Star Wars in Concert

Darth Vader in the house outside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall

In case you're suffering from anti-extradition protest fatigue, this afternoon I did something a bit different and attended a screening of Star Wars: A New Hope at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, with music accompanied by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra!

On July 4 and 6 they performed A New Hope, and July 5 was The Empire Strikes Back. This was my first time going to a concert or screening like this and didn't know what to expect.

The harpist was in the way but in the end didn't matter

But the Star Wars fans were out in force, wearing their fan T-shirts or backpacks. One older gentleman sort of had the Darth Vader look minus the helmet and even carried a homemade light sabre with him.

There were even models dressed as Darth Vader and two storm troopers flanking him and people could pose for pictures with them. The line was too long...

I had a ticket three rows from the front on the far left so the harpist was blocking my view of the main screen, though there was another smaller one to the left. Around me were people who probably don't normally go to concerts, and this is probably the whole point of these concerts for the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

The conductor, Benjamin Northey waved a small glowing red stick and gave a short speech, explaining this concert was not like typical ones where you aren't supposed to clap until the end. He encouraged us to clap and react to the music or the film whenever we wanted. That got a big applause from the audience.



And then the orchestra started with that familiar theme by John Williams and everyone clapped with excitement just as the film began. I had completely forgotten the first few scenes of A New Hope, and it was a good refresher. I also loved the feisty dialogue between Princess Lei and Han Solo.

Carrie Fisher was so pretty back then! She was only 19 when she took on the role. But she took on the character with a lot of confidence.

Very young Han Solo, Princess Lei and Luke Skywalker...

Here's one fantastic line: "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board," she says upon meeting the Imperial officer.

Ouch!

Or how about "Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?" she says, pushing Chewbacca.

My only complaint about this concert format is that there were some points where the live music was a bit too loud and we couldn't hear the dialogue, though there were subtitles in Chinese. And no one seemed to laugh during the witty one-liners except for me...

Just as the Millennium Falcon gets sucked into the Death Star, there was a 20-minute intermission, and more people lined up again to take pictures with Darth Vader and his two storm troopers.

After we got back to our seats, Darth Vader (the model) made a brief appearance in the concert hall behind me. And then the film restarted again and played until the end. Even though I have watched the film a few times, I was nervous about everyone getting back to the Millennium Falcon in one piece, and the last action sequence where Luke Skywalker has to do the most important mission.

A company is selling kits to make the Millennium Falcon...

Now when you watch the film, the technology of the planes and space ships look very rudimentary compared to computer generated images of today, but the magic of Star Wars and the concept of "the force" is still there. Alec Guinness as Obi One Kenobi is awesome, while Harrison Ford's cockiness is perfect for Han Solo.

The orchestra kept playing as the credits rolled, and this is probably the only time that the audience will sit through the whole thing! We clapped and clapped, with conductor Northey coming out twice for bows, but sadly no encore.

Still it was lots of fun! Lots of nostalgia and one couldn't help but think of the analogies of the rebel forces against the Evil Empire with what's happening in Hong Kong at the moment...

Star Wars in Concert
A New Hope
July 6
Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall
Music by John Williams

Our Princess Leia

Princesses can also hold their own, in a galaxy far, far, away...

There are only a few more days left in the year and it was very sad to hear the news that yet another celebrity who made an impression on my youth was gone.

Actress Carrie Fisher passed away this morning at the age of 60, a few days after she had had a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

Actress Carrie Fisher died today at the age of 60

We all thought our Princess Leia had died.

Many of us remember when Star Wars came out in 1977, watching this beautiful brunette woman with these large buns around her ears and dressed in white.

Up until that point, my preconceptions of what a princess was was developed from watching Walt Disney movies, like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White -- how the princess or the beautiful woman was saved by a dashing prince and how they would live happily ever after.

Princess Leia shattered those old fashioned images for me -- and countless other little girls -- love her. While she might be a princess, she was very adept at shooting guns to kill storm troopers, knowing her way around the Death Star, wearing a long dress that covered her up and flat boots, and even having funny zingers to fend off the attentions of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

Fisher in Star Wars with Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford

The next Halloween I was Princess Leia though I remember it was very cold wearing that thin white outfit with a brown belt. But we all wanted to be Princess Leias and Luke Skywalkers.

Watching the original Star Wars trilogy again in my 20s made me see how the dialogue was much more wittier than my six-year-old brain could figure out, and I could see the sexual chemistry between Han Solo and Princess Leia.

She redefined for me the definition of a heroine -- that she could achieve things herself -- she didn't need to depend on a man. They seemed like tools she could use to achieve her means.

I didn't watch the thinly autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, but I later saw Fisher in When Harry Met Sally..., another favourite movie of mine, where she plays Sally's best friend Marie, who immediately clicks with Harry's best friend Jess and they soon get married.

Fisher with Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally...

It was lovely to see Fisher again, and saying some funny lines.

Now I feel like I should read some of her books, where I am reading in obituaries that she was an even better writer than actress, writing about her life experiences as the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, growing up in Hollywood and getting into drugs, and being diagnosed bipolar.

Carrie Fisher, thank you. Thank you for telling an entire generation of little girls in the late 1970s that we too can be our own Princess Leias -- able to hold our own, witty, smart, strong and caring.

The Force Awakens

Star Wars fans will enjoy reminiscing with The Force Awakens

I am not one of those die hard Star Wars fans who was counting down the days for the latest installment of the franchise, but I have to admit I fondly remember the original characters, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Chewbacca.

Before the prequels, The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, I was in Hong Kong at the time and my colleague, a total Star Wars fan -- he has models of all kinds of things from the movie -- got me to go with him to see the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

The last time I had seen it was when I was about eight years old and so watching it again many years later was an interesting experience. In particular I loved the witty dialogue between Princess Leia and Han Solo, and having a better understanding of "the force" and how good and evil can be complicated -- that it's not always black and white.

Loved the witty repartees between Han Solo and Princess Leia

I only saw The Phantom Menace and wasn't too enamoured with it, which is why I didn't see Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith.

So it was with mixed feelings that I went with my dad this evening to see The Force Awakens at our neighbourhood theatre.

We saw the late show and as my dad predicted, the theatre was not full, though the seats that had bums in them were mostly young men in their 20s.

Nevertheless for father and daughter, it was a nice way for us to relive the original Star Wars in a new movie.

I'd read The Globe and Mail's Kate Taylor's review of The Force Awakens. She pointed out the parallels with A New Hope -- an orphan on a desert planet, a cryptic message falling into her possession and then somehow joining the resistance to fight the dark side.

And I can see why Taylor yawned at this -- what's new here? Nothing really, except to help fans recapture a lot of the nostalgia from A New Hope, and the movie, directed by JJ Abrams and written by him, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt does it well.

Rey, BB-8 and Finn flee from the evil Empire

There's even a bar scene that invokes the famous cantina scene in the original, and how some people can feel "the force".

Harrison Ford as Han Solo is is same self 38 years older, and clearly enjoying himself on the screen. Newcomer Daisy Ridley as Rey is fantastic -- a really strong female character that is refreshing to see, and John Boyega as Finn is the sensitive new age guy.

The fight scenes are pretty predictable -- the rebels' X-wings battle the Empire's starfighters, while Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) battles it out with Rey, this time in a snowy forest scene.

So now that Abrams has firmly re-established the Star Wars franchise with big thumbs up from fans, where does it go from here? That's the real question.

And we will wait with avid anticipation...