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The Rabbit Hole Reader's avatar

Beautifully written, Jesse, bravo! TPM was my very first conscious encounter with the franchise when my parents bought the VHS. I say conscious, because we had the second Ewoks film taped off of TV and without knowing what Star Wars was, I watched it dozens of times and also played the first Dark Forces at my uncles who is a huge Scifi-nut (he only had a shareware-version of it, so I only ever played the first level back then). I too later struggled with TPM, but back then I LOVED it and it quickly became my most rewatched movie until LotR would be released to cinemas. Mind you, because we didn't have the money to go to the movies, I watched LotR in horribly blue-tinted bootleg some weirdo recorded in the cinema. 😅 Until I saw it on DVD I actually thought the movie was THAT blue ...

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

LOTR had a stranglehold on me too at that time. Great era of movies.

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Daniel's avatar

Wonderful write up, thank you for sharing! I think so many people can connect to this. I was very lucky to have parents that encouraged my interests. I may have been too young to see the movie in theaters, but it was one of the movies I watched endlessly on VHS as a kid and is synonymous with my early childhood.

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

Thank you, Daniel! Hopefully you can catch it in theaters this May - pod racing is worth it for the price alone

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Matthew Christian's avatar

What a beautiful piece. The line about your mom asking about new titles at Blockbuster really connected with me - both as a kid with parents who rented games for me, and now as a parent who injects little bits of thought and love into whatever I do for my daughter.

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

I love this so much, Matthew! I think it's so important parents encourage their children's interests even if they don't exactly always understand it.

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Maple's avatar

This was truly beautiful Jesse, thank you!

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

Thank you <3

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c. mortise's avatar

This is so great 🥺

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

<3

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Matthew Freeman's avatar

Loved this.

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Jesse Bartel's avatar

thank you, Matthew <3

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