George Lucas: Star Destroyer of Kinky Fantasies

May the Fourth Be With You...(and altho with you)

TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE

a.k.a. Stuff that some of you totally know about me, and bunch of you don’t.

May 1977
5 Years Old

I am watching Star Wars in the movie theater with my parents. Princess Leia has been captured by the evil Lord Vader.

Leia is smart.

Leia is pretty.

Leia is sneaky and strong and clever and bold and I want to be just like her when I grow up.

The bad men in black march Leia down the hall. Her hands are bound in shackles. Compared to all the men, she is small in her flowy white gown. Compared to Lord Vader, she is very small.

Vader is mean.

Vader is scary.

Everybody obeys Vader the second his black helmet snaps toward them, and when they don't obey, very bad things happen to them.

The big nose man in the gray uniform corners Leia between him and Vader. He forces her to tell him where the rebel base is or watch him destroy her home planet. She has to tell. He destroys it anyway. I hope he fails Vader and gets choked. Very soon.

Leia lunges forward. "WHAT?!"

Vader's gloved hand grabs her shoulder. He pulls her back, right into him. He holds her tight against his hard, black uniform.

Leia is scared.

Leia is angry.

How can I still want to be Princess Leia right now? But I do. Very badly.

I do not understand.

---

May 1980
8 Years Old

I am back in the movie theater. The Empire is Striking Back after the destruction of the Death Star. Go Rebels! But now the scary Darth Vader music comes on before the Dark Lord strides in with his long black cape and his big black helmet. This time, it is Han Solo who has been taken captive.

Han is cute.

Han is a scoundrel.

Han is not always nice but he really does care about his friends after all.

Han is strapped to a weird looking chair that leaves him mostly standing. There is a horrible machine in front of him filled with needles and all sorts of other pokey things. Since Vader's around, that is sure to be a very bad day.

I keep thinking back to the last time Princess Leia was held captive by Vader. I want to see her kiss Han Solo again. But I kind of want to see her in that chair, too. It tilts forward. Han winces away. All the pokey things glow red and spark as they zap him. He pants and whimpers and flinches and grunts. Eventually, he starts screaming.

Leia is somewhere in another cell.

Leia could be next!

When I go home, Johnny and I zoom his X-wing and TIE Fighter through the asteroid course (the boulders in the stream). We make Luke do front-flips all around Dagobah (the woods at the end of the road) and levitate everything in sight.

Once winter comes, we can’t wait to build Hoth. This is Minnesota, after all, and the plows pile snow up higher than our roofs, so we can tunnel a whole secret rebel base under there. We can also pour water onto ice sculpture fortresses and freeze them until June.

Johnny is so lucky. He has the whole action figure set. He’s been my best friend forever, so he lets me play with them. He just got an AT-AT and a new Luke and Han in winter gear with a tauntaun and everything. When we play Star Wars Men, he plays Luke and Chewie. I always play Han and Vader.

Yet at night, when everything is quiet and I am completely alone, I put on my ear-muffs even in the middle of summer so I can pretend that I am Leia. There is one particular scene I can’t get out of my mind. I never breathe a word about this scene to anybody, because I pretend it's The Princess marched in shackles into that scary room and strapped onto that chair. This time, Vader stays through the whole thing. He doesn't put the zappy machine on her face. He puts it on her body while he asks her more questions about stolen plans and rebel bases and a great many other things.

Sometimes she gives in and tells him, but he just laughs and keeps zapping her anyway.

Sometimes she holds out, cursing him with her very last breaths, and he has to admire her courage. He unstraps her and lifts up her limp body, holding her close. Even closer than when he held her in the last movie.

Vader is strong.

Vader is powerful.

Vader carries Leia as though she weighs no more than the little dog Toto or my favorite fuzzy Tribble.

As he marches back to her prison cell in his big black helmet and his big black boots, he lays her down on the hard slab. He is gentle and looming and quiet and scary. She is almost passed out. His Vader-breathing sounds in her ear as he bends close to growl, "We'll continue this conversation later." That growl is almost a purr and it raises the hair on the back of my neck.

He whirls around and storms out with his big black cape swirling around him.

Over and over, day after day after day, Vader does this to her in my mind. I am terrified of needles and I don't want anything pokey to zap me. I sure don't want to be screaming like Han did, but I keep re-writing the movie with that scene in it, and I keep imagining that I am Princess Leia.

I really, really don't understand.

---

May 1983
11 Years Old

I have Returned Like the Jedi to the theater for the same lovable characters and a whole new setting. Princess Leia is no longer wearing flowy gowns. Now she is chained to Jabba the Hut's side in a gold bikini with a tiny scrap of a skirt.

Leia's limbs and belly are bare.

Leia's neck is covered in a slave collar.

I imagine that Leia isn't wearing anything under that skirt.

I also know what I’ll be imagining when I get home: that it's not Luke who comes to free her, but Vader. While the Dark Lord chokes everybody in sight, Leia chokes Jabba with her chain. The monster's pustule-covered tongue flops out. His tail thumps the ground. Once he's dead, Vader's glowing, red saber slices her chain free. He thinks she should be grateful, but she shoves him and runs. He overtakes her, overpowers her.

He wrangles her back to his ship where now he eats supper and enjoys her in the gold bikini. He commands her to dance for him like the green girl danced for Jabba. At first, it is a dance of anger and hatred. Then it turns into a dance of seduction (so she can get close enough for more chain-choking and escape). He likes whatever she dances. I like the sound of that chain whenever she moves.

I do not understand why.

At one point, his big gloved hand wraps around it and he yanks her across the table, spilling food and drink all over the pristine, white cloth. He growls all sorts of things into her ear.

Vader is still scary.

Vader is still mean.

The movie continues playing across the big screen. There are Ewoks and they are cute. Leia flirts with Han and it is sweet. I laugh and cringe and groan and cheer alongside my parents, but in my mind, Vader is doing evil things to Princess Leia.

I am beginning to understand that he will also do other things to her. Things she will eventually enjoy against her better judgment because she doesn't actually like nice men. But some of the things will be nice, even if he is not. She will eventually want him to do those things to her, but she'll never admit that to him. He'll know it anyway, and he'll continue to do them, over and over, day after day after--

WHAT?!

Fuck you, Obi-Wan.

Fuck you, Luke.

What do you mean and what did you just say and you better not have said what I think you--

You totally did!

Leia is Luke's twin sister?

But…but Luke is Darth Vader's son!

That means Leia is—

And that’s what he looks like under his—

I slouch in the theater, dejected with my arms crossed and my bottom lip “Harrumph.” Although I am thrilled that Luke lives, the Evil Emperor gets his, and Vader is redeemed after all, I cannot put Leia on the Dark Lord’s knee in a gold bikini—while holding a stuffed greeper.

I cannot watch Leia call Vader “Daddy” while seductively stroking his helmet.

I just cannot do it.

Let It Be Knowne: George Lucas is the Star Destroyer of Kink forever and ever, amen.

THE END.

Me at GalaxyFest in 2011, demonstrating that the Geek is strong with this one (and surreptitiously telling this tale through a little dancey peek at my Dark Side):

BONUS: Because this topic deserves One Extra Dose of…