It's May the 4th - let's talk about Star Wars!

In honor of today being Star Wars Day, I thought I'd do a little reminiscing on that topic.

I vividly remember going to see all three of the original trilogy when they were re-released back in 1997 - I was eight years old, and they were the first non-animated films I ever saw in movie theaters. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. I wanted it to be real, and I distinctly recall alternating between wanting to be a Jedi (because who wouldn't want to be able to fight with lightsabers and throw stuff around with the Force?), and wanting to be Han Solo (no explanation should be needed here)

It was also cool because it was a love that my mum shared with me. She was a teenager when the films first opened, and when they re-released them, she took me and my little sister to see them, passing down that love to the next generation. And we embraced that with open arms. Star Wars became one of our favorite things to reenact with the other kids at Bible study - I remember playing "storm troopers lining up to get shot," and reenacting the duel at Cloud City over and over again on top of the swing set (Isaac and Noah were the best at that)

And then the prequels started to come out and you could get Star Wars t-shirts and lightsabers and Lego sets and models, which, to my mind, was so awesome. I never really thought of it this way at the time, but it was my first fandom. I had Star Wars shirts (and I wore them all the time, everywhere), I had Mace Windu's lightsaber and a Naboo fighter and Cloud City, I had the original trilogy memorized, and had rewatched so many times that the VHS tapes were wearing out. I printed out pictures from the movies and stuck them all over my binders, and fought with my sister over posters from magazines and newspapers. I checked out stacks of books from the library about the making of, and about the characters and ships and weapons and planets in the series.

In short, Star Wars was my first love... It would be followed by LotR and Lost and Stargate and Fringe and Supernatural, but it was the first. It was my introduction to science fiction (which I fell head-over-heels in love with immediately), and the first time a specific fictional universe became something I thought about all the time. And given the amount of time I've spent since then following in the patterns I first fell into because of Star Wars, I guess you could say it's had a decent impact on my life. Add to that the fact that you can strike up a conversation about Star Wars with just about anyone and find an instant common denominator, and I have to say that I'm really, really glad my third movie in theaters was one that will stick with me for the rest of my life :)

So, in those immortal words, "May the Force be with you." :)