Long ago in a galaxy far far away…

When I was a youngster and the original Star Wars movie came out someone convinced me that there were words to the Star Wars theme song…

Star Wars nothing but Star Wars nothing but Star Wars dun dun dun duuhhhhhh

Well, this New Years season feels a bit like it has been nothing but Star Wars for our family!    The boys got a card game for Christmas, Star Realms, which feels a lot like they modeled it after the space battles of Star Wars.  The kids also helped pay for an XBox One and they bought themselves Star Wars: Battlefront to entertain themselves with.  Then, the boys and I went to see the newly released Star Wars movie Rogue One…perhaps this is becoming a tradition!  I’m reading the Phantom Menace to brush up on my Episode 1 knowledge.  And yesterday, to wrap up 2016 we all went to the Denver Art Museum to see a special exhibit they have about the costumes of Star Wars.

I agreed to go with the family not because I was excited about costumes…but only because I do like Star Wars and it was an opportunity to go on an adventure with the family like the old days of being on the road.  The exhibit came with a self guided audio tour which our family really enjoys.  So we arrived, got our audio devices and started on the tour.  Let me skip to the punch line and just say that it was WAYYY better than I expected.  The costumes were cool to see, but the story behind the costumes was what blew my brain matter!  It described, as best could be done, how an idea for a character in George Lucas’ head would get conveyed verbally to some artists who would draw out concepts and story boards.  How they would pull from other cultures and historical clothing.  How the fabrics were intentionally chosen to not only convey beauty, or strength, or evil but also how it had to look right on screen.  It was amazing how much effort went into each costume. But the other thing that I found absolutely fascinating was how much women’s fashion today draws from Star Wars.  In one of the first rooms of the exhibit I saw this lady I swore had come in her Star Wars costume.  She had tight dark leggings with tall boots adorned with useless buckles and straps and looked like they had survived a walk across Tatooine.  A loose cottony shirt and a wool shawl of sorts was topped with a worn leather bandoleer-like strap across her chest attached to her purse. This, it turned out, was NOT a costume but her regular outfit!  It seemed like every other woman there was wearing Star Wars boots.

A large portion of the exhibit was dedicated to the many ornate costumes of Padme Amidala.  Her gowns had so much detail it was insane. One of them had some lace that took a month to hand craft.  Another one was fashioned after flapper outfits of the 1920s…apparently the look of this one was so important to George Lucas that he played a major part in its design.  It was all very impressive.

We saw Yoda at the end of the exhibit and some of his quotes were being projected on a Dago Bah looking wall. Guess which one got projected as I rounded the corner?  Only my favorite Yoda quote of all time, “Do or do not, there is no try“.  2016 was full of doing for us…so many times we did not have the opportunity to try something before we had to just do it…to JUMP!!  And jumping was exhilarating!

We ate our brown bag lunch then went into this hands on area where we got to take on the role of artists and costume designers.  Brielle was in heaven!  But I think all of us had a ton of fun using the provided drawing equipment to create our own costumes on paper. They had LED light boxes with tracing paper on hand and then these simple laminated cards with different pants, dresses, shirts, jackets, hair, hats and helmets so you could combine them into your own character.   We had perused the gift shop earlier but in my opinion they missed a great opportunity by not selling a book of those templates along with a pad of tracing paper!  Dacen and Brielle brought some of the designs to life on the mannequins they had available by pining on different cloth material pieces.  We all had a ball but Brielle in particular was on cloud 9.

It was a really fun day.  It reminded me of our road trip the first half of 2016.  It feels great to have something to write about and share pictures of!  We finished the day with our traditional fondue dinner before going to bed for the last time in 2016.  As I said good night to Brielle she said, “I can’t wait for another road trip in 2017.”  She has travel and adventure in her blood….watch out world!!