Already over ‘Star Wars’ hype

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, December 17, 2015

It hasn’t even come out yet and I’m already sick of the new “Star Wars” movie. Well, not the movie itself, but rather the constant bombardment of commercialization of “Star Wars, The Force Awakens.”

For months, it seems every single commercial that is on television has a tie-in to the latest “Star Wars” movie, which debuts this weekend in movie theaters all over the world. I think I’ve read somewhere that pre-ticket sales to the movie have exceeded $100 million. This movie is well on its way to being the most popular movie of all-time.

It reminds me of my high school days in south Mississippi in the early ’80s. My folks owned an arcade (that’s a place where kids used to go to play video games, for those folks born after 1990) that was across the street from the movie theater.

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My best friend, who is the biggest sci-fi fan I’ve ever known, came into the arcade and seemed a bit distraught. So I asked him, “Dave, why so glum?” or something along those lines (it has been 30-plus years since high school). And he responded that it was the last day “E.T.” would be showing at the theater. See, “kids,” back in the ’80s movies would run for weeks — sometimes months — before they were replaced with a new flick instead of playing for a month and then going straight to DVD a few weeks later like today and can be watched as many times as you’d like.

So you can kind of understand why my best pal was a bit down in the dumps.

But on the contrary, he had gone to see “E.T.” more than 40 times at the theater. That’s right … more than 40.

I had to laugh a little and pointed out the fact he had seen the movie more than 40 times. He got a little mad and said, “You don’t understand. It’s the greatest movie ever.” To which I responded, “Well, if it’s so good, I’m never going to see it.” And to this day I can honestly say that I have never seen the movie “E.T.” because it was so popular.

Recently, I joked with my best friend that I may not go see the new “Star Wars” because it’s so popular, but like most folks today I’ll go down there and see what all the hub-bub is about since the movie is nearly unavoidable through commercialization.

Rob Sigler is managing editor of the Oxford EAGLE. Contact him at rob.sigler@oxfordeagle.com.