Must … resist … the … Dark … Side. It calls to me. Tempts me to read spoilers about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” before I have a chance to see it.
“Brian! Just Google: ‘spoilers for new Star Wars movie.’ The Force will show you the way.”
No … must … resist ….
I messed up royally with the last installment. Read a few too many stories and learned about Han Solo’s death. Wait, a minute … you didn’t know that? I meant how he landed the Millennium Falcon in a yellow zone and Republic Parking Enforcement put a boot on it.
I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I don’t want to read too much, or accidentally scroll through something that gives away key plot points.
I have to resist for a few more days … until I can get my unenthusiastic family off the couch to go see it.
This has, I kid you not, been my existence for the past week. Ever since reviews started coming out and jerk-face people started Tweeting what they saw. I had to go into information lockdown. I flushed my phone down the toilet. I haven’t looked at the Internet in days.
But the harder I fight it, the stronger the pull. It’s Star Wars after all, and I’m a junkie!
I’ve been a fan since I was a kid. My mother took me with my brother, and we stood in line to see the first one on the big screen. It was 1977 and I was 4 years old. It’s funny, because I can’t remember what happened last week, but I can remember so many details about that experience. The crowd of people snaking around the theater. The opening crawl. My first glimpse of a lightsaber, and how I pledges that if I don’t own a real one at some point, might life would be a complete and utter failure.
Now, with each new film the nostalgia ramps up and I struggle to contain my excitement.
And the flow of spoilers.
I hear in this new one there are twists and turns. New surprises. Lots of emotional stuff. Princess Leia’s last hoorah. But I couldn’t get my family to go stand in line the night it came out. In fact, I couldn’t get my family to commit to a day to see it. As of writing this, I’m still in limbo. Waiting on their people to get back to my people. WHEN ARE WE GOING!?! Plot spoilers lurk everywhere. They call to me, like the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He also tells me that eating two brownies for dessert is always better than one.
This is what life has come to. Thanks Web and social media. We didn’t have this problem when I was a kid. Before information was loose and free. Back when a little boy could just see a movie without knowing what was going to happen. Unspoiled. Then launch his life-long dream of a real light saber. Hmmm, maybe this Christmas will be the one.