So May 4th is Star Wars Day, and why not? The saga deserves an annual celebration. We live in a society that marks nonsense holidays that mean very little and are only really about lauding spurious saints, selling products or encouraging people to drink excessively. People take the aforementioned holidays too seriously and spend serious amounts of money and energy on them, which is why it’s refreshing when off-the-wall oddities like International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Towel Day (for Douglas Adams fans) and 4/20 (for smoking copious amounts of cannabis) pop up and make things more interesting. Star Wars Day is the ultimate though because, obviously, it’s all about Star Wars. I contend that Star Wars is better than marijuana and better than pirates. It’s also healthier than those two and more hygienic than a wet towel as well. To further belabour the point and eulogise George Lucas’ franchise, I contend that Star Wars is the greatest pop cultural icon of the modern age. It’s brilliant, and a day devoted to acknowledging just how joyous and awe-inspiring the movies and extended multimedia are is the very least that Star Wars deserves. When The Phantom Menace was released I spent all my spare pocket money on action figures, and still find myself eyeing up Star Wars Lego. There were many sweet moments, which highlighted the franchise’s universal appeal and ability to transcend language barriers, when Star Wars seeped into the time I spent teaching English at Italian kids’ summer camps last year. One of my students/Padawan learners made a papier mâché lightsabre, and the kids got a huge thrill out of the daily doodles of Darth Vader I did on the paper placemats in the canteen. My inner child also had a chance to come out and play when the little boy of the family I was living with let me disassemble and rebuild his Lego TIE-Fighter. People get hung up on the murky aspects of George Lucas’ megabrand and all the money-grabbing and myth-mixing. It is upsetting to see Yoda selling mobile phones, Darth Vader selling automobiles and hear that Han Solo is dancing on someone’s Xbox. It’s also easy to get riled up when you reflect on the re-edits and retconning of each new re-release or remaster and dwell on the worst horrors of the prequels (midi-chlorians, Jar Jar Binks, Threepio’s decline into becoming a walking bad punchline, etc). Ultimately, though, it all amounts to picking at scabs and missing the bigger picture. These ugly, unfortunate bits are merely blemishes on something expansive and immense in scale and ambition. I have unconditional love for the multiverse that George Lucas has masterminded, but that love is built on reason. Take a step back for a moment, open your eyes and mind, and you can appreciate just how outstanding the Star Wars world is. Lucas is a visionary, and that was clear from the first film, which combined classical storytelling, sci-fi aesthetics, old-school adventure serial beats and film school nous to create a fresh blockbuster experience for a new age of cinema. From there, a multimedia pop culture phenomenon spawned and took lasting hold on global consciousness, but Star Wars’ ultimate achievement is in its prevailing human resonance. Star Wars is timeless because it operates “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. Removed from our contemporary reality, its themes and stories last, but most of all, it’s the characters, locations and environments that continue to appeal. This extended universe that has evolved is awe-inspiring, and unlimited in its escapist possibility. What Lucas gave us was an incredibly immersive and exciting space opera sandbox. That spacebox contains concepts like podracing, characters like Boba Fett and Yoda and alien destinations like Tatooine and the Death Star. The saga should be lauded for providing these ideas and the endless enjoyment and imaginative escapism that come with them. May 4th gives you a reason to remember all this. I’d urge you to acknowledge the date and take the opportunity to celebrate the saga, even if it’s only for a fleeting moment. Go all-out to sprinkle Star Wars quotes through everyday conversation (it’s as easy as “I have a bad feeling about this”). Whatever you do today, just take a moment to celebrate Star Wars and crack a Han Solo smile as you do so. Friends, May the Fourth be with you. James Clayton is a stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder who’s a little short to be a Stormtrooper. You can see all his links here or follow him on Twitter.
