Why Pop Culture: Alexandre O Philippe at TEDxMileHigh (Transcript)

Here is the full text and summary of Alexandre O Philippe’s talk titled “Why Pop Culture” at TEDxMileHigh conference.

TRANSCRIPT:

Alexandre O Philippe – Swiss film director

I want to tell you a story about my childhood. I was raised in Switzerland in Geneva. When I was eight years old, my mom took me to one of our local theaters to watch The Empire Strikes Back, which, you know, was dubbed in French. It was called L’Empire Contre-attaque. This was a huge deal for me as a kid. I was very much a Star Wars fan. I had never actually seen the original Star Wars film, but I had all the toys.

During the now-iconic climactic reveal, that of course we all know – “Luke, I am your father” – I have this incredible memory of just standing up in the middle of the theater, completely, utterly confused about what was going on. I’m turning to my mom, who’s sitting right here next to me. Of course, she didn’t have the answers. That was it.

Ten minutes later, the lights come up, and you walk out of the theater mind completely blown from the single most extraordinary, transformative cinematic experience of your entire life.

What do you do when you’re eight years old and you have to wait three years – THREE YEARS! – for the next Star Wars movie?! That’s like half of my life at this point. What you do is you go home, and you pick up your toys, and you start playing, speculating, thinking about what that next Star Wars movie is going to be. That’s the great gift that George gave us. He gave us the toys. It made us very hands on.