May the Fourth be with you
For those of you who don’t know, today is Star Wars Day. Something that started with a horrible pun and has now continued year after year for true Star Wars fans (I belong to this category). On this auspicious day, I thought I would post some info I know non-Star Wars fans are just dying to hear…
First, I’d like to tell you briefly how this all began for me. I was lucky to be introduced to Star Wars in my 8th grade English class by reading excerpts from the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. I was selected to read the role of Luke Skywalker (since there were only two people in my class who could read aloud without struggling – the other guy read Yoda). While I had seen bits and pieces of the movie as a child, I had never seen one all the way through. After class I went to the local video store and rented The Empire Strikes Back. I was immediately hooked and had to rent Return of the Jedi for obvious reasons (if it’s not obvious to you, stop reading now). I finished off the trilogy by watching A New Hope. USA decided to choose that exact year to run all three films in order during Christmas. I bought an 8-hour VHS and captured them for my own viewing pleasure. I can’t say how many times I watched that tape, other than daily for at least a month. To this day, while watching the originals (not Uncle George’s 2004 DVD monstrosity) I can still tell you where the commercial breaks from the tape were. Needless to say, some figures called Bend’ems turned up in Odd Lots not long after that and I began buying anything Star Wars I could get my hands on (which wasn’t much at the time). Then came the release of the THX editions with associated merchandise and then the big 20th anniversary release of the special editions in theaters - by this time, I had moved up the ranks to full-fledged Star Wars collector. When The Phantom Menace was released, I didn’t see it open in theaters because I wanted to experience the way I experienced the first three for the first time – on TV. After watching it, I’m glad I waited since it would have been one of the biggest disappointments ever for me. Well, now you have the gist of my personal Star Wars saga, and I’d like to give you a quick preview of the next installment.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope, Lucasfilm has decided to host another Star Wars Celebration cleverly named “Celebration IV”. This huge geekfest will take place in Los Angeles, and I’m going. I’m only planning on being there a couple of days due to finances and work, but I’m going to live it up while I’m there. Not only will there be tons of exclusive merchandise for collectors like me, but there will also be some interesting and perhaps unexpected celebrities in attendance. Two of these famous folks I’m really looking forward to seeing are Seth McFarlane (Family Guy) and Seth Green (Robot Chicken, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Both Family Guy and Robot Chicken have Star Wars specials planned in honor of the 30th anniversary and both have permission from Uncle George to create them. Star Wars celebrities of course will be attending, and right now the confirmed big names are Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, and Jake Lloyd. Two major “guests of honor” from the SW universe have yet to be confirmed. With so much to see and do I’m sure it will be a short and fast couple of days. Wednesday May 23rd kicks the celebration off with a 6-movie marathon in the order of storyline. While I won’t be spending 17 hours watching the films, I would at least like to try to catch one of the films from the original trilogy. I’m hoping to take a lot of pictures and take plenty of recorded notes so I can give a full report on my return. Until then, celebrate May Fourth the Star Wars way.
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