What happens when this "Star Wars" non-fan finally watches the movie again? Read on!

I recently watched the original Star Wars movie for the first time since I saw it back in the day. This was a big deal for me, because I am one of the few people in America who has been very meh, as the kids say these days, about Star Wars. So what made me do this? Because of fantasy football. Let me explain.

I wrote this October on Facebook about how I didn't care about Star Wars: The Force Awakens:

"Shocker: I'm one of the few people who has zero interest in the new Star Wars movie. Does that make me un-American?"

Lots and lots of my Facebook friends were stunned and dismayed by my admission. It was as if I said, "I like to eat babies for breakfast. Deal with it!"

Now, I had seen the first three Star Wars movies when I was a kid (I think it was a requirement if you grew up in the 1970s and 80s, along with reading Dynamite magazine and knowing what the words are to "Conjunction Junction.")  I found the movies okay. Never felt the need to see them again, as I noted in that Facebook thread, and they were never like The Godfather or Goodfellas to me. Also, I argued that there was way too much hype about the Star Wars flicks, given that only two or three out of the six installments are considered good.

I didn't even get into how the Star Wars fanatics in the world kind of scare me. Wearing clothing of characters they like? Playing with toys related to the film? Indoctrinating their children into their creepy cult? Watching certain parts over and over? Lining up for tickets? Too weird. Oh, wait, aren't many sports fans guilty of all of those things?

Now, some FB friends did agree with my assessment of the movies, but most of the responses I received were negative. Very negative. My running club compadre and fellow blogger Josh Pesin was particularly peeved, and wrote this impassioned response to my negative comments:

"George Lucas based the whole Star Wars universe on Greek mythological archetypes using the writings of mythology expert Joseph Campbell. There are deep Oedipal and psychological meanings throughout the films that reflect the weaknesses of the human condition. Unrequited love, a thirst for power, innocence lost, and betrayal are just some of the themes of human frailties dealt with throughout the films. And Lucas created a distant future full of dystopian imagery where robots are banged up, dirtied and worn, aliens are tired of working their 9-5 jobs, and humans still have trouble making ends meet where their crops on farms of far-away planets are just not growing. While the cinematographic images, costumes, score, special effects, and fantastical aliens and creatures all add to an amazing visceral experience throughout all the films, critics who only judge Star Wars from this superficial level are missing the point. Star Wars deep down is a film series that focuses primarily on the nuances, challenges and realities of the human condition."

Then he delivered the kicker. "I would never say I had zero interest in any of your passions. There would be no point in me stating that." Ouch!

That particular comment made me feel extremely guilty. And I wondered how I could make amends.

Josh is able to leap tall buildings in
a single bound. But setting a fantasy
football lineup? Fuhgeddaboudit!

You see, as I mentioned earlier in this blog, I roped Josh into joining our running club's first-ever fantasy football league because we needed ten players, and only had nine. (His team's name? The 10th Guy.) I initially thought he would have football knowledge because he is a real badass, as you can see from this picture. Josh does Spartan Races and marathons (including running the NYC Marathon six times!) and adventure races and road races and polar bear plunges and mountain biking and all sorts of manly stuff.

But that's the thing. He is a sports participant, not a spectator. He likes to play football, not watch it. Let alone pay attention to the intricacies of fantasy football.

Even though I helped Josh every week with his team, fantasy football just wasn't his thing. As he put it to me a few weeks ago: "Me doing this 15-week fantasy football is like you following Star Wars for 15 weeks and being expected to maintain and know your Star Wars characters every week."

Here Josh exclusively re-enacts for Subway
Squawkers his facial expression
when hearing me explain
how NFL bye weeks work.

Ouch again! Josh was totally right in his comparison, and I felt terrible. Here he did me a solid in agreeing to be in my fantasy football league, something that was important to me, and how did I repay him? By dissing a movie that was important to him. What a heel I was. Why didn't I try to learn about his interests, given that he spent a whole season trying to learn about mine?

So I knew what I had to do. And that was watch the original Star Wars again. Maybe he and the many millions of people who love the franchise were right, and I was (gulp!) wrong. At the very least, I could sit through this for two hours, considering Josh sat through a whole season of fantasy football.

Last weekend, I took the plunge on watching Episode IV: A New Hope. The first 15 minutes were slow going; Carrie Fisher's weird accent, dumb hairstyle, and tacky makeup job grated on my last nerve. So did C3PO's manner of speaking. (Why in a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, do they speak in a plummy faux-British accent? Annoying!) I did like the way Tattooine looked, but that was about it.

