Monday, March 26, 2012

Playing Han Solo and muddy-booted heroes


We want our optimists to be believable, not all Pollyanna and shit. We want them to have grease on their fingers and mud on their boots to show they've been through it and they still believe.

We want out heroes to have scars and questionable pasts like Han Solo because we've all fucked up, too. And we want to believe in redemption and that we can still land a starring role in our own lives.

I always preferred Han to Luke Skywalker because Han was cooler. He had a bad ass spaceship, memorable one-liners and that was before I knew he got the girl.

Lord knows I've made my share of mistakes. Hopefully not the kind that will get me deep frozen or send bounty hunters after me, but I still wake up nervous, uneasy.

My Millennium Falcon was smaller and plastic and ended up in the sandbox in our back yard as part of an action figure fort. But I don't think that's a main part of the story line.


Most days I wake up smiling, after coffee. I like to think my deep freeze happened in my late teens and early 20s.

I prefer to look at where Harrison Ford has gone since then and the depth and diversity of his life's work. But hell, maybe playing Han Solo was his summit.

Summit is defined as the highest point of a mountain or the highest possible level of achievement. But it was also a candy bar.

2 comments:

Rain said...

I just can't trust someone who hasn't got their hands dirty!

Michael Valliant said...

Amen, Rain!