Commentary Track Stars

It’s interesting that you say you’ll always remember TPM, even though you sounded lukewarm about the actual movie, because of all the hype. It kind of reminded me of Steven Spielberg saying he’s proud of Indiana Jones 4 (character limit prohibits me typing out its full title) even though it wasn’t too good, because it started the “nuked the fridge” line. Nowadays, the meta-culture and group mentality about things is really more important than the movie (or whatever) itself.

Not that that’s necessarily good or bad, but it’s just different than it was a generation ago.

In the case of TPM, I definitely feel that for me, personally, the meta-culture was more important than the movie itself. It became a way to socialize, and that extended far beyond the movie. Here in Chicago, the people who camped out in that line bonded and formed a fan group called the Chicago Force, which exists to this day. I kind of know a lot of them through friends of friends, and when they get together, Star Wars is rarely even discussed. Those friendships seem much more valuable than the movie itself, even if it were great.

This was really great, Mike. I thoroughly enjoyed going back in time with you and remembering The Phantom Menace. Thanks for sharing your memories.

Thanks for listening. I wanted to get it all down “on wax” before I forgot the details.