A May 4th Marathon

It's about time!

“Don’t Google it, it’ll just freak you out.”

So said my doctor of a small tumor they found in my colon during a routine colonoscopy last month. This tumor, she said, was probably entirely removed, but they’ll need a specialist to make sure the job was done. She says reassuring things, says this is not an “I have cancer!” moment, and all will be well as long as we just schedule the proper follow-up.

This news came on Friday, May 3rd. In a few hours after this conversation, I will be going to AMC Empire 25 to watch the Skwalker Saga Marathon, nine movies, including Episode I for it’s 25th anniversary. It begins at 8pm and ends, pretty much, the next day around the same time.

I’m forty-eight years old. Spending twenty plus hours in a movie theater is a young man’s game. And my beloved Alamo Drafthouse is not hosting this in New York, just AMC, which is at this point a sturdy, proletarian chain. They have popcorn. Sometimes the seats recline. I hope that mine will. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)

I am climbing this mountain because it’s there. I’ve seen these movies so many times it’s pointless to say how many. I watch them in the background of my life, the way some people listen to music. But I’ve never done an marathon like this in the theater. Plus, seeing them in the theater, as God intended, is rare.

I could use a little time out to just sit. Life is busy. My wife is writing her second book. I’m producing a play of mine, working with friends on various projects. Just a day before the marathon, I flew home from St. Louis, working there for three days on civil rights fundraising. I can barely read the news, it’s so heart-rending. There’s a lot of conviction, not much nuance, it makes me tired. Sitting there watching this story for hours sounds daunting, but great.

But will it be great? Who will sit next to me? Will people behave? Movie-going has become less fun, people seem less and less good at gathering groups. Social graces have declined, perhaps post-pandemic, perhaps because we spend so much time as solitary voices in the void. Will I have enough legroom? How will my back hold up? My neck? I bought sweatpants just for the marathon. I’m wearing a t-shirt with the Star Wars logo from the arcade game. I have stored Tucks Medicated Pads in my backpack, bought soft boxer briefs, light ankle socks from Uniqlo. I’m going to sneak in some coconut water and dried apple slices, a granola bar. Sure, I’ll have popcorn and soda, but my blood sugar’s high lately, and so is my cholesterol. I recently switched to new blood pressure medication because I was allergic to the first one they put me on.

The state of me is not awful, I’m fine, but it’s no great shakes. I could do better. This marathon is not a moment where I will achieve much physical health. It'll shave at least a couple hours off my life, but they’ll be hours at the end, ones I hope I won’t miss. (Then again, I often envision the final moments of my life as hoping for five more minutes. Who knows what I’ll regret?)

Still, no one is making me do this. I’ve volunteered, signed up, paid my money. I want to hear the music as intended in the theater, not on my Airpods so it doesn’t disturb Pam. I want to see The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen. I want to see Episode IX on the big screen, five years later, in its proper place as the ending of the story. I want to see the podrace.

One of my favorite things to think about as I watch Star Wars is about the passage of time. When I see Luke in Episode IV, I imagine how he finally leaves the story, and it gives it extra context and resonance. When he passes away on Ahch-To, thinking about his introduction as a kid who wants to leave his farm gives his story deeper meaning. I like how Star Wars shows us accumulated experience, characters moving from one phase to the next, changing. I imagine that seeing the movies this way, all together, will underscore the dynamic distance traveled by the characters. By the end, it will feel like we’ve gone from a dispute about trade routes to the destruction of the Sith. One big story.

Even so, I have already given myself permission to sleep through as much of this as I’d like. I have seen them, after all. So if this winds up being an extended nap where I wake up here and there and go “Oh I love this part” and then pass back out? That’s okay. As a friend of mine once said about his decision to play Doom 2 on Easy: “The game works for me, I don’t work for the game.” This is leisure.

Or is it? How can I not confront the small component of this that is a kind of test? But of what? My willpower? My fandom? My, I don’t know, stones? I’ve got nothing to prove. Or do I? And to whom? I’m sure I’ll make hay of it on the internet, and revel in people’s weird enjoyment of my madness. Why is so much of our life now lived as a performance of our lives? Oh Jesus, if I think about that too much, how will I ever enjoy anything?

Maybe this is just an excuse to be left alone. I’m not going with friends. None of them would do this with me, let alone enjoy it. This is just me, surrounded by strangers, trying not to think too much about anything but Star Wars. And now, not think too much about my tumor. I will be sitting on it, but maybe, it’s not even there. Or if some small part of it remains, maybe it deserves some Star Wars before it’s forcibly removed from my colon.

