May the 4th Be With You!

Cue the Star Wars music

Happy Star Wars Day! If you’re a Star Wars fan like me, you know that today is an extra special day. Almost fifty years ago, the Star Wars franchise was born. I wasn’t able to watch the first movie until almost a decade later but what I remember was the size and scope of the movie. The rest of the movie didn’t disappoint with a climatic ending to the trilogy — or so we all thought.

Enter the bold vision of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg ushering in the next installment of the franchise — the prequel stories — if you will of what led to the spectacular chase scene at the beginning of the first movie. We’re now in the 21st century and technology has come a long way since the 70s. We have CGI characters and multilayered effects.

While the prequel stories didn’t disappoint in the area of technology, they did disappoint in terms of story line and characters (jar Jat Binks, anyone?). But the action was good enough to keep audiences in their seats and returning for more.

The final installments (again, if we are to believe), comes after the first trilogy. Our heroes, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo are all grown up. Han and Leia have a son (spoiler alert) who joins the dark side of the force. Luke goes off to be a hermit and a new character, a young woman, joins the cast. She has mysterious powers, similar to Luke’s.

At first, I thought she was Luke Skywalker’s child. It would seem so, but eventually we learn (spoiler alert) that she is the granddaughter of the evil lord that turned Darth Vader.

All in All, Star Wars was a franchise that had it all — action, adventure, magic, romance, and violence. It even spawned several tv series on Disney. We’ve had a lot of epic movie franchises since Star Wars, but none of them hold a candle to the original.

May the 4th be with you!