An extremely important date is coming up fast, and it combines the best of two worlds: the world of nerds who love Star Wars, and of course, those who appreciate puns (and I know there are pun-fans out there, in spite of what certain people keep telling me …)
Yes, on Saturday, it’s none other than Star Wars Day, or May 4th. For those who somehow don’t know this, the pun is, “May the Fourth be with you …”
So you can see the attraction, right? Right?
No?
Well, it helps to be a Star Wars fan to start with. There are claims that the use of the pun about “May the Fourth” began in Toronto, but now the new owners of the Star Wars franchise, Disney, has taken ahold of it and you just know they’re going to market it to death.
Star Wars fans will celebrate in any way they can, such as with costume parties, recipes, crafts, and of course, movie marathons whilst drinking blue milk and eating Yoda cones, or having light sabre fights in between movies …
You get the picture. The day is a sort of holiday celebration of all things Stars Wars, and with newer instalments of the movie series out in recent years, it makes the movie marathon thing quite an event.
Shows like “Big Bang Theory” have helped to promote the May the Fourth day as a special day, such as the episode where a cake is made in the shape of the Death Star, or the one where the characters offer all sorts of food and drinks with pun names from Star Wars (such as “Chai 3-PO” as a tea beverage).
Like many others, I became a Star Wars fan back when the movies first came out, before Disney got ahold of the franchise, and before the story got ruined by Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace.
My first experience with a high-quality stereo sound system in a theatre was seeing the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, at the theatre under the Calgary Tower on the day the movie was released. That was cool!
As bad as the Jar Jar movie was, I like the recent movies, like “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi”, along with the movies that are exploring other aspects of the tale, like “Rogue One” and “Solo”.
The heroine of the latest story, Rey, is a tough young lady who is adding some interesting elements to the story as she met up with Luke Skywalker to learn more about being a Jedi.
The death of Carrie Fisher (Leia) was hard, and it may be a factor in the story to come, but I hope not.
So I’m looking forward to the next movie instalment, and most certainly will enjoy May the Fourth in the way it was meant to be, with movies.
