Maya the Force Be With You
Riley is always the one who is always excitable and hyper. She’s the one whose emotions control her, and Maya is the one who looks on in fond exasperation, maybe even rolling her eyes at her girlfriend’s antics.
This doesn’t happen when they see the Force Awakens. Riley has never been much of a Star Wars fan. The movies are alright, but Riley’s more into romance and mystery. Maya loves Star Wars more than air. Even the prequels, which are universally disliked. Her mother took the time to watch all of the movies with her when she was a kid, which is probably a good portion of the reason for this. But Maya also adores sci-fi, so she might have ended up loving it even without that emotional attachment.
Maya and Farkle force them to marathon the movies the weekend before the movie premieres, and it would have been a manageable, three movie marathon if Maya didn’t insist they start with the Phantom Menace. Riley is sick and tired of Anakin Skywalker by the time that the prequels are over, and she’s sick and tired of Luke before a New Hope is over. Han is fun, and Leia is admittedly pretty hot. So she watches them without too many complaints. She thinks that the new one will be pretty cool. Or at least alright. She can definitely sit through it for Maya.
Maya demands that they go see it on Thursday night at the very first possible showing. Riley’s still Star Wars-ed out from Saturday, but she agrees. Maya has suffered through plenty of things she’s not overly fond of for Riley, so Riley returns the favor.
They get to the movie an hour and a half early, and the theater is already half full. Their popcorn is gone within twenty minutes, and Riley sighs. She goes up to get a refill of popcorn, and by the time she gets back there’s still an hour before the film starts.
“I can’t believe that we’ve still got an hour before this thing starts,” Riley grumbles.
“I’ve been waiting this movie for thirty years,” Maya tells her, “you can wait an hour.”
“You’re fifteen years old,” Riley says.
“Thirty years,” Maya repeats, and Riley giggles. She chucks a kernel of popcorn at Maya, and her girlfriend just grins. Waiting an hour for a movie won’t be all that bad together. The trailers eventually start playing, and Riley decides that she’s not interested in seeing any of the movies, even Captain America: Civil War, which Maya will undoubtedly drag her to.
Maya gasps when the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” appear on the screen, and Riley sighs in relief. It’s finally starting. Apparently, desert planets are popular in the galaxy. In the original trilogy and the prequels, they spent a lot of time on Tatooine. Now they’re spending a lot of time on Jakku, which honestly seems like a Tatooine lookalike to Riley.
The movie feels a lot like a New Hope with better graphics in Riley’s opinion, but Maya seems to get more and more excited as the movie goes on. When Han Solo appears, Riley groans. She doesn’t want to get invested in this movie. But she does like Han, and she’s bound to end up caring, at least a little.
Then it turns out that the villain is their son, which is just evil writing if you ask Riley. Because now she’s actually emotionally invested in this. Then Leia comes on-screen, looking like a well-aged wine and she asks her runway husband to try to save their son. And Riley’s really pretty torn up about it. She didn’t want to get invested in this movie.
Then, Kylo Ren shoves his lightsaber through his father’s heart and Riley hears herself scream, and grab for Maya’s hand. Maya actually laughs at her, because she’s somehow unaffected by this tragedy before her. Han Solo caresses his son’s face, and then falls into the void. Riley can barely pay attention to the rest of the movie. It’s fine. The fight scene is engaging and the graphics are good, but Han is dead. The universe is a hologram, and Han Solo is dead. Even when Rey finds Luke, that’s all that Riley can think of. She might have a bit of an obsession.
They walk out of the theater in relative silence as the crowd buzzes, talking in hushed tones about the events of the movie. Neither of them speak until they are outside and on their way back to Riley’s.
“I didn’t expect you to get so into this movie,” Maya says.
“They killed off Han,” Riley says blankly.
“Riley-”
“They killed off Han,” Riley says again.
“I know, Riles,” Maya says, “we watched the same movie.” Riley doesn’t like much about these movies, but she liked Han. And she likes Leia. Then they made their son together evil and had him kill his father. Riley is never getting invested in one of these movies ever again.
“Alright,” Maya says, “our friend group in this movie. Who’d be who?”
“Can I be Finn?” Riley asks, “I liked Finn.”
“Alright,” Maya says, “but I’m Poe then.”
“Poe?” Riley asks, “shouldn’t you be Rey? So we can hold hands. And be love interests?” Riley is sure that those two will end up as a couple at some point. They’re adorable.
“The jacket thing was way more romantic,” Maya says. Riley sends her a look, because she thought that the hand-holding and forehead kiss was plenty romantic, but she lets it lie.
“Zay would be Rey then,” she says, resigning herself to the fact that Maya does not ship her ship.
“Why?” Maya asks.
“Because it rhymes,” Riley says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Farkle has to be Kylo- Ben. Whatever his name is,” Maya says.
“Why’s Farkle poop face traitor guy?” Riley asks. She likes Farkle way too much to make him that character. She hates that character with every fiber of her being for doing the deed-which-shall-not-be-named. (Patricide. It’s called patricide.)
“Because of the world domination thing,” Maya says, and Riley has to admit that she had a good point.
“Who would Lucas be?” Riley asks.
“There aren’t many left,” Maya says, “he could be Maz.”
“I don’t think that he seems like a wise old woman,” Riley says.
“How about Phasma?” Maya suggests.
“Alright,” Riley agrees. That at least puts Lucas and Farkle on the same side, which might be as realistic as they’re going to get on that front.
“I can’t believe they killed Han,” Riley mutters again, angrily, as she and Maya walk home.
“I can’t believe that you got so invested,” Maya says happily. Riley smiles at her. She likes Han Solo pretty well, but she likes being able to talk to Maya about things that she likes even better.
She can bear becoming a Star Wars geek for a few months if it makes Maya happy.