Laughing Matters

The “I Haven’t Watched Solo Yet and You Can’t Make Me!” Edition

by Ryan G. Van Cleave |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

My name is Ryan, and I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan.

[Hi, Ryan!]

I had R2D2 sheets on my bed as a kid. I put Star Wars trading cards in the spokes of my Huffy bicycle that sported a super-cool black banana seat. I owned one of the small-head Han Solo action figures from the 1980 The Empire Strikes Back series (before that head popped off during an especially enthusiastic to-the-death battle with a friend’s Darth Vader action figure—the one with the telescoping red lightsaber).

Since we’re all friends here, I’ll even admit this: I once told my second-grade classmates that I visited Tatooine during my summer vacation. And even more grimace-inducing? I tried to convince the doubters that I was being honest by bringing “genuine Tatooine sand” to school on a Tuesday . . . fresh from the neighbor kid’s Playskool turtle sandbox.

Yep. I was that geeky.

But brace yourself—I haven’t yet seen Solo: A Star Wars Story.

I’m sure there’s nothing particularly wrong with the movie. It’s got that guy from Community in it. Chewie gets to wear some cool goggles. And it features music by the guy who scored The Adventures of Pluto Nash and who created the music for the Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party, it seems. Score!

Still, I’m going to say “Thanks, but no thanks.” There are five reasons why I’m boycotting this—and potentially all future—Star Wars flicks.

1. Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have the A-OK from Disney to do a Star Wars “movie series.” (One can only assume this will include zombie Jedi, Wookie porn, and a half-dozen characters we thought were the protagonists . . . until they were slaughtered.)
2. Midi-chlorians. (I think I used a bottle of them to clean my pool once. They smelled awful.)
3. It’s too popular. The only people in the universe who haven’t seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars. Why not buck the trend?
4. It’s all a trick. It SEEMS pretty futuristic, but it actually takes place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Huh? (Thanks to Dwight from The Office for pointing out that gaffe!)
5. Jar-Jar Binks soured me on everything Star Wars until the heat death of the universe.

Here’s further proof—absolutely, 100%-beyond-a-doubt stuff—that I’m making a good call by avoiding this Solo movie. There has not a been a peep of “Didya see . . .” “Whatcha think about . . .” “So cool that . . .” watercooler discussions about that movie at work. Granted, my workplace does not have a watercooler. And since I teach at a college, my work environment isn’t one with massive shared-time breaks or lunch opportunities where such discussions are more likely to happen. But hey, proof is proof, right?

Now that I’m not stuck having to fork out $834 for one (1) AMC movie adult movie ticket, $221 for a single medium Diet Coke, and $517.37 for one bathtub-sized tub o’ popcorn, I have money to burn. I’ve been thinking about taking a driving tour of American weirdness. If you’re confused why this appeals to me, re-read the I’m-a-geek opening of this piece. Or re-peruse pretty much any of the previous Laughing Matters columns. As Fox Mulder once declared: “The truth IS out there.”

In any case, I’m especially interested in seeing Cano’s Castle in Antonio, Colorado on this road trip. This castle is beer can folk art “at its finest,” I’ve been assured. Plus who doesn’t want to see a four-tower “chateau” made almost entirely from empty Blatz cans and a chunk or two of scrap metal?

Plus there’s the thousand-pound chicken wing on a dockside deck outside a Hooter’s in Madeira Beach, Florida. It’s the “world’s largest chicken wing” as of this moment, the restaurant claims, though I worry about the longevity of that title since surely a new Godzilla remake will have him fighting some CGI bird-beast from Planet Trkysis, and then the title of “world’s largest chicken wing” will be in doubt for certain. I can already see the Yahoo article about this plus the ensuing comment board wars. “CGI IS real.” “Aliens don’t count. Just ask Trump.” “Col. Sanders is licking his chops!” “I’ve been wondering—how do you get YouTube to come out and film you?

The other wackadoodle roadside stop I’m eager to witness is Lenny the Chocolate Moose in Scarborough, Maine (about 10 minutes south of Portland). You get the appeal, right? 1,700 pounds of stale, 18-year-old chocolate. Shaped like a moose. Standing in a pool of white chocolate beside a 350-pound dark chocolate mother bear and two 80-pound chocolate cubs, named Cocoa and Chip. Yum, yum.

So excuse me while I gas up the family truckster, dig up an old school fold-out map of the US, grab six bags of Funyuns and a case of Mello Yello, and prepare myself for two weeks of end-of-summer American Awesomeness. Unless someone can guarantee me that watching Solo is more KAPOW for my summer buck, I’m hitting the road.

So until further notice, consider me off the Star Wars bandwagon landspeeder. I’ll see you soon, Lenny!

Want to brag about your new (it’s a real thing!) Death Star backyard fire pit? Got a hankering to challenge me to some (no joke now—look it up!) lightsaber thumb wrestling? Interested in ranting about how you find my lack of faith in Star Wars disturbing? Send those goodies to ryan@scenesarasota.com today!

Many more of Ryan’s dad jokes can be found here.