Film Crit Hulk

I grew up an obsessive Star Wars fan. Not just the movies, I could tell you the inner details of Slave I AND Slave II. I could tell you how Bossk's concussion rifle worked. I could talk about EU planets, lore, games, books, as it was an entire world that I loved to play in.

Then when I was older and awaited episode one, suddenly this dorky thing I'd been tucking into a corner of selfhood was going to come into the pop culture lexicon once again. I was ecstatic. Beyond elated. And then when the prequels came out... oof.

It was not some sudden thing, mind you, nor built around anger, I just suffered this slow, sad death of my connection to Star Wars. Not just in terms of fervor and passion. But the very meaning of it. And I was growing past it. Which was healthy in many ways.

But the true death knell came when the Disney buy-out took the commercialism nuclear, doubling down on the constant parade and episode 7. I finally felt so truly divorced from it, but it was more complicated than that.

Because it's always weird thing to emotionally navigate: that pageantry for something that was once your everything but now makes you feel nothing. It's akin to the feeling I get looking at modern Simpsons and Weezer. But it's really the sad disconnect of growing up.

Which brings us to the actual story: I went with a friend to Disneyland yesterday. We were just walking around that building with the star wars props in it and she went: "Oooh, Do you want to meet chewie?" I laughed, "Sure, why not?" and we went in.

I've done these sorts of things as Disneyland before. It's a lark. Something cute and fun and always feels like fun dress-up where an actor hams it up for this working gig. And I love kids who freak out, thinking it's real. So it's not "for" me, but I get a kick out of it.

Or thought it was. Because as we go through the line, we end up coming to the corner of this hall that turns into a surprisingly small and intimate room, and suddenly there's this weird moment of drama and I can't see the actor around the bend, but I know he's there...

Then he came around the corner right near us. I didn't think about the quality of the illusion, or go "oh that's a really good costume." It was just like, "oh, I'm in this room with Chewbacca."

Chewie immediately smiled put his hand on my shoulder with such outrageous kindness and suddenly I felt this intense wave of relief. My eyes started watering... I looked down at my friend and saw her on edge of tears and, well, there I went also crying.

And so we hugged and hugged and Chewie and I found myself having this intensely emotional moment. I have no idea how long it lasted. Probably a few seconds. But it was intense,my body went flush, I was sweating, and it was surreal.

But please understand. This is not about me rekindling my connection to Star Wars. Nor is this about how The Last Jedi also recaptured some of these same feelings (note: if you try to turn this into an argument of that movie i will block you) It's not even really about Star Wars.

It was the realization that I had been walking around wearing 100 pounds of emotional armor and suddenly they just slinked off for a second. It was the realization that in that moment, in this place in my life, I really, really needed a hug and somehow Chewbacca "knew" that.

Which means this is really about the push-pull of our emotional selves. For there are many who would take this story and make an argument of how it's proof that we need to hold onto our sense of childlike glee and seek out the experiences that make us feel that way.

Which is really just part and parcel of our deeply troubling preoccupation with nostalgia and escapism. The reason grown adults NEED to live vicariously through movies in really gross ways... But no, this about the other end of the spectrum.

This is about people who go in the other direction. This is about how men, in an effort to transcend the bounds of perceived childlike naivety, get "serious" and built new fronts out of fear, and how we build fences to mitigate our suffering. And thus lose something crucial.

This is about how we teach boys to worship this mentality, and blame outward, to hit, and shoot, and kill - all to to just steels themselves against emotion and pain. And so those fences turn into iron walls from the mountains and mountains of pain that come with life and grief.

And so this is ultimately a story about breaking those walls. It's the ability to let things effect you. To undo all that is toxic about yourself. To realize that to call those things "child-like" is an outrageous disservice to selfhood, because they are "human-like."

And they are critical to our sanity and becoming a balanced person capable of expressing the entire range of emotions without fear, especially when expressing fear itself. Because the alternative is the true misery of pushing yourself away from yourself.

So yeah, I could tell have told you this whole story and just said "hardee har har, a guy in a Chewbacca outfit gave me a hug and it made me cry."