The Farce Awakens, writes Sajid Khan

STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS! And no, I am not talking about last week’s SRK v/s SLB war. Nor am I talking about the Kejriwal v/s Jaitley war. Aur aisa bhi nahin hai that the war between Samsung Note 5 and Iphone 6S is being discussed here. I am talking about the cinematic phenomenon which has reigned supreme since four decades.  STAR WARS! But before, I write any further, it’s naara time. “Jab tab sooraj chaand rahega, Star Wars ka naam rahega”. Sorry yaar, can’t help it I am a Star Wars nerd/geek and self-proclaimed biggest fan. Thoda flashback mein jaate hain.  

1977: Star Wars was playing in one cinema in India, called Sterling in Mumbai. I was a six-year-old. Like many others my age and more throughout the world, who had never experienced this kind of spectacular visuals interspersed with classic good v/s evil story-telling. That’s it. Whether it was RT-D2, C3PO, Chewbacca (which later was copied in the 1981 Arjun Hingorani’s Kaatilon Ke Kaatil as half-man, half — bear ‘Reechaaaaaaa’... I will come to that later. ), Darth Vader or Han Solo, the whole world was in a Star Wars mania. Made as a standalone film, George Lucas was the only person who had faith in his film, not even the studio 20th Century Fox.

In fact, the trend in the mid-70s in Hollywood was remaking bestseller books into movies, eg- Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Peter Benchley’s Jaws, or William Peter Blattey’s The Exorcist. Fox was on top of the world after obtaining the rights of Sidney Sheldon’s controversial book The Other Side Of Midnight. The studio backed up that movie in such a huge way that absolute step-treatment was given to the low-budgeted Star Wars. So much so, that they thought it was a lost cause. Well, the rest is history. 

Lucas however, managed to convince Fox to buy back the rights of the film as well as merchandising for a fee, which they happily gave away. MISTAKE! BIG MISTAKE! Star Wars was not only the highest grossing film of the seventies, but in terms of merchandising ie, toys, comic books, clothes, costumes, then grossed over a billion dollars. And  1977 ka billion dollars is equivalent today to 6567897345678900934567890109876545678909765456789876556789097678 trillion dollars!

In fact, George Lucas sent a handmade drawing to his best friend Speilberg, in which a space ship is shooting and killing a shark in the sea. You see, Jaws till then was the highest grossing films of all times.

Over the next three decades, the magic of Star Wars grew stronger worldwide with the other five films of this franchisee. But, just like every popular icon has fans and followers there comes an equal number of haters too. Sci-fi fans worldwide, are divided into two factions — Star Wars bhakts and Star Trek bhakts. I belong to the former group. But kamaal ki baat yeh hai, that the man who has pulled off the rebooting of both the franchisees and has kept the fans of both happy, is JJ Abrams, when he rebooted Star Trek and now has done the same with Star Wars. 

I believe in my heart as a true blood Star Wars fan, that the magic of Star Wars is alive only in those who have experienced it in 1977 on the big screen. Those are the original 'true fans'. I tried converting a couple of my friends in 2002 and showed them Attack Of The Clones. My best friend Sajid Nadiadwala, abused me after seeing the film with these exact words, “Kya picture dikhayi tune? Sab Silvania Lakshman ke tubelights ke saath ladd rahe the”.

Well now it’s official, Star Wars - The Force Awakens is headed towards being the biggest money grosser in the world and should challenge even the `2.7 billion dollars grosser, Avatar in a few weeks. For fans like us, the force is with us. And for the Star Trek fans, the force is a farce. Coming back to my ‘Reechaaaaaaa’ point, Amjad Khan gives an explanation to what kind of a creature ‘Reechaa’ is in Kaatilon Ke Kaaatil by this “bahot saal pehle ek junglee reech, gaon se ek pagal ladki ko utha le gaya. Aur reechaa unke pyaar ki nishaani hai!!!!!!!!