Star Wars promotes change for the good

You can’t resist the Dark Side.

I know because I tried. And now I realize I failed.

Rather… You can’t resist the Dark Side.

I know because I tried. And now I realize I failed.

Rather than speaking in vague generalities here, let me explain myself a bit better. Every guy I have ever dated has been a “Star Wars” fanatic. Most of my friends followed suit. But I always claimed I took the higher road. I was a “Buffy” geek, not a “Star Wars” geek. There was a huge difference, really. I refused to even watch one of the movies. In fact, the closest I would get was watching “Spaceballs,” which in my mind was better than anything George Lucas could ever do.

But like I said, you really can’t resist the Dark Side.

When you break it down, that’s what brought me over, the origin of pure evil. Boyfriends trying to force me to watch the movies, friends begging me to tag along — none of it worked. I was a brick wall when it came to the movies. But I guess you could say I came on my own.

It was the darkness of “Revenge of the Sith” that piqued my curiosity, honestly. The idea of a sweet, innocent — not to mention gorgeous — Anakin Skywalker transforming into arguably the baddest bad-ass in movie history pushed me over the edge. I had to dip my toes in the water, but I ended up getting pulled under, maybe by some Jedi mind tricks.

After watching all of “Phantom Menace” and a snippet of “Return of the Jedi,” I found that I loved the movies. When I told my obsessed friends my reaction, they were shocked that it was the second trilogy that brought me in. I liked the movies enough, and I was slightly interested.

But when I handed my friend back his copy of “Attack of the Clones” with the phrase “George Lucas is a god,” his laughter was enough to make me realize I was truly gone.

But what was wrong with that? I mean, yeah, I had preconceived notions that “Star Wars” fans were weirdos, but should that keep me away from an entire fandom?

The truth is that these people aren’t weird. They’re no weirder than I am, with my thousands of dollars worth of “Buffy” memorabilia. On some levels, they may be more normal!

Now looking back, I spent 22 and a half years renouncing the “Star Wars” trilogies, and I can’t figure out why. Because it was unfamiliar? Because I thought the people who loved the movies were geeks?

None of that was true. They were stereotypes, untrue ones at that. The worst part is we do this all the time. Rather than forming our own opinions about things, we go with what everyone else thinks and fall victim to preconceived notions.

That goes hand-in-hand with another problem: change. It happens, but how often do we embrace it?

I mean, I’m not afraid of many things, outside of spiders, snakes, the dark, death — OK, I’ll take that back. But change scares the living daylights out of me.

The familiar is good, but change, well, it means things have to be different. And if things are different, they might not be as good.

So I pass up opportunities, whether they are a class or simply a type of music I don’t think I’d like, just because I don’t know it.

Welcome to our generation, or actually most of the world. We reject the unfamiliar. We don’t accept change, unless it beats us over the head with a wooden club.

That’s one of the reasons our country, our generation and our future are so screwed up. We don’t want to evolve.

We can learn a lesson from the “Star Wars” movies, using the exact thing that brought me in. Anakin Skywalker welcomed change. He changed his entire life because he was open to change. He was presented with an opportunity to try something completely different and he took it. I mean yeah, he ended up becoming an evil half-man-half-mechanical warlord, but he had the right idea.

Opening ourselves to a little bit of change can actually be a good thing. Just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons and that it won’t end up turning you into the personification of evil. That would be bad.

Drop your preconceived notions and e-mail Daveen for a change at drk974@pitt.edu.