MAY THE “FOURTH” BE WITH YOU

A long time ago on a planet not far, far away, Star Wars Day became a worldwide unofficial holiday. It started when Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first woman prime minister and author Alan Arnold stated this quote on Friday, May 4, 1979: “Margaret Thatcher has won the election and become Britain’s first woman prime minister. To celebrate their victory her party took a half page of advertising space in the London Evening News. This message, referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations,’ further proof of the extent to which Star Wars has influenced us all.” From then on, fans from all over created the unofficial holiday where people dress up like Star Wars characters and say “May the 4^th be with you” to each other.

The whole Star Wars movie idea started after George Lucas finished filming one of his hit films, American Graffiti. He didn’t have a lot of money after making that film, and everyone was asking him what he was going to do. Lucas then got the idea for a film set somewhere in space. He went to different movie companies, including Universal, and got denied. Once American Graffiti premiered, Lucas got a call from 20^th Century Fox to tell him how great his film was. He mentioned his space film idea, and they agreed to do it. Now the rest is just history because the films were a huge hit! Recently, in 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm, which means they got the rights to Star Wars. They also stated that they were going to make more films. The first one is set to release on December 18, 2015, and is going to be called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It will be followed by Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One, which will be released on December 16, 2016. That film will also be followed by many other Star Wars films set for the near future. Additionally, there is a plan for a live-action television series, but it has not been said when it will release. All in all, you will just have to wait and “May the 4^th be with you.”