All these question were soon transformed into the actual experience, which I will do my best to unpack for your, below.

As I arrived at the movie theater in midtown, and settled into my seat, I was instantly aware that we were in an auditorium with not-a-lot-of legroom and not fancy reclining seats. They were old, beat-up seats, probably considered top-of-their line comfortable when they were first installed a decade ago. Which is why I had a mild panic in the middle of The Phantom Menace: my neck was killing me. Oh no, I thought, if my neck hurts now, how am I going to make it longer than an few hours?

But, to the credit of the folks running the marathon, they set things up with fifteen minute or so breaks between each film, and thirty minute breaks between the trilogies. I’m aware that this was purely to encourage folks to hit up the concession stands (movie theaters are basically concessions stands that use movies to sell you soda), but those breaks felt like remarkable indulgences under the circumstances, like hot stone massages. I eventually found a way to sit that worked with my weird neck, that gave my legs a little stretch, and more room came, as folks bowed out steadily throughout the marathon.

I don’t know why someone would buy a $75 dollar ticket to see nine movies and either show up half way through or leave before it’s over, but that seemed to be the general consensus. People arrived at all hours and seemed to randomly either give up, get fed up, or leave because they never had any plans to stick around for all of it. I don’t know why this surprised me, I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, but that was not remotely the vibe, it was a very take-it-or-leave it room.

My sense was that it was made up mostly of ‘prequel kids’. The folks around me were younger than I am (I mean, naturally) but not by a little, by 20 or so years. I imagine because the main attraction was the 25th anniversary of Episode I, it’s those folks who were in the market for tickets to Star Wars and those folks who came across the lightly advertised, single-theater marathon in New York City. I also can see that it’s a rare guy my age that has nine movies in his body or schedule (not that I was alone, I wasn’t, I talked to a 46 year old gent who showed me all the lightsabers he coveted on the Disney Store on his iPhone as we both patiently braved the terrible wi-fi). But largely, this was a crowd in its twenties.

My relationship with the prequels is completely different from theirs, and I love the prequels. To me, they were movies I had waited for 16 years to see, I was hyped for them, anticipating them with sweaty covetousness. But this audience? They have the relationship with them George Lucas actually had in mind. He was always aiming his stories at the incoming audience. These fans showed up in Anakin t-shirts and holding Amidala cups. One young woman with a Hayden Christensen shirt sat back down before Episode III with the words “Here comes the best one!” and declaring after this one, she could basically go home whenever she was ready. So, The Empire Strikes Back? If she felt like it. Hayden? Unskippable.

For this generation, the prequels were their introduction to Star Wars. They hadn’t waited their whole lives to see The Phantom Menace, their fathers or mothers dragged them to the cinema and it left an impression. They were here, years later, t-shirts on, looking forward to their favorite characters. When Anakin first kisses Padme? Oohs and cheers. When Obi-Wan says “hello there!” to Grievous? Meltdowns. Greatest moment in cinema history.

Speaking of cheers, watching the films this way underscored the difference between imbibing culture as experience instead of as narrative. As much as I imagined that we had gathered to watch a story unfold, I quickly came to realize this was not about the story at all for fully half the audience. It was a shared ritual. An exercise in recognition. Or, to be less generous about it, it felt like, for some, it was a series of memes broken up by scenes.

For example, while watching certain moments from the prequels that were intended as painful or scary, a majority of the audience cheered like their team had just scored a winning goal. When Anakin ignited his lightsaber to kill younglings? Cheers. When he butchered the Tusken Raiders? Cheers. When Anakin admitted to Padme he’d slaughtered the village, with the word “And not just the men,” someone in the crowd shouted “What about the women! What about the children!” as he finished his line..I don’t think these cheers were meant as an endorsement of what was happening, but a recognition of something memorable in the action, or something just plain familiar. There’s a place for such a sentiment, but it’s also distancing. Instead of internalizing the actual meaning of what’s happening on screen, it was The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This is where my personality rubbed up uncomfortably against the marathon viewing experience, I’m afraid. I did not feel attuned, for the most part, to the mood of the audience as I watched the films. Maybe because I’m just from a different generation. Maybe because I’m not a joiner at heart. Maybe because, on some level, I don’t like performative call-and-response. There’s a self-consciousness to it that removes me from what I’m watching, that breaks the illusion and immersion.

