May the Fourth be with You!

And also with you.

This day in March is a splendid day for armies to take a hike; today is a homage of sorts to a modern cowboy story written across the universe.

I was in 7th grade when the first chapter of the Star Wars saga was introduced to the world.

The fact we were walking in for the fourth chapter didn't make a difference to my friend and I as we settled into the UA Cinemas in the Janesville Mall.  (The mall is still there, but the theater is gone.)

It was the first PG movie I was allowed to see. 

Maybe this is a little difficult to comprehend now, when we can see stuff on our nightly network shows that would have likely earned an "R" rating then.  My parents agreed to let me go and we were off to see Luke, Leia, Han, C3PO, R2-D2, Obi-Wan, Chewie as the adventure began.

Just thinking about the length of time for the chapters of this movie to come to life is somewhat epic in scale.  37 years later filmmakers are beginning to work on chapter 7.

It was an instant classic and game changer in how we thought about movies.  Chapter V (they were all in Roman Numerals) came in 1980 as the Empire Stuck Back and three years later the Jedi returned to make things right.

Later, 16 years later in 1999 we got to see first chapter about the Phantom Menace that took us back in time that was still far, far away.  Creator George Lucas explained that film technology wasn't advanced far enough to make the movies the way he wanted - so we got to watch chapters two and three fairly quickly as Clones attacked and the Sith took revenge.

Yoda spanned the arc of the story, as did C3P0 and R2D2.  Anakin grew from a small, fresh-faced boy into a man hidden by a mask. 

It's a brilliant move to bring back Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie for the long-awaited next part of the story.

The movie is ready for its third generation... my oldest was 12 when he saw his first Star Wars movie and the next one is coming along 10 years after the last one.

Lucas originally envisioned 9 movies to tell the story, and it will be interesting to see how Disney handles this franchise where each frame of film is analyzed and studied by aficionados, fans, and geeks.

May the fourth be with you! 

Just one year to wait.

I bet somewhere in the world.

Little boys are starting to get in line.

You know there are a lot of 14 year old boys inside 50 year old bodies.