Forever Nerdy

by Brian Posehn

  WHEN WE WALKED OUT of the Parkside I was in love and giddy, with soda and licorice and the best movie ever pumping through my veins. My mom had taken a nice nap, so we were both wide awake. We went to Swensen’s for ice cream, and I filled her in on everything she missed. Everything. At that age that was my superpower: detail.

  Star Wars took over. It was kind of all I cared about. Well, Farrah Fawcett and KISS also mattered. And my mom, but that’s it. I had to see it again. And again. And as soon as possible. I went to see Star Wars for the second time on my eleventh birthday, July 6, 1977. Back to my favorite Santa Rosa movie theater, the Parkside with a carload of my friends—Monte, Seth, Russ, Karl, Hinchman, and Robert. Star Wars was sold out. Of course it was. By then it was the biggest movie in the country. People were going nuts and seeing repeat viewings like never before.

  With only one option, we decided to see The Deep instead. Decided. It was our only choice. It was rated R, and we were eleven. Of course, we decided. The Deep was an adaptation of a Peter Benchley book, his Jaws follow-up. My mom just dropped us off—1977 ruled. She let a bunch of eleven-year-old boys see machete and barracuda attacks as well as Nick Nolte discover heroin in the bottom of the ocean and curse. We were treated to Jacqueline Bisset’s tits and crazy voodoo shit. Happy birthday!

  I did, of course, see Star Wars a second time. I was obsessed immediately; I saw it as much as I could that first year on every screen I could. It eventually played the Sebastiani, and I saw it again at the Parkside. I saw it in Sacramento while I was visiting my grandparents. I saw it in Redwood City when I was visiting my Nana’s. I even saw it at the Coronet in San Francisco. Three times in one sitting. My mom dropped me off while she was hanging out with Ken the Monster.

  If you were to turn me in to Child Protective Services for my mom taking me from the country to a huge city and dropping me off at a movie theater for six-plus hours, I would have been pissed at you, because it was my idea. I was obsessed. I read the adaptation as soon as it came out. I read everything about Star Wars I could get my hands on. I picked up books on the making of Lucas’s masterpiece and one that highlighted all the ships in Star Wars. I bought one about all the droids and creatures in the movie. When Marvel Comics did a Star Wars adaptation, I grabbed it immediately. Are you fucking kidding me? Between KISS and Star Wars, Marvel Comics got me.

  Finally, in the spring of ’78 Star Wars invaded toy stores when the first wave of action figures was released. They came out late—I guess no one with the movie thought it was going to be that big of a hit or that there would be a need. As a kid and an OG Star Wars fan, I can tell you: there was a need. Christmas of ’77, when they should have come out and ruled the season, there was nothing; instead, you could buy a piece of paper. Genius. In lieu of getting your kid action figures of all his favorite Star Wars pals, Kenner offered early bird gift certificates.

  You bought the certificate, and several months later you could get the first four figures (Leia, Chewie, R2, and Luke). My mom didn’t fall for that. Dammit. I think a lot of kids were disappointed that Christmas. I think even if you got the certificate, you’d say, “Thanks?” I was getting out of toys at age twelve, but I still wanted to play with Star Wars figures. Again, I only had a couple of figures. No money, remember? By then, actually, we were doing better, but we were still on a budget, and soon Ken the Monster would try to help my mom with money. You can guess how I took that.

  Anyway. (I use “anyway” as a transition a few times in this book because I know when I record the audio version I can sell the shit out of it.) Anyway. Do you like true stories? I discovered masturbating through Star Wars. And not the normal way. Not like feeling a tingling from Leia’s costume. And don’t get me wrong: I have whacked it to Leia. I’ve fantasized about Original-Costume Leia, Slave Leia, Endor-Attack Cammo Leia, even whatever that disguise was she wore at the beginning of Jedi when she brought Chewie as fake bounty. And I will continue to whack it to the princess when I feel inclined. But my intro to masturbating happened indirectly.

  I was sitting in our tub. I had noticed that my penis slightly resembled a certain villain. So I brought Obi-Wan into the tub with me. So there I was, reenacting the classic scene from the first movie, the climactic battle on the Death Star between Vader and Obi-Wan. I did not have a Vader figure, so standing in for Dark Lord of the Sith was my twelve-year-old penis. He had a helmet. If I wasn’t circumcised, this might have never happened. My mom walked by our bathroom and saw me going at it in the tub, midfight, “Get him, get him.” Vader is winning.