When I first saw Episode I in the theaters, the audience viscerally reacted to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s stand-off with Darth Maul. I’ll always remember a voice in the audience, as Obi-Wan prepared for the energy barrier to cycle and disappear, shouting “kick his ass Obi-Wan!” spontaneously as other folks roared in approval. It was a genuine moment, a reaction to something new. It was hard to find moments like that during the marathon. When Darth Maul appeared for the first time, the room lit up with excitement. Everyone was thrilled. But it felt like we were always going to react that way, a preordained response.

The cheering, such as it was, went from genuine to perfunctory and then genuine again as time wore on. Which is to say, early on whenever a new character came on screen, everyone hooted and clapped. By around 4 am, someone would clap and we’d all clap like, “yes this is the social contract, let’s not forget to cheer for the first appearance of Jabba the Hutt!” There were some surprising and real responses to the emotional moments on screen, but they felt infrequent compared to the trained-seal applause and whoops.

The meme-worthy moments, though, were met with a communal, full-throated group choreography. When Poe Dameron said “Somehow, Palpatine returned” much of the audience spoke the words in unison, with a kind of delight and mockery. I found that rather numbing to hear a dedicated group of intrepid fans troll a movie like this in real time. First, having just watched the entire saga before that moment, it couldn’t be missed that many things “somehow” happen in Star Wars, and that the Palpatine reveal was no different from most of them. The ‘somehow Palpatine returned’ meme has always been coded with uninformed derision, and it was a bummer to see it show up with such force at a fan-event. But, I guess, TikTok has had such a field day with that scene that, context be damned, it must be memorialized in song.

In fact, my illusions about the type of audience that would voluntarily pay for 24 hours of pure Star Wars were dashed on the regular. That’s my naïveté, maybe. Every time we’d take a break, collections of marathoners would gather in circles and rehash the same uninspired chatter you’d find in any YouTube comments section. There was the “the sequels were made with a lack of planning.” There was derision about Hayden Christensen’s acting. There was one couple in front of me that said they’d never seen Solo in the theater. There was a guy who told me that he thought The Last Jedi was a “missed opportunity” and that he’d only seen The Rise of Skywalker once and wasn’t sure if he’d bother to sit through it again. There was one young man, pony-tail firmly in place, who held forth at great length about all the flaws of the films to all his friends, standing in front of the men’s room so as to be unavoidable. (Hint: if you think you might be that guy, don’t be that guy.) It was a little depressing to hear such rote negativity at a Star Wars Marathon, of all places.

Outside in the lobby, as we stretched and refilled our sodas and ordered $50 Artoo Cupholders, I did not hear: I loved that part! I love that movie! This is my favorite! I think we’re trained to temper enthusiasm with critique, as if we’re afraid that liking something too much will make us look foolish. Apparently, agreeing to attending a butt-numbing marathon cannot inoculate folks from their desire to posture for each other this way. Even as they stand on line for a poster commemorating their attendance.

That adolescent embarrassment was a part of the movie-watching experience too. Kissing? Ooohs. Anakin’s mother dies? Laughter. Ben Solo dies? Laughter. Darth Vader yells “Noooooo!” Hollers of delight. It felt less like folks were there to love the films, and more there to signal to each other that they either didn’t love them too much; or loved how campy there were. Maybe showing genuine love for something is too vulnerable to do in public. (Or maybe some fans really just don’t like fully half of these movies?)

It’s one of the reasons I have this newsletter, really. I want to remind people to love what they love without shame or embarrassment, and that what you love doesn’t have to be perfect to be celebrated. But in the Marathon, I guess I felt how far away from that goal we really are. We have a lot of work to do to overcome the power of the algorithm, which drives us into group-opinions and cliche carping.

I don’t want to imply that everyone was negative or inappropriate. There were people having a ball, a gent who showed up dressed as a Jedi with his personalized lightsaber from Galaxy’s Edge, and one young man who left postcards on everyone’s seat commemorating the marathon, which he’d clearly made on his own time. There was lightness too, people were very happy to see the things they came to see. The young woman sitting in my row, who left after The Force Awakens, and told me I didn’t look a day over 35 (very funny), would make trombone gestures with her hands whenever there was soaring John Williams music she liked. And, to be fair, those folks cheering and even debating seemed perfectly happy in their element. The odd man out was this old man, really.

