Happy Star Wars Day!
"Always in motion is the future." -- Yoda
From my friend Brett:
May 4 is called Star Wars Day because of a pun or play on words based on the similarity between "May the 4th be with you" and "May the force be with you", a phrase often spoken in the Star Wars movies. In common usage the joke might be presented:
1: Happy Star Wars Day!
2: What?
3: May the fourth be with you!
Seeing as how this is a holiday and all, below are a few of my favorite bits of recent, Star Wars related humor...
(1)
On LOST a couple weeks ago, (where, thanks to The Island, people from 2003 are stuck in 1977), a journal that one of the characters has been writing in is taken from him by a friend who -- now living as an adult in the same year the friend was born -- refuses to talk to the father he never knew. The thief starts reading the journal and finds the following:
A lone drone falls from the sky and skims across the snow-covered surface of the ice planet Hoth. A blaster fires, the drone explodes. Pan down to Chewbacca, who raises a fist and roars!
Thief: "This is what you've been scribbling all this time? Star Wars?"
Writer: "It's Empire. Dude, we're in 1977. Star Wars just came out, and I've seen Empire like, at least 200 times. I figure I might as well write it now to, you know, make sure I say everyone the trouble. I also added some improvements."
Thief: "That. Is the dumbest thing. I've ever heard."
Writer: "Whatever, Dude. I just want to make sure it comes out right. Besides, you're the one who's afraid to talk to his dad."
<Later in the episode...>
Writer: "See, you just need to communicate with your dad. You're just like Luke."
Thief: "Umm, what?"
Writer: "If Luke had just talked to his dad at the end of Empire, there might not have been another Death Star. I mean, sure, they resolved things in the end, but what did he do at first? Instead of talking, he freaked out and got his hand cut off. If he'd taken the time to communicate there would definitely have been no Ewoks. And Dude, Ewoks sucked."
(2)
Also funny was a recent bit from 30 Rock, where the episode's theme was adults realizing the dreams they'd had as kids.
Tracy Jordan: "I always wanted to be an astronaut. You know, take a rocket into outer space and kill me an Ewok!"
(3)
As a freshman in college, the guy in the dorm room next to me was named Luke. Thinking this was a great chance to use the best nickname ever, my friend Ken started calling Luke "Red 5" -- Luke Skywalker's call sign at the end of the original film, during the trench assault on the Death Star.
For whatever reason, Luke hated the nickname. Of course, I don't think we ever called him anything other than Red 5 from then on. Not our fault that he didn't know awesome when it hit him in the face. Good times.
(4)
What list would be complete without reference to Robot Chicken's Star Wars episode? The greatest skit -- with the second-best non sequitur* intro -- the brilliance of this bit almost makes me forgive Lucas for releasing the prequels; without the prequels, this skit would never have existed.**
Happy Star Wars Day!
* The best ever is "... so I says to Mabel," as used by Bart on The Simpsons.
** And we're full-circle*** with time travel and the possibility of stopping horrible events from happening, a central theme in LOST (and key to my favorite Internet-based joke).
***Inclusio, the greatest of all literary devices****.
**** Oh no! Footnotes within footnotes!? It's the Primer paradox, here in my blog. Loop... recursive... cannot... escape...