May The Fourth Be With You! And May The Empire Crumble Into Dust!

I Love Star Wars

So very, very much. It's one of those where, no matter what they add to it, whether I like it or not, all these things add something indescribably important to it. The second prequel movie was my very first Star Wars film, so no matter what issues you can bring up with the prequels, I'll fight to the end for them. I didn't watch all the animated shows they added to the canon, but I know how much richness they added to the lore, and appreciated them for it.

May The Fourth only came onto my radar relatively recently (i.e. seven years ago), but I've always wanted to properly celebrate it. I just . . . never seem to find that proper way. I've watched the films on this day, wore a Star Wars themed t-shirt, did the buns, yadda yadda. But this, this letter, feels closer than all my attempts previously.

Star Wars is about Light vs Dark, and the nuances of each and how they matter and don't matter simultaneously, conflicting, eruptive. But what was never nuanced is the rot that an oppressive imperial regime spreads across all that it touches, seizes, holds. The Empire is never a good guy, the people that fight for it aren't good people. They could change, but the first step always had to be divestment from the Empire. You can't be a reluctant foot soldier for it and think your cognitive dissonance is in some way absolution. You're just complicit. 

We all are. And that statement might upset you, or maybe you already know it, but what's for certain is that The Force is absolute and thus deals in absolutes. There's no maybes, sort ofs, kind ofs, tries . . . there is and there isn't. If you are not against the Empire, you are for the Empire. That's always been a main stickler point in this Universe. Every character that tries to straddle the line, play both sides, or be otherwise a moral bendy straw, eventually gets hit hard with the stark and obvious truth of what it is they implicitly endorse, and are forced to make a choice. Lando had to when he sold out Han, Mando had to when he took that fateful job (him getting the kid out does not absolve that he did it in the first place), Finn had to when they destroyed that village and abducted Poe.

These characters made the choice to do the right thing. To strike out against the Empire, and walk towards a path of dignity and peace for all in the Galaxy. But that choice being right, did not make the path easy. To make the choice to fight against a behemoth of power and violence is never easy - it's so hard, and exhausting, and really scary. But I think . . . I think that when you have your eyes finally open to the truth, but you turn away from it, each time takes something from you. Some good piece of you, leaves a hollow in you. And more is taken the more you turn away. I think that's scarier than letting the fight and the conviction fill you up. 

This May The Fourth . . . do what is hard, and scary. Do what is right. Fighting against an Imperial power is harder in real life than in the movies, I'll admit, but . . . what other choice could you stomach? Wouldn't you rather live in this world on your own power, with your own mind, instead of being force fed this too sheer wash of bullshit that scarcely covers all the cracks and breaks? You mean to tell me that we spent years being taught in school about the cruel folly and injustice of prior regimes who showed little care for humanity and the goodness of it, and rather reveled gleefully in the misery and destruction of it, scoffed at the ones who allowed it and made excuses for it . . . and now we're being asked to look away and be those same weak willed examples in history books because there's money involved in it?

We've sat for far too long. Too many good people have been fighting this fight with too few allies, too few resources, and more than enough patience. This cannot continue - we can't hear more about babies being poisoned with milk different than what the richer countries get, we can't allow babies and their families to suffocate in dark mines just so we can block out the world on a phone, we can't keep letting them rip and tear at the earth, the waters, for their own amusement and the gratitude of their wallets. We can't keep letting them commit atrocities and murder thousands and lie about it all. We cannot keep this up anymore. We must restore balance, to this world, and to ourselves. We were never meant to be so callously disregarded, so emptily lauded, so divided and self loathing and predatory. We were always meant to be together.

Fuck The Empire.