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    Confessions of a Fanboy
    Confessions of a Fanboy
    Confessions of a Fanboy
    Ebook151 pages2 hours

    Confessions of a Fanboy

    By Sam Whittaker

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    About this ebook

    It's unquestionably one of the biggest pop-culture phenomenons of all time with an ever-expanding fan base. And those who were fans from the beginning have a lot of memories - some good, some not so good.
    Sam Whittaker, a writer and long-time Star Wars fanboy, opens up the past and explores what it was like to grow up with Star Wars, even through the hard times.
    Come along on a journey into the past - maybe not to a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away, but close enough to make the adventure worth it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSam Whittaker
    Release dateFeb 23, 2013
    ISBN9781301187010
    Confessions of a Fanboy
    Author

    Sam Whittaker

    Sam Whittaker lives with his family in Oregon. He has written more than 20 books. He writes in the Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror genres. His series include - Ghostly Elements, I Kill Cursed Creatures, Brotherhood of the Scythe, Rise of the Scythe, Chronicles of Dar'ryn, and Battle Cruiser Elite.

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      Book preview

      Confessions of a Fanboy - Sam Whittaker

      Confessions of a Fanboy

      Sam Whittaker

      Smashwords Edition

      Confessions of a Fanboy

      Published by Sam Whittaker

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 Sam Whittaker

      Discover other titles by Sam Whittaker at Smashwords.com:

      The New Book of Acts - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72648

      The Exiles Next Door - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72633

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cover Design: © 2013 Sam Whittaker with Fresh Page Consulting www.freshpage.org

      Star Wars is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. The author makes no claim of ownership over Star Wars or any of its related products and intends no infringement.

      Sam Whittaker

      For…

      Kyle Wellman & Donavon Larabel

      Brothers in arms, Best Friends, Star Wars enthusiasts…okay, Fanboys.

      Thanks for the memories fellas. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.

      Introduction

      Today

      As I write this, it’s officially been eleven days since the announcement that George Lucas sold his monolithic company, Lucasfilm Ltd., to the equally monolithic entertainment titan, Disney. With it came the announcement that we can expect a new trilogy of Star Wars films, beginning in 2015 with a new film appearing every two or three years.

      Wow.

      I came home late in the day without having heard anything about the surprising deal and stumbled across a friend’s Facebook post about it. My brain came to a standstill. My jaw actually dropped, just like in a cartoon. My first instinct was to check the calendar to see if it was April 1st. Being more than six months past the prankster’s holiday, I quickly kick-started my central nervous system and came to the conclusion that the story was real. Even then it took me several minutes to collect myself back into the ability for coherent thought on the matter.

      Now that I’ve had time to gather my thoughts on this new development, I’ve found myself thrown into an almost dizzying nostalgia. I can see myself all those years ago playing with the classic action figures and drawing pictures of the characters and ships and places that find a home in the rich Star Wars universe. All these memories have come flooding back over me – more memories than I know what to do with.

      But what’s more, I know I’m not alone in this experience. There are people all over this little planet who have the same kinds of memories, the same experiences, the same disappointments, the same hopes that I’ve had over the years. Star Wars is definitely a shared experience.

      If you’re a long-time fan, do you remember the thrill of getting a brand new action figure and peeling the plastic bubble off the cardboard back to extract your new treasure? Do you remember the smell of the freshly freed plastic figure and how it felt in your hand? This is but one among a whole galaxy full of memories people like me has and cherish. We connect over stuff like this. We’re fanboys.

      You know what a fanboy, is don’t you? The term didn’t exist until somewhat recently, but it certainly is a fitting description for me. A fanboy is a person who gets super-excited about something; notably a certain movie, book, comic book, or video game franchises, although any hobby can have fanboys (or fangirls, if you want to be equal about it). A fanboy will express their love of their favorite thing in lots of ways, some of them very…let’s just call them interesting ways.

      I am a fanboy. These are my confessions.

      Yet at the same time it remains a very personal experience. If you’re a Star Wars fanboy like me, you know the disappointment of being very young with no promise of Star Wars continuing, except in the mediums of VHS cassettes, then DVD, and now on Blu-Ray. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan tells Luke about the glory days of Jedi, but then turns solemn when he mentions the dark times, the time of the Empire.

