the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Today is “Star Wars Day. 

Of course it is.

All because a load grown-ups who have’t fully adjusted to the fact their no longer children, think that when they says the date out loud, it reminds them of the line, ‘May the force be with you’. I know, I feel bad for even acknowledging it’s a thing. Don’t misunderstand me. ‘Star Wars ‘ was a great film. Was, not is, as Yoda might say.

I was 10 when I saw it and it was like nothing I’d ever seen. But then I was 10, and at 10 it doesn’t take much to excite a boy. Well maybe not in 2024 but in 1977? The main thing I remember about it though – apart from the bit near the end where the rebel ships attack the Death Star, which was easily the best part – was queuing up around the block beforehand and having to keep our coats on in the cinema because there was a heating strike.  

But quite why it has become some kind of revered cultural artefact, as opposed to the entertaining yet ephemeral piece of tat it was, is a constant source of bemusement to me. It has spawned sequels and prequels, standalone films set within its own universe and television shows. In fact the only truly innovative thing that ‘Star Wars’ ever did was to create  a lucrative world of merchandising opportunities, where all manner of ways to induce pester power from children to divorce parents from their money were dreamt up. 

Some of these children have never quite recovered from their childhood and even though they look like adults, are desperate to recreate it. But just like an addict nothing searching to recreate the feeling of their first hit, nothing will ever be as good as the first time. So despite being powerful studio heads, movie executives or other equally valuable members of society, they keep on churning out more of the same  in the mistaken belief it is has deeper meaning beyond simply funding their coke habit.

So of course today is ‘Star Wars Day’.