It Came From The Archives! “Star Wars Lives Forever: May The 4th Be With You”
(Hey, everyone! It’s a little late but in honor of May The 4th, here’s a very old article I wrote about the magic of Star Wars. Hope you enjoy it! – Brandon Scott)
Originally Published: May 4th, 2018
It’s May 4th, That Means Star Wars Day!
Look, you know what day it is. You know what we’re celebrating. We can skip most of the prelude and get to the core.
Star Wars is rad.
It’s a cultural touchstone, a piece of the world’s media. Love him or hate him, George Lucas captured such lightning in a bottle we are still talking about it over forty years later. If there is justice in the universe, we will still gush about Star Wars a hundred years from now.
I know I will all my life.
But, I’m not entirely sure why. It baffles sometimes why those movies took a hold so thoroughly on me and others. Why, for instance, is a lightsaber the most recognizable weapon in the whole of science fiction?
Taken as pieces, as individual movies, all lot of Star Wars is just…okay. And I don’t only mean the prequels. Yet, no matter how many times something happens that people hate, no matter how long the hiatus between movies is, how many “betrayals” fans deal with, we’re still here.
Star Wars Defies All Logic In Its Cinematic Power
To break it down, to isolate pieces for an answer, doesn’t work. It’s more than the sum of its parts. Star Wars is so pervasive, so part of a person’s mind, that when reaching for a remote you might wish you could use the Force.
Perhaps, if we look hard, our answer might be there in the first line.
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
It does not say another universe—no. Instead, Star Wars frames itself as myths and legends, pieces of a wild past, like Hercules and Robin Hood. This is a place and a time where men can become wise, magical users, and spaceships scream across the sky. An era where even the worst of the worst exist, such evil that even our real life could never match, yet normal people can turn the tides back again.
The Force, as a concept, is a statement that anyone can be a hero. Even when the midi-chlorians entered the canon, it did not necessarily preclude anyone from being a force-user.
We All Wish We Could Live In A Star Wars Type Of Universe
Star Wars offered a vision of a life of doing something for good and knowing it is good. Somehow, this franchise evoked nostalgia for a time that never existed. To believe in the light side and the dark side, as a simple binary, with magic to defend it that you, the viewer, could have, is childlike—and I mean that positively.
Star Wars is rad. It’s cool.
It’s awesome.
It’s words that describe something uncomplicated in its fun.
If you handed two people toy lightsabers—if they have anything left of their inner child, then all that magic of youth comes rushing back. I cannot claim to know exactly what spawned Star Wars to be what it is: but I think Star Wars as a bastion of childhood wonder, built for young and old alike, is as close as I’ll ever get to understanding its appeal.
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