May the 4th (be with you): Why Star Wars has stuck with fans

asterisk Wars daytime — May 4 — is a pseudo holiday for fans the like Kel Spoering, especially when she may be able-bodied to give thanks the movie franchise for her existence.

"My father is an incredible Star Wars guy," said Spoering. "He took my mother to the opening of A New Hope, the very first Star Wars, as their first date, and mom somehow still married him," she laughed.

Spoering, now 39, recalled her Star Wars origins from the Calgary Expo late last month, wearing blue face paint with an elaborate crocheted blue hat that had a pair of forearm-thick tails hanging down her back. It's part of her cosplay — a term used often to describe the elaborate costumes worn to represent characters from different franchises — imitating the Star Wars Jedi Aayla Secura.

Her first memory of the iconic science fiction franchise is being in her parents' basement with her brother, sat on a "horrible" brown, shag carpet.

The 1983 film Return of the Jedi played on their boxy, behemoth of a television, capping off the original trilogy with heroic Luke Skywalker having lifted the weight of the evil Empire from residents in a galaxy far, far away.

Spoering's story is similar to when 13-year-old Aayla Liu — named after the character who inspired Spoering's costume — first watched Star Wars: playing with her sisters while A New Hope rang in the background.

Despite her given name, Aayla's favourite character isn't the blue, lightsaber-wielding Jedi. Instead, it's Padmé Amidala, a queen whose steadfast belief in the galaxy's democratic republic drove her to become a tactful bureaucrat, though she sometimes favours more weaponized, aggressive negotiations.

She's a strong female character and a role model, Aayla said, and Amidala is enshrined in her room.

"She's awesome. Like, she's really, really cool."

May 4, or May the 4th, has been calendared as Star Wars Day because of its punny reference to the science fiction franchise's iconic phrase "May the Force be with you."

There's no concrete origin for the celebration, but many point to its use in a May 1979 advertisement in the London Evening News directed at then newly elected U.K. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, two years after the release of the first film.

There are conflicting accounts about whether it was wishing Thatcher luck in the May 3 general election or congratulating her the following day on her victory.

Star Wars, which is nearing its 50th birthday, is synonymous with family for some who were at the Calgary Expo.

Natarie Liu, Aayla's mother, said when she and her husband met, they both loved Star Wars and kept it as a family tradition.

"[It] started off [with] these babies as baby Ewoks," she said of her daughters at the Expo.

The entire family was bounty hunter-themed this year. Her own face was framed by a contraption to hold her blue Cad Bane mask.

"It got a lot of attention and then we just kind of continued doing Star Wars almost every year."

For others, the meaning has developed from a fantastical story of magical powers and lightsabers, to tales of the unlikely rebellion winning over an oppressive regime.

"It really represents what's happening around the world right now and the resistance that's happening," said Julie Williams from Calgary.

Williams explained her cinematic interpretation from inside a PVC-and-foam combo wrapped in fur, topped with a floppy-eared winter hat.

It took her two months to create her elaborate costume: a rebel soldier on the wintry planet of Hoth, riding a furry, horned animal known as a tauntaun.

Like Spoering, Williams grew up watching the Star Wars films and TV shows. That means something to the actors who are remembered for their roles in them.

"A lot of the fans tell me stuff: they grew up with Jango Fett; they grew hearing my voice on the games," said Temuera Morrison in an interview.

He's played two members of the Fett family and is the familiar face of throngs of Fett clones.

"I really get a buzz that I, in some way, got them through some part of their childhood or, sometimes, a lot them were in a dark place.

"And watching Star Wars and Boba Fett and Jango Fett and more recently The Book of Boba [Fett] kind of get them through maybe some time they had in hospital, so it's really been warm for me."

Reporter

Dayne Patterson is a Calgary-based reporter for The Canadian Press

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