Rebuilding Rob

There may be a handful of different things I could think of that I was incredibly attached to in my youth . The one that comes to mind most vividly is my Star Wars action figure collection.

I think it might be difficult for people younger than myself to understand what a profound impact the original Star Wars trilogy had on kids drawing up in the late 70s through the early 80s. Years ago, I compiled a list of my top 15 favorite movies. In that list, I summed up my feelings about these movies by saying “Star Wars taught me how to dream”.

The Star Wars movies were rocket-fuel for my imagination; and the action figures were the proverbial rocket in which I traveled. It didn’t matter where I was: at home, a friend’s house, wherever – any real world setting could fill in for the forest moon Endor, The icy planet Hoth, or any one of the planets I imagined setting those characters in. There is an ineffable quality to the imagination of a child. There is nothing else quite like it in life.

Don’t get me wrong. I was very much they typical kid of my generation. I played baseball in the summer; football in the fall with the neighborhood kids. We rode bikes, went swimming, had snowball fights and explored the local woods. But there was a span of several years where Star Wars was the driving Force (pun fully intended) of my early life.

There’s only 3 things I ever wanted to be “when I grew up”. Star Wars in indirectly responsible for all of them. Star Wars introduced me to outer space, which led me to wanting to become an astronaut. When I learned more about the making of these movies, I wanted to become a film maker. As I got older still and learned more about the storytelling process of these moves, I fell in love with reading and writing; which led me to become a teacher.

Today, my old action figures reside in Mother’s house, in their Darth Vader case. The bottoms of their feet still marked with nail polish so I could differentiate my figures from The Apostle’s.  I’m fortunate that my parent’s home never faced a natural disaster or plumbing emergency; nor were they ever hell-bent on clearing out some space.

Over the years, I collected comic books, baseball cards and some toys as I got older, and I was willing to sell many of them off for a profit. But to this day, I haven’t had the heart to part with my original Star Wars action figures. Kid 2 has picked up some of the current line of Star Wars figures, but to he and his generation, Star Wars is just another movie franchise. They will never know the impact Star Wars had on the movie industry. Likewise, they will never experience the interminably long wait between the cliffhanger ending of The Empire Strikes Back and story’s conclusion in Return of the Jedi three years later.

That, and he recently told me “I like Star Wars, but I like Star Trek more”.

Now I can die in peace.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier related posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “The Holy Grail of My Youth” originally appeared on Rebuilding Rob