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Just Like Honey – Lost in Translation
It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll), as performed by the band from School of Rock – School of Rock
Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Breakfast Club
Ooh La La – Rushmore
The Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party – Shrek
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*That aren’t “The Sound of Silence” from The Graduate, because it’s uncomfortable to look at Dustin Hoffman for that long.
Alright nerds. Let’s say that you have kids at some point in your life (congrats on the future sex). Maybe that happens around 2025. And, because you’re reading this, let’s assume it’s important to you that your children watch Star Wars, starting with the original trilogy. I’m going to peg the year when that kid’s going to watch Episode IV at roughly 2035, which will make the little padawan about the same age that you probably were when you found out that the Jedi are glorified tax collectors in The Phantom Menace.
This, my question to you is: In 2035, will a ten-year-old kid even want to watch Star Wars? And will they like it?
By that point, A New Hope, which came out in 1977, will be 58 years old. That’s as old as a guy I like to call Barack Obama. Ever heard of him? Oh yeah, he’s retired at that age.
Do you know what movies were 58 years old when The Phantom Menace came out in 1999? Let me set the stage for you. It was 1941. The United States didn’t enter WWII until December because we were too busy debating lend-lease and taking Lindbergh seriously. Bugs Bunny and Joe DiMaggio were the peak of American culture, and vaping hadn’t been invented yet.
Here were some of the big movies that came out in 1941, helpfully organized into four conceptual buckets:
Movies that Are Good
Movies that Would Have the Same Title Today but Would Be Very Different
Movies that Are Actually Movies Today
Movies that Certainly Sound Like Adult Films
Maybe you’ve heard of some of these movies. Maybe you’ve actually seen some of them. But I’d bet the net worth of Lucasfilm that most ten year olds in 1999 wouldn’t get amped for Orson Welles’ cinematic breakthrough or the genre prototype laid out in Maltese Falcon (although, to be fair, most 5th graders probably weren’t that high on midichlorian counts or racially problematic trade disputes either when Phantom hit).
So, again, answer this question we must: Will the original Star Wars trilogy fade into history? Is it rooted to its time and place? Is it centered around ideals and concerns that will seem too distant to bridge across several generations? Or is there something more timeless and enduring about believing in the little guy and rusted landcruisers—something that will transcend time and space in a manner that will continue to captivate young people, thus forever hooking our progeny to the blue-milk-teat of Disney Plüs?
Is A New Hope more Dumbo or more Maltese Falcon? And which is the better thing to be?
It is appalling that “Brown Eyed Girl” is Van Morrison’s most famous song. It might not even be one of his best fifteen songs, and saying that it’s his best is tantamount to saying that Mozart’s best composition was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
If you were judging only Brown Eyed Girl and every song on Astral Weeks, it wouldn’t make the Top Five. If you were judging only Brown Eyed Girl and every song on Moondance, it wouldn’t make the Top Ten. Do you know how many songs there are on Moondance? There are ten. Every song on Moondance is better than Brown Eyed Girl.
Okay, Brown Eyed Girl is better than “Glad Tidings.” But the point stands!
This is all to say that there’s a lesson to be learned here: a beautiful, lyrical, profound song like “Madame George” will always be less popular than a song that convinces 80% of the women in the world that it’s about them—even if the latter is a corny, generic, first-song-played-at-a-wedding-so-the-old-people-feel-comfortable-hitting-the-dance-floor-ass song like Brown Eyed Girl.
Expanded cinematic universes are the only reason that I, you, and everyone you know gets out of bed in the morning. This is called “a fact” and—news flash!—facts still exist. Left on Read is now proud to announce the results of our first ever investigative undertaking, revealing who’s in the same universe as whom:
Yep, this is his face. We just thought you really ought to know.
Left on Read 