I really wanted to quit watching at this point, but I decided to plow through it the way I plowed through the Staten Island Half-Marathon with a hip and leg injury. So I gritted my teeth and kept on watching.

And then a strange thing happened. I found myself entertained by the movie. Luke Skywalker doesn't show up until 17 minutes into the movie, but when he did, things started getting interesting, even if he was a little whiny. Alec Guinness was a great actor, so it was fun to see him as Obi-Wan Kenobi. I liked seeing the stormtroopers on the giant lizards. Then the road trip begins with Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids, and I'm always a sucker for a good road trip.

By the time the cantina scene started, I thought "Hey, this isn't so bad." And then the best part of the movie showed up: Harrison Ford as Han Solo! Oh, my. I thought he was so handsome and dashing in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I never thought of his Star Wars character that way; that could be because I was still four years away from puberty when Star Wars debuted. Anyhow, his appearance in the film, 47 minutes in, made the whole movie for me. Han Solo was just such a great character; one of the original lovable rogues, before that became a cliche.

I also liked the camaraderie with him, Chewbacca, Luke, and Leia. Especially the banter with Leia. And the way Han Solo decided to do something selfless to help the rebels. The ending awards scene reminded me of The Wizard of Oz, and when the movie was finished, I thought, "Hey, this was pretty good entertainment!"

Is Star Wars going to make my all-time favorite movies list? The answer is still no. But I did enjoy watching the movie, and I...was..wrong in my earlier assessment, as much as that pains me to say! I was initially going to just write my review of the film for Josh, but he talked me into writing a blog entry on this. Even thought it would mean I would have to publicly admit that I was wrong about something. "People like honesty and those who keep things real," he said. So even though Squawker Jon thinks this whole blog entry is an all-star effort in navel-gazing, I figured I had to write this up. Who knows? Maybe I'll even go to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But I'm not wearing a costume!

Yeah, I know nobody cares about my fantasy team (or fantasy league!) but I'm still going to Squawk about it!

The first annual SIAC Fantasy Football League.

Me wearing my commissioner's hat. I'd like to think
I look like an old-school rapper with the hat!

There are three kinds of fantasy football players -- the hardcore, the moderate, and the neophytes. Kind of like the people in my running club. And sometimes, these worlds collide. This is a Squawk about what happens when they do.

I am at the back of the pack when it comes to running (although I do enjoy the heck out of it, and have lost 52.5 pounds so far doing so!) But I am pretty good at fantasy sports.And I wanted to do something with my running club, the Staten Island Athletic Club, that showed I was actually semi-competent at something! (Squawker Jon read this blog entry before it was published and said that his neck was hurting from reading all of this navel-gazing. So sue me!)

Anyhow, I somehow was able to form the first-ever fantasy football league with our running club members.

So we had our fantasy football draft Monday night at the Pepperjack Grill on Staten Island, the same place that hosts our monthly meetings. (Incidentally, my team's name is "My Balls Are Perfect," as per that legendary Daily News back page about Tom Brady.)

As commissioner, I wanted to make sure we got to 10 people, so I talked my compadre and fellow blogger Josh into joining our league. This, even though he knew nothing about fantasy football. Since he was only doing it because we needed 10 teams, his team name is "The 10th Guy." I promised to help make this as easy as possible for him, and explained beforehand how fantasy football worked.

Josh was new to the world of fantasy football,
but he proved to be a quick study -- especially
when it came to trash talking!

One of my selling points in getting people to join the league was that we would have lots of trash talk at the draft. That started right from the beginning, with Rob, who had the first pick in the draft, bringing it, making me want to give him the "most insufferable" award right away!. He may have failed in his first pick (Aaron Rodgers, really?) but he did bring it when it came to throwing shade, as the kids say! He also bought shots for the group (with ulterior motives, perhaps?) so I have to give him credit for that.

There were lots of characters in the draft room. Chris was very entertaining and animated during the draft. Margaret and Jazmine quietly made some good picks. Corey and Stephanie did as well. Josh picked up the game -- and how to trash talk! Mark, our club president, was a real hoot, as usual. (Although going for Gronk for the second pick wouldn't have been my choice! I think Mark is now obligated to name his team something with Gronk's name in it, like Honky Tonk Badonka Gronk or something!)

Charlotte complained that I kept on stealing the players she wanted to choose! Frank had a friend drafting for him remotely, which made us crack jokes about a robot making the picks.

Everybody seemed to have a good time!

