The Millenium Falcon

Enthusio got a truly awesome birthday present this year. I mean, I think it is truly awesome. He got a Transformers set that is supposed to be Han Solo and Chewbacca that connects and transforms into the Millenium Falcon. As they supposedly say in Boston, wicked awesome!

What makes this so wicked awesome is that Enthusio thinks that it is wicked awesome. This is beyond lame, but it just makes me gleeful that Enthusio loves Star Wars. (At a band concert in which The Mermaid was playing a couple of weeks ago, one of the high school kids played a little riff of Luke's Theme and Enthusio and his pal looked at each other and simultaneously said, "That's from Star Wars!") In past generations, I suppose that fathers swelled with pride when their sons first rode a horse or tied a nice nautical knot or shot a deer. I, however, swell with happiness because Enthusio loves Star Wars just like I did when I was his age. And, more than that, because he, like all right-minded Star Wars fans, loves the Millenium Falcon.

Of all the machines, gadgets, things, etc. in the Star Wars movies, two reign supreme: (1) the light saber; and (2) the Millenium Falcon. The light saber's appeal is pretty obvious. The absolute coolest thing in the Star Wars movies is the concept of the Jedi. The second set of movies diluted the Jedi's coolness by showing that, yeah, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there were a lot of Jedi and that they basically were like the karmic cops. But, the Jedi remain the absolute coolest thing from Star Wars (see the movie "Go" if you doubt me -- one line from that movie reflects Obi-Wan Kenobi's eternal coolness). And the light saber reflects that fact.

The Millenium Falcon is a different matter. Unlike the light saber, it is not elegant whatsoever. It is constantly called a piece of junk. There is a whole motif in Empire Strikes Back about how the hyperdrive won't work. It catches on fire and R2D2 extinguishes it. Han Solo won the Falcon from Lando Calrissian gambling. It's a sketchy ship. But, of course, it basically always comes through. It gets out of Mos Eisley. It escapes from the Death Star (although, of course, Grand Moff Tarkin allowed it to escape in order to track it to the rebels' base). It knocks out Darth Vader just as he's about blow Luke up. It gets Princess Leia off of Hoth when she can't make it to her transport. Its ugliness is an asset because it can hide in the Imperial garbage. It basically is the mechanical embodiment of Han Solo, the skeevy rogue who comes through. It is a mark of Return of the Jedi's inferiority that Han and the Falcon spend a lot of the movie separated. Why should Lando get to use the Falcon to blow up the Death Star II (and all of those independent construction contractors as noted in Clerks)? That was B.S.

So the Falcon is the best-loved ship of the Star Wars movies (some people might argue for Slave I, Boba Fett's ship, but I have never gotten the Boba Fett obsession). I remember reading a quote from Tiger Woods somewhere in which he said that the best Christmas present he ever got was a set of Millenium Falcon Legos that he begged and begged for. That kind of says it all. I remember seeing the big set of Millenium Falcon Legos a few years -- somehow it was the first time I had seen it -- and thinking, "I literally would have killed someone for that when I was 8."

Having this in my background, it just tickles me how much Enthusio likes that present he got. Last night, he had me help him transform it from the robots into the ship. Oooh, that was fun. And I'm too old to have been into Transformers. My younger brother The Philosopher was into Transformers AND Star Wars. If and when he ever has a son, I will have to get him -- them -- a Millenium Falcon Transformers set.