If there was ever any question that Lego was an important part of my childhood, it was completely erased yesterday as I entered the Lego Imagination Center in the Mall of America. I was visiting southern Minnesota on business this week and we capped off the trip by visiting the country’s largest shopping mall. I couldn’t care less about the four stories worth of shops. I wanted to see the Lego store. And boy, did I ever.

I was in Lego nerd heaven. According to the Lego website, it was the first Lego store in the United States, built in 1992. The Imagination Center wasn’t just a store for Legomaniacs, it was a store for me. I had two loves in my childhood. One was Lego, the other was Star Wars. My heart fluttered when I saw the Lego Death Star (retail price: $299.99). But even that was dwarfed by the magnificent 25-foot-tall Lego clock tower. Just imagine that… two and a half stories worth of Legos!
The store also features a large Lego blimp (reportedly made with 130,000 bricks) hanging overhead next to a scale model of the International Space Station—also built with Legos. Another entrance is guarded by a near life-sized statue of Boba Fett, the famed bounty hunter from the Star Wars movies. Inside is a towering figure of the animated version of Batman. There’s plenty more to see, so anyone who’s ever loved Lego play would be at home in this store.

The store, located in the large atrium of the Mall of America, was filled with children of all ages. Just outside one of the entrances was an area where visitors could build Lego soapbox cars and have impromptu races. The entrance itself is a shrine to Lego that is surrounded by large Lego dinosaurs and Lego teenagers.

Inside the store were several aisles worth of Lego products that span their collection. Everything from the City collection to their popular Technic collection to the ultimate merging of my childhood fantasies: the Lego Star Wars collection. Why, oh why, couldn’t this have happened twenty-five years ago? I so wanted to buy the Darth Vader Tie Fighter, but the $99.95 price is a little too steep for me at the moment. It’d be a heck of a Christmas present, though, hint-hint.

The store features a “buy your own bricks” setup which allows you to fill a provided cup with as many pieces as you can for a fair price. There are mugs and t-shirts available as well (I couldn’t resist the Lego Vader vs. Lego Kenobi shirt).

There are now 25 Lego stores across the country, including California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts. There’s another Imagination Center in Anaheim, California, but there’s just something about being first. The Mall of America can claim those rights. While the other stores have their own attraction, the Mall of America’s Imagination Center is a destination in a class of its own.

Originally published on www.skippingtothepiccolo.com

This month, the event will include a double feature with movies starring Harrison Ford as a legendary action-adventure hero. Pre-show games will begin at 7:15 p.m. and the movie will begin at 8:30 p.m. Both movies are rated PG. Admission is free and concessions will be available.

For more movie clues and the complete Leaf Chronicle Parks After Dark series schedule, please visit http://www.parksafterdark.com/ or call Clarksville Parks and Recreation at 645-7476.

About Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor. He is best known for his performances as the tough, wisecracking space pilot Han Solo in the Star Wars film series, and the adventurous archaeologist/action hero in the Indiana Jones film series.

Ford has also been the star of many high-grossing hits Hollywood blockbusters such as Air Force One and The Fugitive, which have distanced him from his famous Star Wars and Indiana Jones roles. At one point Ford had roles in the top five box-office hits of all time, though his role in 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (as Elliot’s school principal) was deleted from the final cut of the film. Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry.

Event Sponsors

Movies In the Park is also sponsored by AdOne Advertising, Altra Federal Credit Union, Austin Peay State University, Charter Communications, Clarksville Jaycees, C-TV, Dairy Queen, Eagle 94.3 FM, Joy 1370, Q108, Sports Radio 540 The Fan, The Beaver 100.3 FM, TVClarksville.com, 1400 WJZM, and Z97.5 FM.

* Bio of Harrison Ford is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can’t believe I missed it. I’m a horrible, wretched, pathetic loser. I missed one of the most important anniversaries in my life. It was the anniversary of what is arguably the single most important event in my childhood—the event which defined my imagination and helped to create the imaginary world in which I lived for years.

Yes, dear friends, I missed the 30th anniversary of the opening of Star Wars. Maybe it’s appropriate, really. Maybe I should have remembered the day that we first ventured to the local theatre to see that landmark picture. After all, when George Lucas’ historic space opera opened just before Memorial Day of 1977, only 40 theatres across the country played it.

Alas, neither of Clarksville’s two theatres were on that list. We were fortunate to have the Martin Twin on Riverside Drive and the brand-new Capri Twin near where we lived. It didn’t come to our galaxy until a couple of weeks later. Suffice to say, I was as oblivious to that historic day then as I was this year. In fact, I had to be talked in to going to see it. My dad piled my brother and me into the family car.

“Let’s go see a movie,” he said.

“I don’t want to (insert whine). Cartoons are on.”

“It’ll be good. Come on.” It wasn’t a request.

“But what’s it about?”

“It’s kind of like Star Trek.”

I was sold. The cartoons could wait. This was going to be pretty neat, or so I thought. I had in my mind a picture of something like the Enterprise zapping away at the bad guys. Maybe it would have a few badly-dressed ‘aliens’ or some guys in gold makeup to play the evil villains.

I talked Dad into letting me sit on the front row. Okay, I admit. I whined my way into sitting on the front row. After all, if this was going to be a space movie, I wanted to be as close to the action as possible.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. When those bright yellow words appeared on screen for the first time (sans “Episode IV: A New Hope”), I was immediately transported into an incredible world where young blonde teenagers could save the day. From the front row, I swear I could have seen people inside those tiny lights of that massive Star Destroyer as it rumbled by on the screen.

