SPOILERS You Don't Always Get What You Want...Sometimes You Get What You Need - Star Wars SPOILERS.

I

THIS IS ABOUT STAR WARS AND CONTAINS SPOILERS. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS. MY THOUGHTS CONTINUE BELOW THIS MUSICAL INTERLUDE. FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND YODA DON'T CONTINUE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE THE MOVIE SPOILED.

There. Can't say I didn't try and warn you.

In the past 10 days, I have watched the original trilogy. I have reread Star Wars Aftermath. I have devoured every article and analysis that I could about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I saw the movie three times in four days and have stopped myself from going at least two other times. I haven't been this deep into my Star Wars fandom since the awkward two week period in the summer after sixth grade when I tried to get people to call me Anikan Solo.

Yes. That happened.

I've tried to sit down a write what I loved about the film. What I didn't like and what I didn't want to allow logic (like physics) or naysayers (It's just Star Wars over again!) take away from me. In spite of it all, I wasn't truly compelled to write. Until I read a very honest and well written article by Rob Bricken on Gizmondo entitled "There's One Thing I Totally Hate About The Force Awakens"

It's a well written piece and I understand his complaint. That the update tears away the happy ending of Return of the Jedi from Luke, Leia and Han. That the victory at the forest moon of Endor was short lived and that war still rages on. It was something that even the author admits was necessary for the plot to move forward. Yet it was hard for him to accept - in Bricken's words;

As someone who grew up on Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, retroactively qualifying the Rebels’ victory over the Empire and the accomplishments of the original trilogy is distressing enough. But what really upsets me about The Force Awakens is how it reveals (determines?) that despite all the conflict they faced, and all the victories they won, Luke, Leia and Han’s lives after the Original Trilogy were basically miserable.

Miserable. Damn. That is a harsh reality.

I often learn the most when I understand my own reality when I have a point of reference. A lighthouse when at sea. A north star. A constant. In a way that's why a part of me still believes deep down in some sort of soul mate or true partner. I don't always know what I want until I lose it. I most often understand where I stand when I know the room. I didn't realize what I loved about The Force Awakens until someone said they hated it.

Whoa. So that means that I love that Luke, Leia and Han's lives were miserable? What kind of jerk am I?

No.

Well I'm probably a jerk but for so many other reasons. No. What I loved about The Force Awakens is that it took my iconic heroes and characters and made them more real. It made them flawed. It made them more human. It made me love them more.

Yes. Luke failed. He tried to return the Jedi to their former glory and he accidentally unleashed emo Vader on the universe. Leia lost her son and threw herself into work and in a way, lost herself. Han didn't always talk himself out of it. He didn't know how to be a perfect father and when his son rejected him and Leia, he ran, he went back to his scoundrel space pirate ways. If the story ended there it would be miserable.

It didn't. Han had a chance and  reason to come back. Yes it was a familiar reason. If there are two constants in the world of Han Solo they are Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon. His recapture of the Falcon upsets his scoundrel world once again. Han is given the chance to make a difference again. To borrow from another recent space epic, a chance to give a damn. Once again, his true heroic self rises to the surface. Finn and Rey are his new chance and he runs at it. Even if he complains the whole time.

Han finally faces Leia after what had to have been a long separation. The scene were he brushes off a panicked Finn and stands before the landing ship was awesome. If you've ever been in the situation of facing an angry ex who might rightly hate you - then you know that moment was braver than any Kessel Run.

Han's death, which brought me to tears the first two times, works because it's the death of man who would lose his life than completely give up on his own son. The scoundrel Han would never have walked out on that bridge. Han, the father, couldn't do anything else.

Leia seems to have pushed emotion and connection aside. Losing her brother, her partner and her son in quick succession can have that effect I assume. She's a General now. Not a Princess. And there's a hell of a lot more Eisenhower than Elsa in her. Her emotional restraint with Han is torture. He and I and maybe the audience, wanted her to lash out at him. Be angry for running away. Yet her concern is not giving up on their son. She asks Han to bring him back. Probably knowing that's a one in a million chance. She too can't give up on her son.

Luke. He's barely in the damn movie! What is there to analyze? He doesn't even speak a word. He ran to the wilderness. He became a hermit like Old Ben Kenobi on a faraway hidden world like Yoda. He saw that darkness that he had wrought and could not abide it. He gave up. He was  just a kid from a dessert world who should have stuck to shooting womp rats in beggar's cannon.

