A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
A Movie Buff’s Guide to Marist: Star Wars
It is a period of craziness as midterms are just around the corner. Students have begun to study class notes and PowerPoints for hours on end and are searching for the perfect way to decompress after a long day of hard work. It is in this quest that a small group of sophomore students discovered the ideal way to relax:
A Star Wars marathon.
With the impending showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at Marist’s campus, my friends and I decided there was no better time than the present to rewatch some of our favorite Stars Wars movies before we caught the newest released movie. You can imagine our surprise then, when we found out that three of our other friends had never seen Star Wars. Had we actually managed to find the only three people in the world who (spoiler alert!) didn’t know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father? (To our disappointment, we soon learned that even though they hadn’t seen the movies, they did, in fact, know the characters and the general plot.) Since we all plan to go to the Student Programming Council’s movie night on April 15 and 16, we couldn’t do so without having everyone see the original movies that started it all, so we orchestrated a movie marathon.
Because food is a crucial part of my life, and no movie marathon is complete without food, we decided on Chinese food, and then walked across the street to Yeung Ho II, which is located just across Route 9. Only about a 3-5 minute walk, Yeung Ho is definitely on the list of places every Marist student should get to know well (especially when you’re just craving an egg roll.)
Armed with chopsticks and our DVD boxset of Star Wars, we cued up the movie, and settled back in our seats. It had admittedly been awhile since I’d seen the original trilogy, so it was incredibly nostalgic to watch A New Hope with a different perspective. Even though I like to imagine myself a young adult, watching Star Wars transported me back into a state of childlike wonder. Combining this with my new knowledge of the television and film industry, as well as some production experience myself, thanks to my major-related classes, I enjoyed the movie more than ever (it also could have been due to the fact that I was eating an egg roll.)
As A New Hope wrapped up, I began to reflect the environment I was currently in. I was surrounded by Star Wars fanatics, who were able to share pieces of intricate trivia with us at every scene, and by friends who were experiencing the iconic film for the first time. I had not expected my friends to like the movie, since I know their genre preferences, so I was surprised, but thrilled, when they immediately requested that we start Episode V. But we indulged them, of course.
A few hours later, as the credits were rolling for The Empire Strikes Back, we realized that it was two in the morning, and we should actually get a decent amount of sleep that night, so we postponed watching Episode VI for another night, much to my friends’ dismay, who wanted to know what happened to Luke, Han Solo, Leia, Darth Vader, and of course, my personal favorite, R2D2.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is being shown at Marist April 15 and 16, and I highly encourage everyone to make a fun night out of it. But here’s a tip: if you haven’t seen them already, watch the originals first.
May the Force be with you.