  She lost her mind. She screamed at me, “Stop that. What are you doing?” I was startled and confused. I said, “playing Star Wars” and held up Obi-Wan. I didn’t hold up Vader—he wouldn’t stretch. She looked relieved and said, “Never mind.” She then went back to the kitchen. I was really confused. I didn’t understand the anger or the shock. And, of course, it made me wonder, What could I have been doing? Fairly soon after, I found out my mom thought she caught me masturbating and that taught me about masturbating. And now I love it more than Star Wars.

  But it wasn’t all wookies and sunshine and masturbating for this Star Wars fan back then. Like KISS, I couldn’t talk about my love of Star Wars without mentioning my anger and frustration with it. Because, like being a fan of that band, deciding to be a Star Wars devotee has definitely had its share of highs and lows. So I present to you where George Lucas first lost me: The Star Wars Holiday Special.

  In November of 1978 George Lucas would confuse and anger me for just a second and give nerds everywhere a glimpse of how bad it could get. He plotted the terrible Star Wars Holiday Special, so he’s only about half guilty. The other half of the blame goes to “comedy” writers like Pat Proft and Bruce Vilanch. Sure, there’s no way if I were a comedy writer in the summer of ’78 that I would have passed on writing a Star Wars special and, therefore, would have wound up being responsible for a televised tragedy on the level of Bud Dwyer.

  Dwyer is the politician who shot himself during a live interview in the early nineties. The band Filter wrote “Hey Man, Nice Shot” about him. Anyway, the Star Wars Holiday Special is as hard to watch as a suicide. It’s the most unwatchable thing ever, and yet I’ve seen it probably ten times and it is required fucking viewing if you call yourself a Star Wars nerd.

  I had seen it when it came out, and even at twelve years old I thought it was corny as shit and very different in tone from the first movie. The special is notorious for its extremely negative reception. Kids like me didn’t just hate the thing; we were angry and sad. It was so fucking weird that I felt scarred by the special’s oddness. It was the characters I loved in a way I never wanted to see them, trapped in a horribly unfunny variety special. I had kind of blocked it out, like other moments from my childhood.

  Then about fifteen years ago I stumbled upon the Holiday Special again at a booth at a monthly comic book convention they used to have at the Shrine Auditorium on the USC campus. It was a good time for nerds, creeps, and weirdos. A monthly Con. This was before the cosplay boom and when it was really guy heavy at those events. I don’t miss it. I went a ton. Not every month, but pretty often.

  And it was a legit Con at that. Great vendors, awesome guests, and Jackie Chan made an appearance there once. Another weekend they showed a preview of Affleck’s Daredevil, so we all got to hate it before anybody. At the time I was spending my fancy TV money on everything I collected. Star Wars figures became an addiction of the day. I would later get rid of all of them because of Phantom Menace.

  I kind of wish my mom had taken me to one of her dumb friend’s houses that night so I stayed pure and untouched by the Holiday Special’s shittiness. That “special” almost ruined Star Wars and I actually think it ruined Christmas; Bill O’Reilly is wrong, as usual. The liberals didn’t ruin Christmas. George Lucas and seventies hack-comedy writers ruined Christmas.

  In June of 1980, just three short years after the original film, came The Empire Strikes Back, the greates
t sequel ever. Hands down, ’til the Squeakquel followed up the Chipmunks Movie, Empire dominated the sequel world. If you had asked me before it came out if there was a chance I would like it more than A New Hope, I would have said, “That’s a load of Bantha fodder” or “Sit on it, Ralph” and you’d say, “That’s not Star Wars,” and I’d say, “I know.”

  And then I saw it. And of course, I loved it. It blew me away. I returned to the Parkside theater. You could say I returned to the Parkside to watch Vader try to get Luke to turn to the dark side. And if you said that, I’d have to elbow your face off.

