Full disclosure:  I saw the very first movie of Star Wars.  Yes, I’m that old.  All three of my sons were taken to each new Star Wars movie the moment it came to our city.  My youngest remembers being very little indeed.  Christmas gifts were easy, unless you wanted a Darth Vader action figure, then it was less easy–a lot less.

Now the full, live action movies are back, along with Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford from the original, with quite talented young actors in the lead roles.  The theaters are sold out, repeatedly.  My husband and I got tickets which I thought were in the very back row, but they turned out to be located on the very first row, so I spent a lot of time turning my head to keep track of actors whose lips were gigantic, and a bit disconcerting.  I shall return, much like the series.

All of this background brings me to my point, which is that Star Wars continues to fill seats in theaters, now populated by at least three generations of fans.  But the question is why?

George Lucas is a master storyteller, as well as a wizard with special effects.  It is the story, the inherent morality of the entire series which draws the audiences.  His characters live; their problems are real. This time around, J. J. Abrams, and Lawrence Kasdan joined Lucas in writing the script.  How good can it get?  Each one of these men is a master storyteller in his own right.  And it’s the story and the characters’ journeys that matter.

Yes, there is a galaxy–or two or three–far, far away.  Yes, there are characters who are a bit weird, in both good and bad ways.  But there is a huge clash between Good and Evil in every one of the movies.  There are important decisions that the main characters have to make, in order to survive at times, yes, but mostly there are question of choosing the Light over the Dark side in both small and large ways.  And all these small decisions add up.

I hate spoilers, so there are none in this post/musing.   Go see the movie if you haven’t yet.   But I think as writers, one has to be impressed with the high stakes the writers make their characters face.

People, as well as characters, are tested in crises to find out what they’re made of.  No crisis, not much character development.  But you don’t have to face a zombie army, a nest of vampires, a pack of werewolves to know that the most interesting characters make the hardest choices.

I try to make my characters face crises of the everyday ilk.  How they choose and why they choose and what they do with their decisions add up to who they are.  If they grow enough, they just might end up being as close to real as I can make them.  At any rate, that’s the plan, and I blame Star Wars . . .