Why Your Childhood Wasn’t “Raped”

When I talk to people about Star Wars, there’s always one guy in the crowd who seems to say, “Man, screw Star Wars.  Those special editions and prequels raped my childhood.”

I don’t understand this.

This was the same thing with the season finale of LOST.  People ran around saying that the last two hours of the show weren’t what they wanted so every minute they spent enjoying LOST up to that moment were wasted.  How could the ending not being what you want it discount 5 years of enjoyment and guessing and theorizing week to week?

This is absurd.

There are things about the Special Editions and the Prequels I don’t like, sure.  I know some of you might not believe that, but it’s true.  I wish Han would fire first and I wish they’d put Lapti Nek back in the Jabba’s Palace scene.  Sure, I wish there were some things different about the prequels, and I wish Lawrence Kasdan would have come back and been a co-writer.

But Star Wars is what it is, and I will love it for that.  But for those of you who feel that you’re childhood has been sullied by what happened during the Special Editions or the Prequels, how does any of that discount all of the joy and happiness that Star Wars brought you before that point?  How does that take away those moments where you’d play Star Wars on the playground and swing across the monkey bars like it was the Death Star chasm?  How does that take away the natural instinct you had as a kid to make lightsaber sounds whenever you’d pick up a discarded wrapping paper tube at Christmas?  How do the prequels take away from every viewing of the original trilogy you had as a kid?  How does any of that take away from the enjoyment that it will bring your kids?

Just because something later on down the line wasn’t up to your expectations or liking, how does that in any way infringe upon or discount the enjoyment you had prior to that fact?

It’s not like the prequels had a time machine and came out and punched you as a kid every time you had a Star Wars moment.

Therefore, I propose that we do our best to erase this particular phrase from any discourse involving Star Wars.  Or anything for that matter.  It just makes you sound kind of stupid.