How nice is it to celebrate May the 4th

It doesn’t take much to figure out that I’m a nerd; usually, my Lego cufflinks or any number of nerdy t-shirts will give it away. Then by the time you get in a conversation with me, it will become apparent that this has been me for the entirety of my life. I often use the analogy that when my friends were playing football, I was teaching myself how to program in BASIC.

I’m not so old that I saw the original Star Wars in theatres, but I did see The Empire Strikes Back on opening day. That’s right, imagine a world where you walked out of a cinema saying, “Wait, so Darth Vader is Luke’s dad?” for the first time. You then followed up with the horrible realization of, “How many years will I have to wait to find out if they save Han?”

Even though it has remained one of the highest-grossing movie franchises in history, there has always been that negative culture as well, acting like people who enjoyed the movies were, for some reason, strange. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some obsessive fans that are out there. I was allowed a set of Darth Vader tuxedo-wearing LEGO figure cufflinks for my wedding; I did not wear my Boba Fett helmet. I wouldn’t have asked, even if I thought my wife would sign off on it.

I do own a reasonable number of Lego Star Wars items, as well as some helmets, a couple of lightsabers, and, naturally, I still have my action figures from my childhood. The whole house is not filled with Star Wars items, nor is it the only thing I collect. But do people know that I love Star Wars, the movies, the limited series, the animated series, even the… o.k. NOT the holiday special, except for its cringe value.

Over the years, I have had a few make fun of me for that. It’s a cheap shot that’s easy to land, and it’s not like I can reply with, “No, I don’t like Star Wars”. But there had always been a cohort of those I associated with that you wouldn’t talk about Luke Skywalker, or Grogu, or Ahsoka Tano about, either because they wouldn’t know what you were talking about or they’d have a dig.

But today, on the 4th of May, there seems to be a definite change in the way the world sees and treats Star Wars fans. I’ve gotten a heap of messages from friends that aren’t fans themselves, saying “May the Fourth be with you!” (because I’m Catholic, I often reply, “And also with you”).

I know that retail establishments love to cash in on a reason to have a sale, but the number of places advertising their May the 4th specials has been quite surprising. If you log into Disney+ any time over the last week, you would have been greeted with tie fighters chasing after the Millennium Falcon. I even saw a real estate ad trying to cash in on some Star Wars hype.

Even better, this year, my daughter pushed to watch the movies with me. It was great getting to share that experience with her. Even though she is now at an age where she has questions, a LOT of questions, and she asks those questions all through the movie. She was, however, comfortable watching them in release order rather than numerical order.

It’s taken a long time to get to this point where I’m happy to celebrate Star Wars Day without fear of ridicule. I probably won’t be petitioning to make it a national holiday (although my state already had a public holiday today). It’s a bit of fun, they are timeless movies, and I can’t wait until next year.

May the Fourth be with you all.

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Thank you for reading please also read my article discussing whether Star Wars would achieve its same acclaim if it were released today.