Yes, it's May the Fourth, the most appropriately dated International Day of all time - International Starwars Day: May the Fourth be with you !
Starwars has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, cultural phenomena of the last 31 years.
Since its release in 1977 people have been enjoying the space opera that is Starwars, now comprising of 6 films plus some spin-offs (
Ewoks,
Droids,
Clone Wars, numerous computer games and more).
Some people even liked
Jar Jar Binks, but they should not admit this in front of any hardcore Starwars fans since to them Jar Jar is anathema .
Many a grown man still harbours fantasies involving
lightsabers and
Sith Lords. Men between about 5 and 55 who deny having such fantasies are either liars or genuinely didn't see the films while they were young and impressionable enough to be instilled with the secret desire to be a Jedi Knight.
The Jedi religion has won
many converts in the real world, with 0.7% of people in the 2001 UK Census declaring themselves as Jedi, and according to the survey results, Jedi was the third most popular religion in Scotland.
New Zealand had the highest per capita population of reported Jedi in the world in 2o01, with 1.5%. This would have made it the second most popular religion in the country, but tragically the spoilsports at
Statistics New Zealand didn't count allow it to count officially. I sense that they may have been infiltrated by agents of the Sith ;-)
Starwars has also been parodied on many occasions - some of the best include:
Spaceballs
Family Guy - Blue Harvest
Weird Al's "The Saga Begins"
Watch the video to "
The Saga Begins" on Youtube. Definitely a hit I reckon!
I'll leave you all with perhaps the ultimate home-made lightsaber action this side of Tatooine -
The Starwars Kid.
Remember, today (and today only!) you too can don your Jedi robes and give your lightsaber a good twirl without shame .
Happy Starwars Day everyone....May the Fourth be with you!