The movie opened with the flash of a dazzling laser battle. Those zap guns were so incredible! I had no idea what those red zaps were called. But they were sure cool. So, like any responsible child in the days before the Internet, I asked Dad. I thought at first he said they were beans. No wonder they had such an explosive reaction on people. “No,” he clarified. “They’re beams.” It’s a good thing he clarified it for me. That would have ruined beans for me forever.

I imagine now that my dad was secretly worried that I would be so engrossed in this new movie that it would forever change the pantheon of my imagination into a recreation of Star Wars. If he did, then he was right.

This was a classic story of good versus evil—it was a lived-in world where the polished gray suits of traditional sci-fi were nowhere to be seen. I had no concept of cardboard characters, and I was completely bereft of any understanding of proper film criticism. I didn’t care about plot, characterization, cinematography, or the ability of the director to tell a story. I was six, for heaven’s sake. I just wanted to see Luke save the day!

The lightsabre battles were breathtaking. The battle scenes were explosive. Poor Ben, he got sliced into oblivion! And the Death Star—how on earth would our heroes deal with THAT? Oh, it was an event to remember. When that behemoth got its just reward by exploding, I was so excited.

I feel sorry for my dad: he had to deal with a mini-Luke for the next ten years. He had to endure several years’ worth of action figures, space battles in the downstairs den, and constant whining about getting our allowance so we could buy new ones. My childhood was already defined by Legos. Now that Star Wars was in the mix, I’d have to build spaceships and have space battles.

A couple of years ago, I saw that Legos had Star Wars kits available. Why, oh why, didn’t they have those when I was a kid? It was the ultimate marriage of my two childhood favorites. There were Lego X-Wing fighters. There were Lego TIE fighters. There was even a Lego Millennium Falcon. Alas, I was an adult, so I didn’t buy such toys anymore.

So I bought a Lego Podracer from Episode I. It’s still in my closet. Shh, don’t tell anyone.

It’s been thirty years since Star Wars first opened. Since then, five more films have been added to Lucas’ canon. Two cartoon series, a few terrible holiday specials, and a myriad of books and comic books have been released during that time, and the franchise has no sign of slowing down any time soon.

In the end, the Star Wars trilogy was about a father and his son. Of course, we didn’t realize that until the evil Darth Vader dropped the ultimate bombshell (in what is one of the most memorable lines in movie history) in The Empire Strikes Back:

“Luke, you do not yet realize your importance…Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father…”

“He told me enough! He told me YOU killed him!”

“No… I am your father!”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It’s fitting that I have only one person to thank for this experience. Thanks, Dad. You took me to this film for the first time. I’ll never forget it. Of course, I imagine that you enjoyed them as much as I did.

Just because I forgot to notice the anniversary of the opening of Star Wars, it doesn’t mean I won’t forget something far more important:

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Originally posted on www.skippingtothepiccolo.com.

Welcome to world of Luke Skywalker, Director George Lucas’s ground-breaking fantasy that would rev up the imaginations of millions of moviegoers. That was 30 years ago (May 25, 1977). Where were you when Star Wars changed the face of movies?

Thirty years isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it was nearly half my life ago. I was in the toddler stage of my 27-year stint as a film critic, and saw in Star Wars a kind of Cowboys and Indians adventure that roused imagination and was just plain fun. Good guys and bad guys. Not unlike John Wayne westerns relocated in time and space. Not unlike the newest fantasy realm inhabited by Harry Potter, Ron, Hermoine, Dumbledore and Voldemort (this generation’s Darth Vader).

I remember sitting near the back of theater during a non-peak-hour showing, my soda untouched, popcorn uneaten, as I sank into the fable, succumbed to the whimsy of the fastidious C3PO and the brave little R2D2, rooting for the man in white (Skywalker), shuddering at the heavy predatory breathing of the villainous Vader in his swirling black cape and gleaming enameled mask. As for Han Solo, he had all the roguish qualities of an Errol Flynn pirate, cocky smile and all.

While the first space altering film was Stanley Kubrick’s amazing but much more solemn and slow-moving 2001: A Space Odyssey,that film still adhered to old ways of creating illusion.

The unconventional, outside-the-box creativity of Lucas, and a team that included John Dykstra and the computer savvy geniuses that formed industrial Light and Magic and a host of ancillary firms that deal in special effects and computer wizardry — the magic that made films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, the Potter films, and a host of terrific movies in between, come alive.

From the first epic Star Wars trilogy (which now seems tame in comparison to its successors) to the second and far more technically sophisticated second trilogy (which ansers all the questios left hanging from the first), movie fans have come, bought tickets, and gotten their money’s worth. Not always through the stories, but most definitely through the technology.

I loved Star Wars, and the Empire Strikes Back, wasn’t crazy about Return of the Jedi or the first two “prequels” — especially Phantom Menace. That and Attack of the Clones seemed to sacrifice the story, adventure and characters on the altar of special effects. That changed in Revenge of the Sith, which worked for me, wrapping up the untold stories, answering the lingering questions. Revenge of the Sith brought back the humanity that made us cheer and root for our space heroes. For years my home was littered landspeeder models, character dolls, light sabers and other paraphenalia as my daughter and her friends were equally captivated by the heroes and villans.

Star Wars changed the face of movies, sometimes for the better, but not always. certainly not always. But first and foremost, Star Wars was and remains the one thing movies are supposed to be: terrific entertainment.

Author’s Note: for an in-depth look at George Lucas and the creation of Star Wars, you can reference my hometown alternative paper, at valleyadvocate.com (5/23/07).