  Empire was exactly what I wanted from a sequel. Luke was less whiny and more of a badass, and the scar from Mark Hamill flipping his Corvette helped the tough-guy look. The tauntauns were another cool creature design, like a snow kangaroo you could ride. Don’t try riding a kangaroo, though—they’ll kick your dick to death. Han was back and better than ever; Leia was even tougher and sassier. The dialog made me laugh out loud in the theater: “I’d rather kiss a wookie.” “I can arrange that.” And the action blew the original away. Again, I went in spoiler-free. I was even more pumped for the sequel than I was for the original.

  This movie cemented my love of Star Wars. Like the first one, Empire is perfect—every scene works. The characters you loved are even more well-defined. It is not even a sequel in the traditional sense because it isn’t a rehash; it’s a continuation of the story, the second act. And like a lot of second acts, it goes darker. A lot darker. I also still love how it ups the ante in every way.

  It looks better and more expensive than the original, the set pieces are more elaborate, and the action has been kicked up a couple of notches. And I was in shock when I walked out of the Parkside after that first viewing. I had so many questions: Is Vader really Luke’s dad? Is Han going to live? If Part II was better than Part I, then is Part III going to be the best? I would only need to wait another three years to find out my answers. I would also need to endure the first two years of high school. High school was way worse and soul crushing than my Jedi anticipation.

  Fast-forward three years to 1983, when George Lucas lost me the second time with Return of the Jedi. Don’t get me wrong: I love parts of it, but it’s flawed. I thought it was imperfect when I first saw it in May of ’83, my junior year, which was kind of the beginning of my partying, as you’ll soon read. I remember sneaking beers into the theater. I was also a full-blown movie buff by then. So I was more mature… sort of.

  That spring I was excited for Jedi, which, as a junior, was rare, I guess. Most of my friends didn’t care about Star Wars by then. I still cared. I had actually been pumped for it for a while because of the teaser in Empire, when it promised Revenge of the Jedi. Revenge actually sounds cooler to me than Return. First fuck up, Lucas.

  The plot is kind of a mess, not nearly as tight as the first two. The action sequences and set pieces make up for the comedic misfires. I still miss Irving Kirshner from Empire, but it’s fairly well directed.

  So Brian, what scenes did you hate? The song in Jabba’s palace (the original—don’t even get me started yet on the special edition), Boba Fett’s comedic death—I still hate it; I feel nerd rage just thinking about it. Of course, I despised some of the Ewok shit, but I do like how savage they are. The ewoks use their environment and ingenuity and are actually pretty bloodthirsty with their cool ways of killing stormtroopers.

  And it was hilarious when they were clumsy at times. Ha ha. I’m kidding—it’s not funny; it’s just another case of the juvenile comedic tone not working. And in the reverse, Han and Leia are more serious in this one, so the dialog isn’t as fun; it’s missing the breezy back and forth of Empire. The banter isn’t as strong with this one.

  So Brian, what do you like about it now? Okay, I’ll tell you—you don’t have to be a dick. I love the payoff of the Vader and Luke trilogy story. Vader brings Luke to the Emperor, and when Palpatine zaps the shit out of Luke, Vader eventually feels empathy and stops him. It fucking takes forever, though—Luke takes a shit ton of lightning damage. He’s almost dead before Vader finally turns on the Emperor and throws him down the air shaft.

  The Luke/Vader light saber battle is great and shows exactly how strong Luke is getting. I love when the rebels are flying into an ambush and narrowly avoid it after Admiral Akbar said, “It’s a trap.” And I’ve totally turned around on the ewoks; they are as much a part of the Star Wars universe as anybody, and they actually are entertaining and pretty effective little warriors. And my kid loves them.

  It’s a good thing Luke isn’t flying in this one—his partner would have died, for sure. In Jedi no one flies with Luke. I don’t blame them: they didn’t want to follow Biggs and Dak. I dig the climactic battle. It’s a big one: ewoks die, fighters crash, R2 is disabled. The tide of the battle turns. And even though I miss the flirty Leia and Han, I actually enjoy when it does a call-back to Empire and flips it on Han when he says, “I love you.” And Leia says, “I know.” I don’t like the special edition of Jedi, but that’s a couple of paragraphs away. I shit on Jedi, I have for a while, but I still love it. Sure, I had matured a little since the first two, but not too much to where I wasn’t still charmed by it.

