Tyneside to Toronto: The Long Haul to Star Wars Episode 1 (1999)

SPRING 1999. 

The world was ready for the greatest sci-fi movie of all time. It was 16 years since Return of the Jedi - and George Lucas must have spent that time perfecting the storylines and scripts for his Prequel Trilogy. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Star Wars was about to make a triumphant return. And that first trailer for Episode 1 had been great!

Actually I did have doubts - I'd seen the Special Editions of the Original Trilogy and erm...

But that was an experiment, wasn't it? That was just to see if people were still bothered about Star Wars... the new additions to the old movies were a temporary gimmick and we'd soon go back to enjoying the original versions, wouldn't we? 

Surely the new movie wouldn't be some CGI crap-fest? 

I was nearly 26.

Star Wars was one of the few things from my childhood that I had happy memories about. I'd missed out on seeing The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi at the cinema but I'd bought every comic, book and toy that I could afford. 

In the late 90s I'd even started buying the figures again - the new ones that made all the characters look like they'd been spending a bit too much time in the gym. 

Even old Ben had been bulking up.

All of my original Star Wars toys had vanished during one of our many house moves. I was told they were in boxes in the attic and I'd get them back once everything was sorted, but I never did. The same thing happened with a Scalextric set and a load of my old books and comics. That attic ate more stuff than the Sarlacc.

In 1999 I was working at a local radio station in Gateshead, and every lunch time I'd borrow the papers from the newsroom. Most days I'd just have a sandwich at my desk and since our office wasn't blessed with the internet (unlike those lucky sods in Programming) newspapers were still worth getting a hold of. And that's when I saw it... 

...The Daily Star was running a competition to see Star Wars: Episode 1 in America. 

 

Back then, most films came out much earlier in the USA. I'm guessing internet piracy wasn't such a big thing in 1999. Episode 1 was being released in May in the USA and July in the UK. So the Daily Star was giving readers the chance to see the movie before anybody else in the UK.

 

I had to cut little Tokens out of the Daily Star every day for five days in order to enter - and  luckily nobody in the newsroom noticed the damage I was doing to their papers. 

And I won.

I won the Daily Star Star Wars Competition! 

I won the trip - and they threw in some toys too! Episode 1 sneak preview sets! A Battle Droid and Stap figure! And a Palace of Theed play set!

A bloke at work* called me a 'sad bastard' and said it was probably a hoax letter sent by somebody who hated me. I might have been, but it wasn't. 

 

As it turned out, the company running the competition asked if I'd rather go for a slightly longer trip to Toronto (rather than the one to Boston they'd advertised in the Daily Star), so I ended up going to Canada. I probably should have looked more closely at the paper-work. When they said 'longer trip' they actually meant 'longer flight'. 

I had to dash around to get my passport sorted but at the end of May I was sitting in Gatwick airport.

There were about 20 other fans on the trip and not all of them were competition winners - some of them had paid £500 to see Episode 1 a few weeks early. They were a nice group. They all seemed to be younger than me and most of them were wearing Star Wars t-shirts and baseball caps. Until then, I'd never met anybody who'd admit to watching sci-fi movies, never mind advertising the fact on their clothing.

The Tour Courier was a bit too enthusiastic and behaved like he was working for Butlins. He was probably trying to keep our excitement levels up - which is fine when you first meet up in an airport bar, but not so great after a cramped eight hour flight and a two hour wait to claim your bags.

 

I'd never flown before and couldn't sleep on the plane. I'd never realised just how close together the seats are. And I was sitting next to a bloke who appeared to have a Rancor monster crawling out of his ear. How could anybody walk around (or sit on a plane) with so much ear wax hanging out of them? They were showing episodes of Seinfeld on the plane - but I couldn't take my eyes off the ear-Rancor.

I don't think I slept more than two or three hours during the whole trip. 

We were only in Canada for about 48 hours - and as well as our cinema visit, the Courier had organised a sightseeing bus tour around Toronto, a trip to the top of the CN Tower, a helicopter ride over Niagara Falls and a coach journey to some big out-of-town shopping mall. 

I've always hated heights, so I skipped the Tower and the helicopters. As it turned out, so did a lot of people - most of us went looking for Star Wars merchandise in Toronto. 

 

I wandered around the shops with a bloke who worked for the NatWest. He was looking for Battle-Droid figures - there were slightly different versions and he wanted all of them. I didn't know anybody else who collected Star Wars toys back in Newton Aycliffe - but this bloke was serious. He had a little hand-book that was all dog-eared and falling to bits through overuse.

I thought I was a massive sci-fi geek because I had the Star Wars movies and some of the old Doctor Who stories on VHS. I did have a few of the new Star Wars figures, but I didn't realise there were so many variants and that people were so bothered about collecting them. 

I'd always been slightly ashamed of my geekery - but the other people on the trip had embraced theirs. Every conversation was about Star Wars. We were in Canada - we could have been flying over Niagara Falls or sitting in the bar at the top of the CN Tower, but most of us were looking for Star Wars figures.

And I also realised that fans weren't blind to the faults in the films. Nobody seemed to like Jabba's funny face in the Star Wars Special Edition, or the fact that Greedo now shot first - but that didn't mean they hated Star Wars or George Lucas or anything like that. Being a fan sometimes meant accepting the 'faults' and having a laugh about them.

By the time we eventually saw the film we were all completely knackered. I bought three or four of the souvenir programs - I assumed they'd be exclusive and rare and collectable but they were on sale in my local Woolworths less than a year later when Episode 1 came out on video.

Once the 20th Century Fox logo kicked off and the film started, it all seemed to go by in a blur. I wasn't sure if it was the best film I'd ever seen or the worst. 

The music was brilliant and the light-sabre fight was wonderful but I couldn't really remember anything else about it. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe it was too much to take in. 

It was definitely still Star Wars, but it kind of felt like a cartoon. Was that because of all the CGI? Or because of the annoying kid and the big rabbit? 

It almost felt (irony alert) like a Disney version of Star Wars. 

As the end credits rolled one of the other people on the trip shouted 'f**ck JarJar Binks!' and stormed out of the cinema. 

 

Some of us (including the f**k JarJar Binks guy) made the effort to see the film again while we were still in Toronto. The travel company had organised for us to see one showing but we were all amazed to discover how easy it was to get tickets. We'd expected every showing to be sold out - but the cinema was pretty much deserted.

After seeing the film a second time I thought it was OK. Just... OK. I didn't hate JarJar Binks just like I'd never hated the Ewoks. I hadn't been expecting a serious, 'adult' sci-fi film like 2001 or Blade Runner.  

Star Wars was a film I'd loved when I was 4 and I could imagine 4 year olds loving Episode 1. 

The other people in the group loved moments from the film but everybody was a bit underwhelmed. Episode 1 hadn't changed our lives and it hadn't turned us into kids again. 

We'd travelled a very long way to see the latest big budget Summer blockbuster - and that's all it was.

Just before the coach took us back to the airport, the Courier got all flustered because the bloke who worked for the NatWest had gone missing. It turned out he was in the KFC next to the hotel, buying up all the Star Wars souvenir plastic cups and toys. 

'I'll be able to retire on this lot' he said, 'they'll be worth a fortune in 20 years time...' I wish I'd kept in touch with him, just to see if he was right.

I still wonder if there'll ever be a Special Edition of Episode 1, with all of the CGI creatures replaced by men in rubber suits.

*That 'bloke at work' (the one who called me a sad bastard) was famous for taking his trousers off at company events. He'd disappear to the toilets and come back just wearing his undies - as if he'd forgotten to put his trousers back on after having a dump.