What ‘Star Wars’ Taught Me About Growing Older

On the 45th anniversary of ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ the movie still has lessons

Eric Spitznagel,

AARP

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Published May 01, 2025

“What are you doing this summer?” my younger brother Mark asked in a phone call, his voice giddy with excitement. “Never mind, I’ll tell you what you’re doing. You and I are going to London to watch freaking Star Wars.”

This June, he told me, the British Film Institute will host a screening of the original Star Wars — the version that first played to audiences in 1977, before George Lucas decided to update it and add a bunch of unnecessary CGI. It’s one of the few original Technicolor prints still in existence, and the first time it’s had a proper theatrical showing in nearly 50 years.

This is exhilarating news for those of us of a certain age: the Gen Xers who grew up with Star Wars and its first two sequels. Finally, the defining movie of our youth as it was always meant to be seen, with clunky special effects created by hand, and Han Solo shooting first.

“That sounds great,” I told Mark. “I’m just … I’m not sure I can afford that.”

My brother and I have always been close, but our lives as adults couldn’t be more different. He runs a successful hedge fund with assets in the billions. I’m a journalist living paycheck to paycheck. He’s got two homes, a goat farm and an office in Miami. I rent a small three-bedroom apartment in the suburbs, and my “office” is our local coffee shop.

But if there’s one thing we continue to have in common, it’s our obsession with Star Wars. In fact, the older I’ve become, the more I’ve started to appreciate the life lessons of George Lucas’ fictional universe.

two children posing in homemade star wars costumes

Weeks after seeing "The Empire Strikes Back," the author (Chewbacca in jeans), his brother and a few neighborhood friends began shooting “The Empire Strikes Back (Again).”

AARP (Courtesy the author, Shutterstock)

Sooner or later, we all turn into Yoda

I watched The Empire Strikes Back again recently — “for work,” as I reminded my wife — and realized I’m starting to identify with different characters now. I feel a kinship with Yoda, not just because he’s 900 years old, but because he’s clearly annoyed by Luke’s impatience. Yoda’s entire plotline is basically this: “Please calm down, try to focus on your schoolwork, stop thinking only about your friends, and sit down with me for a nice dinner.”

That is exactly what it’s like to live with a teenager.

Even Darth Vader is more sympathetic once you hit middle age. He’s a slave to his job, spending every waking hour at the office and dropping everything any time his boss calls. He’s got some health concerns, like respiratory issues — his helmet is basically a fancy CPAP machine. Darth just wants his kids to visit and maybe take an interest in his life, but every time they do, they’re like, “Noooo! Noooo!”

Again, that is exactly what it’s like to live with a teenager.

Stop overthinking and just go for it

Part of the reason we loved The Empire Strikes Back so much as kids is that it made science fiction seem like something anybody with a little free time and access to a garage full of junk could pull off. The special effects were good, but not that good. A few rubber masks, some spaceship models attached to strings, and anyone could be the next George Lucas.

And that’s exactly what we did. Just weeks after seeing the movie in 1980, my brother and I started shooting The Empire Strikes Back (Again), a “reimagining” filmed entirely on an 8-millimeter camera.

a child dressed in a homemade c-3po costume

C-3PO, performed by a Michigan preteen, and an R2-D2 droid, assembled from a water bucket and a milk crate, in an action shot.

AARP (Courtesy the author, Shutterstock)

Casting was easy. Our neighbor Scott, with his rugged good looks and smug sarcasm, was a natural as Han Solo. Mike, another neighborhood kid, who was one color-coordinated sweater away from being entirely orange, was an obvious choice for C-3P0. My brother was Luke because he had the shag haircut and, more importantly, he owned the camera. And I played Chewbacca, not for my hairiness but because of my height. We had no Leia, because we were too shy to talk to any girls.

Our finished film — all 20 minutes of it — was a huge hit. We charged a quarter per head to watch the movie (without sound, mind you) in our family’s basement, and the entire neighborhood lined up for opening weekend. To this day, it’s still one of the best memories of my childhood.

It pops into my head randomly as an adult, particularly during moments when I feel overwhelmed, or paralyzed with imposter syndrome. You’re never too old to think, “I can’t do this. I’m in over my head. Everybody is going to find out I’m a fraud.” But then I remember The Empire Strikes Back (Again), and how my brother and I made our own shoestring version of a Hollywood movie, and that it was the reason we finally mustered the courage to talk to girls.

If I could pull off that kind of hat trick as a kid, then what the hell was I worried about in my 50s?

Ignore the odds and trust yourself

As a kid, I wanted to be Han Solo. He was the epitome of effortless cool. But with the hindsight of age, I’m not so impressed anymore. Why in the world would anyone want to be like Han Solo? He’s in debt, can’t hold down a job, is always ditching his friends, and has the worst possible response when Leia finally says, “I love you.” (“I know,” he tells her. Seriously? Try that with your partner tonight and see how it goes, I dare you.) But he has one line in Empire that I come back to time and time again in my 50s. When C3PO tries to warn him about the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field, he snaps back, “Never tell me the odds.”

two children on a beach, wearing star wars-inspired outfits

AARP (Courtesy the author, Shutterstock)

(From left) The author and his brother show off their futuristic outfits and '70s haircuts.

That's actually good advice. Optimism is more important than obsessing over what can go wrong. I kind of understood this as a kid, but it didn’t really sink in till I reached adulthood, got married and had kids and was suddenly acutely aware of how much I had to lose. You’ll never understand a line like “never tell me the odds” until you’ve had to wait for biopsy results.

Life can be complicated

My biggest revelation about Empire, which I’ve only realized as I’ve gotten older, is its moral ambiguity. The movie has no happily ever after. There’s no satisfying conclusion. The good guys don’t always win. Your mentors will sometimes lie to you. Your friends sometimes leave. Family is complicated. Love is messy and doesn’t always end up like we expected. It’s basically a metaphor that life can be full of disappointment and uncertainty, and nothing is guaranteed.

I never appreciated any of this when I was 10. To me, it was just a cool movie about spaceships, lightsabers and telekinetic Muppets. And it is that. But with the hindsight of age, the story gets so much richer.

Cut yourself some slack

My brother and I didn't fly to London for the Star Wars screening. Instead, Mark invited me over for a private screening in his basement. It was a battered VHS copy of Empire, the version we’d seen in theaters 45 years ago. And it still holds up. The special effects look like something a group of Michigan preteens could’ve done, but that’s what makes it so perfect.

Then we watched The Empire Strikes Back (Again), our homemade homage. It still holds up, and in a weird way, it had as many surprises as Lucas’ masterpiece.

There’s one scene with Darth Vader wandering the desert planet Tatooine (which we mistakenly renamed “Tantoonie”), searching for Luke, and he decides to stop and take a nap in the sand. That bit was improvised, as the kid wearing the Darth outfit was overheating — we shot it on the beach during a hot summer day in 1980 — and collapsed from exhaustion.

As a kid, I was always annoyed by that scene. Darth would never do that! But today, well into our 50s, it’s not just hilarious but also strangely relatable. Life can be hard, especially when you’re an older adult and you can’t retire and your kids keep disappearing and your lungs aren’t cooperating like they used to and you can’t remember the last time you had a day just to yourself. Sometimes you just want to lie down and take a snooze. The Force can wait a half hour!

May the Fourth be with you, my friends. And maybe a nap.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.