Well, I guess in real life the Empire should have won…

Today I was thinking about happy endings (not the kind you might get at the Vietnamese massage parlor), but the fairy tale kind. See, I like Star Wars, a lot. Call me a nerd, but the Star Wars Saga is among my favorite movies (or series of movies, not really too sure how to be proper there) of all time. But like most of Hollywood, or stories that we love in general, it is for the most part pretty unrealistic. Think about it… There is a Galactic Empire, that has a device with the ability to destroy planets, endless funds at their disposal, and their only form of opposition is a tiny, little rebellion. With the help of a rag tag group of characters including a smuggler, a wookie, a few good pilots, the one cool black guy in all of space (Lando), and one Jedi who never even finished his training, this little tiny rebellion overthrew an Empire that was right in their back yard, and they had no other military problems to deal with. It’s not like the American Revolution, which as remarkable as it was, took place on our home field, with the help of the French (who were pretty tough back then) against an enemy who while they were the most powerful empire in the world was busy with countless other problems, they lived across the pond, and couldn’t focus their entire attention on us rowdy Yanks. No, the Empire had no other things to worry about (except oppressing the galaxy), and the rebellion still was able to not just gain their independence, but overthrow them completely. I mean seriously, in “A New Hope”, why the heck didn’t the Death Star blow up Yavin (the planet that had the moon orbiting it that the rebel base was on), and end the rebellion right there instead of circling around the entire planet to blow up to moon. (Vader, you really dropped the ball there). Don’t get me wrong, I was rooting for the Rebel Alliance, but they got really lucky.

The movie industry has instilled into our heads that the good guys always win, that the guy always gets the girl (outside of a few movies from the past year), and that deep down, that drugee rock star is really a good guy. This my friends, is preposterous. Life for the most part doesn’t have many happy endings. A lot of times, the bad guy does win (especially if he has an entire empire at his disposal), the guy doesn’t get the girl, and the Rock Star is just a douche bag. There should be more stories out there like 1984 (spoiler alert, but if you haven’t read it yet, I don’t really care about blowing it, it’s been out for a really long time and you’ve had your chance). 1984 has one of the most defeating, and depressing endings of all time, where the people that were resisting the oppressing party that had come to power, were kidnapped, betrayed, and tortured till they learned to love that same oppressing party that they were so passionately against. Now that my friends is a good ending because it more accurately reflects the world that we live in. Or in “(500) Days of Summer”, (Yeah, I’m a guy, I saw it, and I liked it) when the guy doesn’t get the girl, another much more realistic ending to the story. So the moral of the story is…life is a lot of time going to be pretty crappy. Deal with it, and not in an angry or depressing sense of “deal with it”, but in a feel good, just got to learn to accept that’s the way life is way. But enjoy the wins that do come your way, because they really are something special.