May the 4th be with you

Rejoice, Star Wars fans! Today is the 4th of May, and a day to celebrate for all lovers of the epic space journey. Some of them will send a few memes to their fellow fans, some of them will dedicate the entire day to rewatching the nine movies – is it even still possible? – but whatever it is, or whichever order you decide to rewatch the movies in, there is no denying that Star Wars had a major impact on its generation and beyond.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, George Lucas was born, and one day, having grown into an adult by then, he got his hands on The hero with a thousand faces, by Joseph Campbell. In this book, the author sums up what he calls “the hero’s journey” displayed by most Hollywood movies and quite a lot of other books. Campbell’s book fascinated Lucas and dear George started to write an epic journey of his own. In 1977, the first Star Wars was released. Lucas didn’t know it yet, but he just made a name for himself in the history of cinema. As a side note, the director was not sure at all his project would work. In an interview, he stated: “I liked the film I made, but that was about it. On the day of release, I went for a walk with my wife. We ended up on a street full of people queuing to get into a theatre. Curious as I was – as a director would be – I asked them about the movie they were looking to see. One of them answered “Star Wars” as if it was the most natural thing on Earth. That’s when I first realized that maybe what I did was more than a small indie movie.”

Nowadays, in 2020, It seems safe to say that everybody has at least heard once about Star Wars. Whether they love it, hate it, or don’t care about it, it has become an object of the global cinematographic landscape – one might even say culture. Lucas built the original Star Wars as two trilogies, one around 1980, then the second just after 2000. Disney, who bought Lucas’ company, Lucasfilm, in 2012, revived the franchise with five movies including three canons and two side-stories. Star Wars IX came out in 2019 and as always, sparked massive debates over its quality – but I think it’s safe to say that it wraps up the character arcs opened in Star Wars XII (2015) quite nicely.

Today is the first May the 4th since 2006 where fans can watch entire trilogies and not be missing one instalment. There are 24 hours in a day, each movie lasts approximately 2 hours, so watching all of them will take around 18 hours… Doable, I guess, for the most dedicated ones!