmet. My best friend (a guy) went as Princess Leia, wig and all. We both had telescoping plastic lightsabers, too, because lighsabers are AWESOME. As we sat in front of the large screen waiting for the LucasFilm Ltd logo to appear on the screen, shimmering in all of its glory, we had no idea that our childhood was about to end in deafening THX surround sound.

I really hope I don't need to tell you why this movie sucks. Crappy CGI. Jar Jar. Darth Maul. Darth Vader as a sweet little kid. Pod racing. Jar Jar. Mitochlorians (which sounds more like an STD than anything). Crappy star ships. Retarded robots. Jar Jar. George Lucas had successfully shot a cinematic proton torpedo into his fans' exhaust ports (hmm, sounded better in my head) and destroyed all that they held dear in an explosion larger than the Death Star. But I was in denial. I mean, they spun around when they had lightsaber battles. And there was R2D2. And did you hear Darth Vader breathe at the end of the credits? OH MAAAAN! I knew it had to be awesome somehow. By the end of the movie's run at the cheap seats in the mall, I had twenty seven stubs in my wallet. Twenty. Seven.

I had been duped. And thus the seeds of bitterness that have since blossomed into the flowers of cynicism were planted that day. The day that my childhood was killed by the very man who helped bring it to life.