So the Star Wars trailer dropped this week, and as of now, it has averaged over 33 million views in a matter of three days. My, oh my, did it make me giddy. I was so happy with the trailer that I had watched it five times. Hang on, I think it was seven. Wait, I lost count. Damn it. Another video that skyrocketed in views was the superimposition of the scene where Matthew Mcconaughey saw a video of his daughter for the first time in a while on Interstellar and the Star Wars trailer.

As funny as that video is, that reaction is actually not far fetched from actual people’s reactions. There were grown men who cried at watching the trailer. That’s how strong of an impact the video had on the audience. Let’s put things into context here. We are talking about a video that is not sad at all. The video is a compilation of action sequences from the movie designed to hype a person for the movie and hopefully will spread like wild fire among the social interwebs. It did exactly that but I don’t think the marketing department ever expected people to be emotionally connected to the trailer. Nostalgic yes but never quite the tears flowing from the eye.

It all dates back to the year 1977 where this all started. George Lucas, a struggling film maker at the time put all his hopes, dreams and time into this project called Star Wars, a strange concept at the time. In essence, it is a space opera but in truth, it was a movie that was meant to be fun and exuberant. George Lucas, fearing the movie was going to be a failure made plans to be in Hawaii with his wife on the opening day but ended up in a Los Angeles sound studio instead. On the day, he actually forgotten the movie came out and when he went to have lunch with his wife, what he then saw was a very long line of people outside the theatre, all waiting to see Star Wars. The rest was then history. It became a cultural phenomenon and sensation. On a $11 million dollar budget, $775.4 million dollars had been made till this day from the box office.

I still find it amazing that a movie could turn into such a phenomenon and also more astound at the gravitas it has pulling people from all walks of life together. People will laugh, talk, cry, argue, discuss and do everything except not talk about it. Yes, there are movies like Titanic, Gone with the Wind or Avatar that remained some of the highest grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation and whatnot but I doubt they would ever have the impact Star Wars did on not just the American culture but globally as well.

I guess the question is, why is that?

In a few days time, the movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron is going to be released in the local Australian theatres. Am I excited for it? I had watched every single Marvel movie before this, up to date with all the Easter eggs, a fan of the TV shows, watched the trailer only just about 20 times. I guess, you could say, “Yeah, I’m excited.” Yeah. Probably. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I AM SO EXCITED THAT I CAN’T EVEN FINISH THIS SENTENCE. Wait, I actually did.

Again, I was never a fan of Star Wars and Marvel comic books as I grew up. I guess you could say I grew into it as I got older. I don’t know how that worked. How is it possible I’m a bigger fan of these things than I am when I was a kid? I will never know. Maybe it’s the kangaroo meat. Maybe it’s the exposure of my friends. Or maybe it’s just me.

I don’t know how it differs between girls and guys but I can only offer my perspective. George Lucas said this for Star Wars,

“My main reason for making it was to give young people an honest, wholesome fantasy life, the kind my generation had. We had westerns, pirate movies, all kinds of great things. Now they have The Six Million Dollar Man and Kojak. Where are the romance, the adventure, and the fun that used to be in practically every movie made?”

So, maybe that’s why some of us love this. The honest, wholesome fantasy life and the kind our generation now has is what makes us, I guess, cool. It’s why it has such a big impact on cultures. There’s few things I find that’s more inspiring than a collaboration between a group of people that is able to create a whole new world of fantasy and such vividly interesting characters. Maybe this is why I am also a huge fan of Lord of the Rings because J.R.R Tolkien was able to create such a differently epic world and also why I like Eragon as well.

The human brain is so capable of so much things. Our capacity to imagine and wonder is such a great gift that we don’t realize. I’m not fan of every imagined world out there. That would be very concerning on my part as there are some imaginations that goes down a very dark path and places the Sun doesn’t reach. But yeah, when I was a kid, I used to pretend I’m spiderman, a power ranger, a dragon and whatnot just cause I allowed myself to imagine. Imagination is born from creativity and that’s what makes us who we are. So, yeah, allow yourself some imagination.

Anyway, I don’t really have any other reasons why I like Star Wars or Avengers. I just do. Not everything needs a reason and explanation. Sometimes, you just like it. It’s awesome.

I’m looking forward to watching Avengers on the big screen this week. My body is ready for it. I assure you I’m not a spokesperson for the movies I talked about but you know, Disney, if you need some media coverage and is looking to hire, just give me a call.

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” Carl Sagan

If I were to tell you how I usually write my stories, I envision them in my mind first, i.e. I paint a picture of it in my head before I write it down which explains why my stories are/were terrible to begin with. A written story is meant to portray the story and the characters through the words written not through the author’s vision for a video or a movie because a movie and a book are two separate things. What I’m still struggling with is translating that vision onto words and from words translate back to the reader’s visual interpretation of it in her/his head effectively.

Anyway, that was a random thought of the day as I remembered the reason I write stories was also because of Wong Fu productions. Did I mentioned I adore them? Yes, indeed. The time I supported Wong Fu coincided with the time I came to Australia. So, there is some sort of connection there, the usual association by time and coincidence memory effect. I was so fascinated by their shorts that I had always wondered, “How cool would it be for me to make a video again that is able to inspire while being funny and relevant?” There’s that. So, they came up with a short two days ago, titled appropriately, “Accumulated” which was inspired by Phil’s personal blog post. Have a read at it. It is much profound and eloquently written.

The take home question was, “Remember when “I like you” was enough?

They say love is complicated. They say love is strange. They say love is crazy. Can love ever be simple?

I went through a phase where I didn’t dare to express my feelings for the girl/girls that I like. Har har. For a long time, I feared a lot of things. I feared if her parents would approve of me. I feared where we would be five years from now. I feared if things are going to work out. I feared if I will have time for her and dedicate my heart to the relationship. I feared if I carried any accumulated feelings from the past and was probably just looking for a rebound. Ultimately, I found out that, I feared, my heart being broken again.

Sometimes, a person lies to himself long enough that he can’t recognize the difference between truth from lie, the fantasy from reality and the courage from cowardice. He begins to assume that it’s all these other factors and reasons that stops him from taking the next step when the biggest barrier was indeed just, himself.

I have always written about optimism and that the rewards reaped from loving someone is so much that it far outweighs the risk of being dejected and isolated but I don’t think everyone can afford to think that way. Can they? Barriers are set up for a reason. Just as in war, barriers are set up to defend oneself from being damaged, again.

As a person grows older, he or she goes through more heartbreaks and relationship troubles. Hence, the word, ‘accumulated’. The accumulation of the past comes to a standstill that you feel you can’t breathe and that you are at a point of no return. It’s a similar concept in life as well. When one has been through so much and looked at war more than peace, can one ever revert to the ideal that loving is simple?

I can’t speak for others as some go through much more severe situations but I can speak for myself. The answer is yes. Yes, you can. The nature of love is so beautiful because its purest form is to give yourself selflessly to others. There is no love or true love. Love is not love if it’s not true to begin with. When a child offers you his only bar of chocolate left, is that not simple? When a child gives you his biggest smile, that’s love. It’s when we make love such a big thing and that it’s over weighing and a burden, we forgot that love starts with small little actions. Every complicated action, when broken up to its core components becomes simple again.

Some of us stopped loving not because we don’t want to but because we forgotten how simple it was to begin with. I took a long time to remember that it’s alright to put my heart out there. My heart would most likely be broken a thousand times between now and the end of my life but it would also be mended a thousand times and more as well because as much as love hurts, it also gives and breathes life into you.

It would always be enough.