As for myself, I brought a fedora to wear to the evening whenever I needed to put my commissioner's hat on. (Get it?) I also wore my burnt orange University of Texas Vince Young #10 football jersey.

It didn't take long before I got in trouble with the crew. Josh had to go out to his car to get his phone charger cord, and he was going to miss his second pick -- 12th overall in the draft, after picking Jamaal Charles with the 9th pick. So I went to his phone and picked Dez Bryant for him, causing the room to erupt in "I call shenanigans" cries. Oh, well!

I had a pretty good draft going -- Adrian Peterson fell into my lap, even though I was the No. 5 team --- with Demaryius Thomas in the second round, Randall Cobb in the third, and Russell Wilson in the fourth -- when my computer froze. I blame Windows 10. I didn't exactly handle it well; I think I screamed "Nooooo!" more than once and cursed a whole lot. So much for that semi-competent thing!

My reaction to my computer freezing up.

In the meantime, the NFL.com autodraft picked me Latavius Murray, Joique Bell, and Dwayne Allen. What a nightmare! I was beside myself over this debacle! It took several rounds for me to get back on track and I ended up having to conduct the rest of the draft from my iPhone app. I also got mocked for this as well, of course!

But I, of course, did some trash talk as well, sassing the Mets fans in the room and saying that at least this fantasy football team would give them something to do when the Mets collapsed again in September. Oh, snap!

At the end of the evening, we posed for a group photo, and everybody thanked me and said they had a great time. So the night was a big success! Now it's on to the season!

And this afternoon, I was bored, so I came up with funny team names, based on the players on the respective teams. Here they are:

Charlotte: Luck Be a Lacy Tonight

Chris: Cruz Control

Corey/Stephanie:  Don't Luck With Me

Frank: Bad, Bad, Antonio Brown

Jazmine: Saved by Le'Veon Bell

Josh: The Walking Dez 

Lisa: Eat, Drink and Demaryius

Margaret: My Favorite Marshawn

Mark: The Big Gronkowski

Rob: Golden Tate Bridge

Fantasy Football Preview: New York Giants

For our readers who are New York Giants fans, here is a guest column, courtesy of DraftStreet.com, on what you need to know when it comes to playing in a fantasy football money league and drafting Giants players.

Eli Manning, QB

Manning may be worthy of consideration in a fantasy football money league. He is on the fringe of starting in a 12-team league, finishing 12^th in passing yards in 2012 with 3948 and in a four-way tie for ninth in passing touchdowns with 26. His 15 interceptions were tenth worst.  Manning has been very durable, starting every game since taking over as starter midway through the 2004 season.  He has had at least 26 passing TDs each of the last four seasons and threw for over 4000 yards the last three seasons before just missing in 2012.

Victor Cruz, WR

Cruz led the Giants in receiving yardage and receiving TDs for the second straight season. His 10 TDs (tied for seventh-best) and 86 catches were similar to 2011’s nine TDs and 82 catches, but his 1092 yards were down from 2011’s 1536, the highest receiving total in Giants history. As training camp approached, Cruz was reportedly close to signing a long-term contract.

Hakeem Nicks, WR

After two seasons of at least 75 catches, 1000 yards and seven TDs, injuries limited Nicks to 53 catches, 692 yards and three TDs. Nicks had arthroscopic knee surgery during the offseason and missed OTAs, reportedly because he had broken his foot during OTAs in 2012. Nicks led the Giants in receiving in Super Bowl XLVI with 10 catches for 109 yards.

David Wilson, RB

With the departure of Ahmad Bradshaw, Wilson, a first-round draft pick in 2012, has the inside track on the starting job. Wilson had 358 rushing yards, four rushing TDs and one receiving TD as a rookie. 247 yards and three of the TDs came in his final four games.  Wilson lost playing time after fumbling in season opener, but he did not fumble again all season. Wilson’s surge also came when Andre Brown missed the final five games after breaking his leg.

Andre Brown, RB

Brown led the Giants in rushing TDs with eight and ran for 385 yards before his injury.  All eight of Brown’s TDs came from one or two yards out, so look for him to be the goal-line back.  Brown was originally drafted by the Giants in the fourth round in 2009, but after missing the 2009 season with an Achilles tendon injury, he was waived and was briefly a part of four other teams before rejoining the Giants in 2011.

Brandon Myers, TE

Myers comes over from Oakland, where he had a breakout year with 79 catches (fourth-best among tight ends) for 806 yards (sixth-best) and four TDs. He replaces Martellus Bennett, now with Chicago, who had 55 catches for 626 yards and five TDs.

To play in a fantasy football money league or free league, click here.