This past year a refurbished Star Wars seemed to be everywhere, but I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a freshness; also a sense of moral good and fun. But then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having. The bad penny first dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times. His elegant mother nodded with approval. Looking into the boy's eyes, I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form, and I guessed that one day they would explode. "I would love you to do something for me," I said. "Anything! Anything!" the boy replied rapturously. "You won't like what I'm going to ask you to do," I said. "Anything, sir, anything!" "Well," I said, "do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?" He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an immense height. "What a dreadful thing to say to a child!" she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right, but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities.
- Sir Alec Guinness, interviewed in "The Telegraph"