  I loved the original trilogy from the first time I saw it, but I would become more obsessed with it as the years went on. Even when I didn’t have a ton of money, I spent a fair amount of cash and time on it—models, action figures, a box set of the original trilogy on VHS. Once I was able to own those movies and rewatch them whenever I wanted, it led to an insane amount of repeat viewings.

  What makes me a Star Wars nerd? It’s my favorite movie—memorable characters that are like family members, and a fully immersive world unlike anything seen before. What’s kept me coming back after all these years? The action, the story, quotable lines, its rewatchability, collectable merch, and spin-off novels and comic books. I even got a Star Wars cat. In 1997 I adopted a cat named Waampa. She had huge front paws with six toes; they looked like little catcher mitts. Her paws were awesome and waampa-like.

  Until the movies made me mad, I didn’t have Star Wars material. My comedy always had various references to the original trilogy, but at that point it was all positive. I even cowrote a Star Wars parody video game. In 1996 and early 1997 I wrote and produced a CD-ROM called Star Warped. I worked for six months with two other comedy writers who also happened to be Star Wars nerds. We hired my buddy and fellow comic Mark Cohen to write jokes. He wasn’t a Star Wars nerd, but he’s funny in the room and great to get high with before lunch.

  Star Warped was an interactive game featuring sketches, mini-games, parodies, and a lot of Star Wars trivia. The final product was super nerdy and funny enough. We finished the job right before the Star Wars universe went south. We were excited for what was to come. The company that produced our game wanted it out when the special editions were released. We awaited the special editions and the prequels with bated nerd breath. It was a simpler time. We had no idea how dire it was about to get.

  And in 1997 the special editions came out. As fans we knew the special editions were coming, Lucas had long said that he wanted to clean up the prints and upgrade the sound on the original trilogy and to make some minor tweaks to the movies. Minor things that he always wanted to do but couldn’t in the past because of financial and technology constraints. Minor tweaks—that doesn’t sound bad. Which brings me to where George Lucas lost me the third time. I was excited to see the special editions. I went with a group of nerdy friends.

  Two and a half hours later, I hated the special editions. All three of them. I went of course to all three of them. But they bummed me out. And like a lot of other Star Wars nerds and purists, I was annoyed they even existed. We didn’t think they needed to be fixed or changed in any way, minor or otherwise, and it turns out that shit wasn’t minor. We didn’t ask for special editions, because those movies are already “special.” “Special” in my heart and in my soul, where it counts.

  They are prett
y to look at. It’s a great transfer: the frames are full. But nobody needed more Dewbacks in the background on Tatooine. And not one fucking nerd ever wanted Greedo to shoot first. We all turned out okay with Han Solo shooting first our entire fucking lives. The antihero shooting a bluish-green thing in the dick didn’t hurt my decision-making process. In no way did it make me run through life shooting blue aliens in the cock. Thanks, George Lucas, but we all turned out okay. I turned out okay. Well, clearly that is debatable.

  When George Lucas lost me the fourth time: the prequels. In 1999 the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, came out, and I viewed it as the ultimate act of betrayal. It was like your cool uncle trying to mouth rape you on Christmas. Not when you’re a little kid—that’s terrible and disgusting and against the law. No, I’m talking about now. You’re a full-grown man. And he was your cool uncle, sold you his Mustang when you got out of high school, took you to see Scorpions and Judas Priest…

  You’re at your grandma’s house, you wake up early Christmas morning, you cruise out back to have a little wake-and-bake behind the garage. You head back in to watch the best Christmas movie ever, Die Hard, and your formerly “cool” uncle comes out of the guestroom with his wiener out. Gets right up by your face and touches your beard.

  That’s what Phantom Menace was like. I’m not the only nerd who felt like that. I know that because people have told me my Phantom Menace jokes and rants nailed their feelings. Predictably, young kids liked it, because that’s who they were very clearly going for with young Anakin, the pod race, and the most hated character ever, Jar Jar Binks. He still gets a lot of shit from fans. And rightfully so. But that’s like saying the fish filet sucks at McDonald’s when in fact everything sucks there. Sure, Jar Jar sucks, but he was the visible sucky thing. An easy target. Where they really lost me was the beginning of the fucking movie. As soon as the scroll and theme ended, it no longer felt familiar.