"...did i ever tell you my dad built the Millenium Falcon?"
(HUH!?!)
...it was (and still is) a line i like to drop into a lull in conversation, an impossible claim surely? but one i could back up, albeit circumstantially. Star Wars of course, is a massive franchise, almost ubiquitous throughout the western (and beyond) world, with all kinds of watered down spin-offs and dodgy products, Merchandise city, they practically built it. But this is the original Star Wars i'm talking about, and the original Millenium Falcon.
...in these days prior to the ubiquitous and much overhyped CGI phenomenon, it was all about creating an illusion with models, and the use of matte paintings for magnificent backgrounds, and occasionally, when close ups were involved, full size sets were built in studio lots, such as the Millenium Falcon, featured heavily in the first movie, is seen in many scenes as a model, flying hither and thither, but when it's time for the lightsabre battle between Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi, a life size section is needed, and in steps my father, or should i say GKN, the multinational corporation for which my father was a project manager.
I remember him showing me one of their glossy end of the year self congratulatory annual review books of projects they used to produce, and although most items usually flew over my head (Thames Flood Barrier? does the Thames flood often? i remember thinking) but then with a knowing grin he turned the page to reveal the jewel in their crown as far as i was concerned, the Millenium Falcon, under construction, with some random people standing round, finally, i had some respect for my fathers work (which seemed to consist in him berating people on the phone and talking gobbledegook into his handheld tape recorder on the times when he worked from home).
Although this wasn't actually one of his projects, the reflected glow was enough for me, and from this point on this little factoid was a bomb i liked to drop into conversations when they were getting a bit too fanboi starwars geeky, (which was often, but even more so nowadays what with Disney driving the hyperbole); I'd wait with a secret smile knowing the effect my proclamation could have until just the right moment...and BOOM! instant incredulity, even after details were added...
...CUT TO - many years later, just after my father breathed his last, and we (the fam) are arranging his funeral with the funeral director, who is asking if we have any suitable anecdotes or stories about the deceased, to weave into the service...after a pregnant pause of silent contemplation, you just know which story is at the front of my mind and bursting to get out, it's the only thing i can think of in fact, (which is more than the rest of the fam can come up with) so i roll it all out for them as the director takes note in a list of items that my father's life has been reduced to in this weird coda we call a funeral.
CUT TO - the perfect mood weather for a funeral, it's damp and cold like only the grim north of England can be, and inside the crematorium the atmos is cooling even further as this geezer, this priest, or whatever he likes to call himself is doing his best to sound like he knows my dad, but failing miserably at his vocation. All he's got to do is say a few kind words and pleasant prose ('don't be waffling on about god' was one thing we could all agree on in the info session, even though most of the fam are mormons?), but he's suffering from not being able to fall back on the omnipresent goodness of his sky fairy, so is paraphrasing the crib sheet in a most clunky fashion, and still bringing god into it, which is making it worse of course, (grumble grumble from the cheap seats) and then he gets to the anecdotal section, and you can immediately tell that not only does he not know the deceased, he is also blissfully unaware of the star wars multiverse, no room for them with all that godly omnipotence (i think the mormons understand the star wars multiverse better what with their wacky scifi offworld origin story, though i think it's more like the superman origin story, with white people as the ubermensch coming to earth, and the darker skins progressively more subhuman, but i digress)
...back to the stuttering geezer in the dowdy black frock, who is looking like a schoolboy who hasn't done his homework trying to bluff his class and teacher with a improvised shuffling of words from his crib sheet
"...and of course we all remember the time when Maurice played the Falcon at the Millenium Dome"
*insert TUMBLEWEED gif here
...uncomfortable silence as glances are exchanged as no-one can make sense of this, an already odd eulogy has drifted into the pure fantasy it seems, has he got his crib sheets mixed up?, is it time for his medication? my father was somewhat of a theatre geek, but his skills were backstage and technical, he never trod the boards, 'at the Millenium Dome?' especially; total incredulity, the perfect space in which to drop my well rehearsed factoid bomb, this time to an appreciative and grateful audience, glad to have some sense and humour restored to what had been a very sombre affair and giving pops (a great comedian himself, with superb timing and delivery) one of the best curtain drops ever, second only to Tommy Cooper.
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