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It’s hard to describe in a way most people will truly appreciate, but in a way, two things sacred to me as a child were Star Wars and Disney. They were part of how I imagined the world could and should be.

But I’m all grown up.

I still believe in Santa Claus, in Chivalry, that there is a Dulcinea for every Don and that windmills don’t always win.

But Lucas, like all of us, isn’t the same man he once was. The story isn’t as unpretentious or unassuming as when Episode IV was aired in Drive-Ins because theaters didn’t think it would be a hit. Disney World has grown closer to a toy store and commercials than a child’s Mecca. Even the Lake Buena Vista shopping village, now “Main Street Disney” and in earshot of “Pleasure Island”, power boats have permanently relegated riding pedal boats with my Dad to a cherished memory.

You can never go back.

But I want to believe.

Will this awaken in me a renewed sense of life, a much needed rebirth from the growing inertia of wear and tear on my body, my soul? Will it be only a “movie”, a conduit for popcorn sales and expensive toys? Or will there be some peculiar Divine inspiration as it so seemed all those years — and now generations — ago? Will 2015 be the new 1977?

Some people will think all this is flat out silly and dumb, like criticizing someone mourning the death of a beloved pet who has never experienced it themselves. Again, I don’t know how to describe it. Or make you understand if you don’t already know how I feel.

You can never go back. But you can make it home. The actors have aged with us, and stories with meaning never die. With the possibility it will be a contrived farce, a shadow that reminds me not of my youth but how old I’ve become, I have a tinge of literal fear within. If the worst proves true, life will go on, and the saga will live on within me and others in spite of an irreverent treatment of a legend and mythos that has helped make us who we are.

But I’d rather it not be that way. I want the spirit within to feel young again. And I want the torch passed with fresh batteries, not the rusting corrosion of a cruel joke where one childhood memory betrays another. Is it a dark time, or a prophesy fulfilled, the redemption of the old by the new?

Mickey, you’re my only hope.