sent from: London, UK. destination: Columbia, Maryland, USA

“The first three Star Wars films changed my life. The next three changed it back.” – Anon
There’s real danger in turning your passion into your job, or in wanting to get close again to something you loved as a child; you could end up ruining a precious nostalgia. Ask anyone who’s met a childhood hero only to find them unhappy, unpleasant people. Such were the dangers of going to work on Star Wars Episode II at ILM; the fan inside me was geeking out at every turn, gawking at the models (like, miniatures, not supermodels), the old movie props, every glimpse of an ILM-er who worked on the original films. The professional tried to maintain some sort of composure, I was there to do a job not talk about my action figure collection and why IG-88 was the coolest bounty hunter. They had the whole film in its current state basically freely available to view at your desk. Some people, either because they didn’t care or because they wanted to try and retain as much of the sense of surprise and wonder, had a policy of not watching any of the sequences. This, to me, was insanity. To be able to peer behind the veil, to do something every Star Wars fan would dream of, see the film over a year ahead of release – it was my duty, for all my friends, to watch it. My mouse hovered over the play button.
This was it.
Click.