On Tatooine, it's always Star Wars Day

...you know, since they have two suns. So there's probably round-the-clock daylight.

In this galaxy, Star Wars Day is May 4th. As in, "May the fourth be with you." (Although the stars themselves apparently once indicated that Star Wars Day should be later in May.) I'm not an avid Star Wars fan. I've only seen Episodes I, II, and III once each, and don't own any version of any of the six movies. I'm not really bothered by all of the tinkering George Lucas has done with the original trilogy. I've never read any of the books or seen any of the cartoons. In fact, the only extra-theatrical Star Wars I've been exposed to is the brutal 1978 holiday special. In case you want to know what I mean by brutal...well, here you go.



That's just one of many extended scenes of subtitle-less Wookiee dialogue. And when you're not getting annoyed by the whining of Chewbacca's family, you get stuff like Bea Arthur singing. The whole special can be found on YouTube, but I don't recommend it. With my affinity for cheesiness, I assumed this special would be right up my alley, but it turns out it's just bad.

The "May the fourth" pun does land right in my wheelhouse, though, and I think that was the original point of this post anyway. On Cinco de Mayo Eve, the Murray Library, employer of my sister, my roommate, and several other people I know, hosted a Star Wars Day event, so I took a date (my friend Amy) to check it out.

They were showing Episode IV on a projector screen in their big conference room, and we watched for a bit before making our way out to the main event: members of the Alpine Garrison in full costume, strewn throughout the library posing for pictures and even signing autographs.

Instead of waiting in line for a snapshot, we made our way to the back corner, where a young Jedi was reading a droid-centric story to a bunch of kids, many of whom were also in costumes (mostly Star Wars characters but also a few superheroes and princesses). A few of them kept interrupting and asking weird questions, and the Jedi (I think he said his name was Tag; not sure if he was supposed to be a specific character or if he made it up) handled them deftly. He reminded me of Justin long's character in Galaxy Quest, and I mean that as a compliment.

By the time the story had ended, the place was pretty packed. Some more recognizable characters had arrived (all villains; it must be more fun to dress up like them), and all had long lines of little kids and grown-up kids waiting to get their pictures taken. I realized this would've been the perfect opportunity to recreate my all-time favorite trolling joke (just watch the first 90 seconds, after that the language gets a little salty), but luckily I'm not a jerk. Instead, we watched some more of the movie, got a few pictures taken, and called it a night. It was definitely my favorite Star Wars Day ever!

When we first got in line, Darth Vader and Boba Fett were posing together. By the time we got to the front, Boba had wandered off, and we were stuck with this motley crew. The guy on the left was the storytelling Jedi. I'm still not sure why a Harry Potter Deatheater was there.