Yet potentially the greatest hook for a sequel ever, Rey stands arm out, offering Luke his saber and another chance. A chance that Ben Kenobi barely got to experience and one that Yoda was too old to experience. Another chance at redemption. An apprentice. The opportunity to right a wrong even as Obi-Wan had done and hopefully much more.

If you see only the misery that came after Return of the Jedi, I can see why you would hate one thing about The Force Awakens.

If you can see your icons, fall and get back up. Fail and keep trying. Never give up hope in their loved ones in spite of logic. You can seem more of yourself in them.

I fail routinely. I fall. Sometimes I even get back up. I don't need my heroes to have happy endings. I don't need a bonfire and a band of misfit teddy bears playing the bongos (but my birthday is in like a week...). I don't need the shiny happy ending of Return of the Jedi.

I want it. But I don't need it.

I need to see flaws. I need to be inspired to keep doing in spite of failure. I need to have hope. To believe in family. To trust in love.

No the themes of The Force Awakens are not what I wanted. They are what I needed.

That's why I love it.

The Masks we all Wear: What's Your Secret Identity?

When I was young it never occurred to me that everyone had a secret identity. Of course I knew about Bruce Wayne and Batman, Clark Kent and Superman even Drake Mallard and Darkwing Duck. Secret identities were for comics. Not real life. Real people didn't use a mask to hide their face. It was obvious. Real people were real.

And as a kid. I was really really naive. I mean that's not a shocking revelation. There is plenty I am naive about to this day. I learn that every day. As a child I was naive. Especially about secret identities. I had no idea that they are the rule rather than the exception.

Even as a child, bathed in my ignorance, I wore masks. I hid part of myself. Like a movie that other kids think is for babies - never mention the Care Bear stare ever again. Have no idea what that slang word use that somebody used - nod and smile and never admit it. Frustrated because you're having trouble with multiplying fractions - immediately pretend you don't care about math and it's not cool. A hundred masks, a thousand feints, an entire wall of smoke concealing real things about me. My secret identity.

What is the greatest difference between secret identities in comics and the ones we create in real life? Secret Identities in comics are usually pretty awesome. Playboy philanthropist. Award winning reporter. Single duck dad. Wait. Scratch that last one. Who wouldn't want to be Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne? Those lives looked pretty damn good. Enviable even.

In reality, what we hide are the things we are ashamed of. The things that we are embarrassed of. The things that make us afraid or weak or vulnerable. We don't hide our ability to fly or our nights as a rooftop vigilante. We hide the things we don't want anyone to see. The stuff. Baggage. Issues. Flaws. Dirt. Pain.

It's not a ground breaking statement. Duh. Dude. Everyone has their stuff. It's life.

By my nature, I analyze things. I overthink. I obsess and dwell. I ruminate and ponder. I am at times the definition of paralysis by analysis. Especially when I let the mask slip. When the baggage is left spinning slowly and obviously on the carousel for the whole world to see. Sometimes life opens the phone booth before Superman can get the spandex completely on. And people see us without the costume or the mask. And it sucks.

I judge myself so hard when I slip. When a surprise brings on anxiety and panic and I just don't deal with it well. The paralysis/analysis cycle begins to spin like a dreidel on crank. It is out of control and no one is going to have a good time. (Paralysis/Analysis will be the name of my emo cover band)

When I am honest, I judge others when I see a slip too. A harsh word. A bad day. A grumpy response. A sarcastic self indulgent comment. I see their slip and I too often judge. Sometimes I can realize that everyone has their stuff and that's ok. Other times I slip up and don't cut people any slack.

I slipped recently. Let some pain out. Let a surprise lead to anxiety and panic and then disappearance. And ever since I've judged myself way too harshly. I've mentally replayed the moment over and over with little point or result. It's pointless. This dreidel is tired.

We all slip. The secret identity eventually gets out. It always happens. We fail. We miss. We hurt.

It's part of being human. So is the secret identity. It's all part of the big contradiction that is being alive and trying to live.

I need to give myself some slack when I slip. You need to give yourself some slack. And we all need to give each other a hell of a lot more slack.

We're all struggling. We are all fighting. And we all lose little battles every day. It's become common to point out when someone slips. To blast it all over the internet. To gossip. To laugh. To highlight the failures and dance on the graves of anyone and everyone.

We've all got our secrets and our pain.

I'll let you keep your secret identity. You let me keep mine.

Maybe then we can fight together when the really big bad stuff comes.