May the Fourth Be with You

May 4th is considered Star Wars Day since it sounds so similar to the classic Jedi blessing, and has become a thing in recent years for fans to celebrate. 

I’ve been a fan basically my whole life. I can’t begin to guess when the first time I watched. It was a fond memory by the time I was eight or nine, writing about it in fourth or fifth grade, the latest rewatch. None of us saw any of the original movies in theaters, as the oldest of the kids were either just being born or having just been, and we really didn’t start going to the movies until the ‘90s. When the Star Wars revival happened at the start of that decade (it’s difficult to believe now but after the release of Return of the Jedi there really was a chance the phenomenon would fade into history quite easily) with the Dark Horse comics and Timothy Zahn books (Zahn’s was the start of a splinter in the fan community that persists to this day), we were onboard. When the movies started in on their many home video rereleases, we were there. When they were released in the special editions to theaters again, we were there! One of my brothers legitimately grew a Jedi rat tail after The Phantom Menace, which was the foundation for the long hair he sports to this day.

Of course today the prequels struggle to find any truly positive opinions, although less so in the aftermath of the sequel trilogy. I don’t care because I love all of them. I lost interest in the comics (my brothers dove deeply into those early ones, but they never shared with me, and by the time Shadows of the Empire was a thing, it was too late for me), and I lost interest in Star Wars books sooner than I did with their Star Trek rivals (it didn’t help that I never found any of them as interesting as the earlier Han Solo and Lando Calrissian series; I decided they tried too hard to be the movies, and I don’t like when spinoff material doesn’t have the integrity to just be itself).

I love John Williams’ scores. We all did. They were some of the original gateways to my wider appreciation of music. That he continued his duties straight to the complete trilogies is astounding. By the sequel trilogy he had eliminated most of his bombast, certainly didn’t challenge the legacy of “Duel of the Fates,” and yet if anything it challenges me to revisit that work to see where he ends up in this coda.

I frequently meditate on Star Wars, its many implications and ways it’s influenced me. George Lucas didn’t intend to hang the bulk of his legacy on this space opera, but eventually it was inescapable for him, even if he tried to work around it. 

And don’t forget, tomorrow is the Revenge of the Fifth! It just continues to grow…