I think, perhaps, this experience highlighted for me that my particular way of enjoying and appreciating Star Wars is not so much communal as personal, and that’s okay. I’ve never been someone who loves conventions or cosplay, crowds of people who are there to yell at once. I love these stories in a very peculiar way, in a way that is very internalized, so maybe The Rocky Star Wars Picture Show just was never going to be my thing. It was a little disappointing, truthfully, to feel isolated in the group experience. But, that’s not uncommon for me, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that it showed up in this context too.

Still, when I could set aside the distacting room and just be alone in the dark with the movies, I loved watching them on the big screen. They’re just meant to be seen that way, they’re spectacles with incredible sound design and music and operatic moments that just can’t be captured by the even the best home theater system.

I would catch myself smiling thoughtlessly, just happy to be there. And, yes, there are moments that are so elevated and wonderful that they can power through an aching back and malnourishment and the person behind me snoring. Frank Oz’s performance as Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke confronting the Emperor. Han Solo being frozen in carbonite. The lightsaber flying into Rey’s hand on Starkiller Base. Finn and Poe being best friends. The Phantom Menace lightsaber duel. Luke Skywalker declaring “And I will not be The Last Jedi!” Han and Leia doing just about anything together. Darth Vader’s birth. Anakin Skywalker’s podrace. Palpatine telling the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise. There’s just so much to love, that even a crick in my neck couldn’t stop me from having a good time.

But, let’s be clear: watching these moments all in one sitting? It’s not the best way to actually experience the narrative. Despite my fantasies of ingesting this as one big saga, the truth is, each film is meant to be its very own evening at the movies. This isn’t a Netflix binge watch, it’s a series of full meals. A marathon feels very challenging because it’s just now how they’re meant to be seen, really. It’s not just a long night, it’s too much story all at once.

I have, in a sense, already experienced these movies in the ideal way: as they were released in real time, one after another, over 42 years. So, I’m glad I marathoned once, but I can’t imagine doing it again. One movie at a time will do. Maybe one trilogy at a time if I have a Sunday off and a broken leg. But nine? Nein.

Time is an elastic thing. A Star Wars marathon is an exercise in processing time. One thinks through absorbing 42 years in 24 hours. One thinks through the ages of those around you, and how their age affects their experience of these cultural artifacts. One feels one’s own age, acutely. One notices how each film moves at a different pace, some feel longer than others, some fly, some indulge. And even how the movies are presented in time is a choice: Episode I to Episode IX, even though, in reality, Episode I was released fourth, not first. One becomes aware that, until we hit the sequels, we’re effectively watching old movies, because the prequels now qualify as old movies, and isn’t that strange?

I thought about when I first watched these films throughout my life, from my friend Josh’s living room in a sleepover; a multiplex in New Jersey; to New York City cinemas throughout the early 2000s, before and post-9/11; to the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on my 40th birthday; to the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn. A lifetime of midnight shows and family outings and anticipated adventures and trailers and posters and key art and standing in line for toys, all flashing before my heavy eyes, making me feel quite mortal, thank you, quite mortal indeed.

But not so mortal that I wasn’t able to feel alive. For all the physical discomfort, and that sense of isolation from my fellow moviegoers, I did not think very much at all about the fragility of my body and my soon-to-be scheduled endoscopic ultrasound. My life was flashing before my eyes because Star Wars has always been a part of it; not because I felt afraid of my blood and tissue. I did not get a respite from being myself, with my hangups and limitations and arm-folding; but I did get a respite from being in the firing line of my fears. And isn’t that worth something? To be transported, even briefly, to another, familiar place. To get a chance to think about your real life through the lens of a generous fiction. To go somewhere safer than real life. Somewhere outside my imperfect body, far, far away.

This thing we love is complex: it’s a mirror and it’s medicine and also sometimes just a collection of memes. It’s made by people, and so it’s imperfect and fussy and weird. I’ve seen it so many times it was worthwhile to re-experience it in a new way, to put myself in a new place, to have a Star Wars Day experience that felt indulgent and different. I’m happy I experienced the Skywalker Saga Marathon, the best of it, the worst of it, and the popcorn kernels in between. I learned about myself, about where I am in my own relationship to other fans, in how I prefer to experience these stories. And I gained some insight into how each of us comes to Star Wars in our own time, by way of our own time.

A very meaningful May the 4th indeed.

I hope you had a wonderful day too.

May the Force be with you, always.