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Hi, I’m Noah. When Han Solo said to Chewie “We’re home.” I was crying.

Like probably everyone else reading this blog, I saw that the second Star Wars Ep 7 teaser 2 trailer had been released and I immediately clicked to watch it.

I never thought that a two minute trailer could do this to me.

I have seen trailers and been excited in the past. Hell, I remember waiting HOURS for the trailer for The Phantom Menace to download so I could watch it over and over (in full…I watched the first 12 seconds dozens of times…then the first 18 seconds….then the first 26 seconds….you remember).

I have seen the second Star Wars ep 7 teaser about a dozen times now, and I decided I needed to try and work out what I was feeling, and the way I do that is to write about it…so here we all are. As the trailer began and we saw that wrecked Star Destroyer…I got chills. As the trailer progressed and we heard Luke deliver his lines from Return of the Jedi once again…I got misty eyed. When Han Solo said to Chewie “We’re home.” I was crying.

Now this is not something unheard of for me. I am not one of those guys who never cry. I cry a lot. Especially at movies. But I’ve never cried at a fracking TRAILER before. What the hell was happening to me? But then I decided that it really made a lot of sense for this to be quite an emotional moment for me. Here’s some background.

I was a month old when my parents took me to see Empire Strikes Back in the theater. Yeah, my folks were THOSE parents bringing an infant to the movies. I credit that decision as the seminal moment in my life, as I have been a Star Wars geek ever since. I remember crouching down in the theater because the Rancor monster in Jedi scared me. Back in the days before Trek and Wars folks were all chummy and buddy-buddy I defended the fact that a Star Destroyer could EASILY take out the USS Enterprise. Yes it would. Don’t talk to me about beaming technology being a factor…you can’t beam through shields. When my friends were buying Magic The Gathering cards in 1995 my brother and I were convinced that the Star Wars CCG game would outlast it and spent all our money on that. Ugh.

When the Special Editions came to the theaters I went with my family, and as we sat in the theater waiting for the movie to begin there was one of those Coke trivia questions asking ‘How many pounds of meat does Chewbacca eat in a day?’ Not knowing the answer…and being surprised that they had a question I couldn’t answer I waited for the next panel to show me the answer. It said, “None. He’s a vegetarian.” So I stood up, pointed at the screen, and yelled “LIES!”

The first date I ever went on was I took a girl to go and see Return of the Jedi Special Edition.

So yeah. I’m a bona fide Star Wars geek. So when the trailer for Phantom Menace came out, I remember being over the top with giddiness that there was going to be a new Star Wars movie. Like so many of us, I was ecstatic to be one of the first in line opening night…and so disappointed when I left the theater. I was disappointed because it just didn’t FEEL like Star Wars. You can point to specifics all you want, and there are many to highlight, but when you get right down to it, the prequels just don’t have the same feel as the first trilogy. From over-the-top Jar Jar, midichlorians, horrible dialogue all around…we all know the shortcomings. So when Attack of the Clones came out…I wasn’t as stoked. I was cautious. I felt trepidation. And I was right to do so. Then came Revenge of the Jedi, and while it was better it still wasn’t right.

Flash forward to a few months back when the teaser trailer hit the interwebs and the questions about a hilted lightsaber started up. But when I looked at that teaser…I felt some of the bad taste of the prequels start to be washed out of my mouth. It made me feel like JJ had a good sense for how to play in that sandbox a long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away.

And then there was the new trailer released a few scant hours ago, and as I sit here writing this blog, I finally figured out what it was doing to me. It was hearkening back to that child who hid from the Rancor behind the seat in front of him. The kid who took any long cylindrical object and would wave it around making lightsaber noises. It just feels right. The trailer awakened inside me the sense of wonder and delight I had as a child. And I wept at the feeling, for ever since we leave those halcyon days of childhood behind, we long to have those feelings again. To have that sense of carefree amazement. Those with children often tell me of how they see those moments in their kids and how it moves them. Well…I don’t have kids.

But I have Star Wars.

About the Author

Noah
NoahContributor/ Ninja
When he was just a month old, Empire Strikes Back was released in theaters to a nation thirsty for the second chapter of the Star Wars Trilogy. Did his parents get a sitter? NO! They took a newborn to a movie theater. Then to lull the small child to sleep, his mother didn’t reach for Dr. Seuss, she went to J.R.R. Tolkien.