“Luke – I am your father!”
This week, my son Richard (31 on Monday) and I commemorated something of a family tradition of almost three decades by visiting a special “Star Wars” exhibition at County Hall in central London.
I’ve always been a huge film fan and I really enjoy science fiction movies. So I was thrilled when the first “Star Wars” film was released in 1977 and keen to share my enthusiasm with my very young son. Richard was only two and a half when he made his first visit to the cinema to see “Star Wars” on Boxing Day 1978. From then on, we’ve had a tradition – followed with all of the next five films – that father and son would go to see each new episode at the cinema together.
Which brings us to “Star Wars: The Exhibition” which features an array of items specially selected from the Lucasfilm archives in Northern California. The exhibition opened in Portugal, it is now in London, and it will then move around the world.
The exhibition is outrageously expensive at £16.50 and I found the supporting text hard to read, but it’s lots of fun with everything from a life-sized Naboo N-1 starfighter to Darth Vader’s outfit. Most of the 12 rooms focus on a specific world in the “Star Wars” universe from Endor, where Luke Skywalker was born, to Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Empire. There are some 240 exhibits in all and some interactive activities such as a Jedi training facility.
Both Richard and I have the same initials RD and Vee used to dub us as R1D1 and R2D2. On my visit to the exhibition, I learned why the name R2D2 was used for the little white droid. It is a reference to film language and ‘translates’ to reel two, dialogue two. In fact, my favourite character has always been Yoda.
Since these days most special effects and even objects and costumes are created by digital technology, this kind of exhibition featuring models and clothing from a series of films may be a real rarity. See it now before the Death Star explodes it.