      Star Wars fans had their own dark times – the period from about 1983 to 1999 when there was no new Star Wars film playing in movie theaters, much of that time consumed with the doubt that there ever would be. In a lot of ways those were a hard sixteen years for me, in part due to the fact that I was in junior high for some of it, and that was hell enough for me. Of course it certainly wasn’t made any easier because I was such an enthusiastic little fanboy.

      But there were bright spots, too – moments that lifted some of the darkness and gave us glimpses of joy and hope that there might be more stories to tell afterall. Eventually books appeared, and comic books, and video games. Fresh stories unfolded on the page and occasionally on the television screen with the Droids and Ewoks cartoons and two made-for-TV Ewok movies. Not all of these were exactly shining examples of storytelling, let alone good Star Wars stories…but at least they were something, you know?

      Fast forward to today and all of that stuff seems like a weird dream. I can remember what it was like to only be able to desperately wish that we had more Star Wars movies, and now we have them. Episodes I, II, & III, for all their mixed reviews and reactions, are here and are part of the official canon. I’m actually grateful we have them. Are they all I hoped they would be? No. But neither do I think they’re as bad as some make them out to be.

      And now we’ve come full circle. We’re past the Prequel Trilogy and find ourselves waiting again, this time for a Sequel Trilogy, a series of films we never thought we were going to see. And in the meantime we have a continuing unfolding of stories with the Clone Wars TV show and many more books, comics, action figures, and video games showing up on the scene than ever before. Perhaps this waiting period won’t be nearly as dark as the first one. In fact, I’d be surprised if it were.

      So, I’ve got a few personal stories to tell, and I hope you’ll enjoy them. I can’t remember the exact order in which most of these happened, partly because I was very young for some of it, and partly because time does funny things to memories. It’s sort of been like an excavation, an archaeological dig. Some of these memories are pretty dusty and time-worn but I’ll do my best to keep it accurate and entertaining.

      Maybe you’ll find some of your own memories waking up from their dusty sleep, as well. That would be pretty cool. If so, enjoy them – be a kid again. Are you ready?

      Now, where did I put my lightsaber?

      Chapter I

      My Earliest Memories

      The original film came out in 1977 but I wasn’t born until 1979, so I’ve always felt a little like a latecomer to the party. That’s probably a bit of a fine hair to split over the matter, I know, but that’s the impression I’ve always carried with me.

      In many ways I envy people when I hear their stories of standing in long lines around the movie theater and then crowding into packed, darkened rooms permeated with the smell of popcorn and the chatter of a large group of people who have no idea what they are about to experience. They’ve only heard about it from a friend, but what can you really get from that?

      Star Wars has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I doubt there’s a way I can reach back into my memory and pull out my first contact with that galaxy far, far away, yet there are several early memories I associate with it.

      Return of the Jedi

      My earliest, and perhaps most important, memory of all is about going to see Return of the Jedi in a movie theater. My mom recalls taking my brother and me to the movies occasionally and indicates she took us to see Jedi in the theater during its original run. Now, Jedi came out in 1983 which would have made me four years old at the time, making my memory of seeing the film one of my earliest memories about anything at all.

      This is a picture of my mom holding me shortly after I was born – She is that blessed woman who took me to see Return of the Jedi when I was four. Notice the Princess Leia hair style?

      Any parent can tell you how impressionable the mind of a four year old boy is, and I assure you mine was no less so. A few years back my wife and I found some very old pictures I had drawn when I was young. One of them, dating to when I was four years old, featured a number of very recognizable Star Wars characters. I can only imagine this was the result of that movie-going experience.

      It’s almost thirty years later as I write this and my recollections of that time are a touch fuzzy. There’s very little I can remember with any kind of certainty from that time…but my early appreciation for Star Wars is definitely one thing which stands out. Even a lot of that, however, rests in something of a haze and only occasionally will a specific memory step out of the fog of time to reintroduce itself to me.

      The one clear image I have of going to see Jedi comes from the scene where Jabba the Hutt is going to execute our heroes by throwing them into a sandy pit where the terrible Sarlacc nests, which the villain promises will slowly digest them over a thousand years.

      To this day whenever I think of that film, that scene is the one that always comes to mind. It really is one of my favorites, and I think it’s in part because of the monster in the pit. It never moves, except for thrashing its tentacles around blindly, hoping to snag anyone close enough and draw them into a perpetually open mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth.

      There’s always been a certain mystique to

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