5/6/2023 0 Comments May the 4th be with you![]() ![]() In 2013, Disney officially recognized Star Wars Day for May 4-just months after Disney purchased Lucasfilm. The origins to this being a celebrated fan holiday really start with Ward and Quinn's work in Toronto. ![]() It also had its first celebrity guest: Chad Vader, a supermarket employee who wears a Darth Vader uniform that was a YouTube sensation in 2011. The event featured screenings of fan films, trivia, a costume contest, and more. Also, you get some real wonderful and cheesy CG of a local news reporter holding a lightsaber. One year later, Star Wars Day happened again in Toronto with the same founders at the Toronto Underground Cinema, but this time, it caught the eye of the media, boosting its signal. ![]() Sean Ward and Alice Quinn put together a celebration of all things Star Wars in Toronto, Canada. The phrase found its way into pop culture through various TV shows, books, and once again, the British government, but Star Wars Day didn't officially arrive until 2011. Congratulations." While we couldn't find an archived copy of that edition, Star Wars backs it up. Back on May 4, 1979, to celebrate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's victory, her political party took out an ad in the London Evening News which said, "May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. It wasn't someone from the world of Star Wars that coined the phrase. However, the phrase "May the fourth be with you" has some pretty interesting origins. Obviously, the phrase "May the 4th be with you" is based on "May the Force be with you," something said numerous times in the Star Wars films. And 44 years later, it's still going strong. It was already a cultural phenomenon, just after one movie. Keep in mind, this is 1977 and getting close to that $1 billion mark during that time was huge. The movie was a smashing success making over $775 million globally. The first movie in the multimedia franchise, Star Wars: A New Hope, hit theaters on May 25, 1977. But where does this tradition come from and what does it mean? Today, you'll see and hear people say "May the 4th be with you." And sure, it may feel a little weird, but May 4 is the day where people around the world celebrate the Star Wars franchise. Hours later, Mashable published an article highlighting various tweets joking about the announcement as if it were a celebration of Star Wars Day.Happy Star Wars Day to everyone in a galaxy far, far away. The following day, Twitter user posted a picture of the Queen of England holding a "May the Fourth Be With You" sign (shown below). That day, the hashtag #BuckinghamPalace and the "The Queen" began trending on Twitter. On May 3rd, 2017, The Daily Mail reported that a "top secret emergency meeting" had been called by the Buckingham Palace, leading many to speculate that the Queen of England or the Duke of Edinburgh were suffering from health problems. By 2009, it was common for websites to devote entire pieces to Star Wars Day, with New York Daily News publishing a post titled "Star Wars fans celebrate unofficial holiday, May the Fourth Be With You," and The Daily Mail publishing a post titled "May the fourth be with you: Sci-fi film fanatics tie the knot in Star Wars themed ceremony." Online, one of the first mentions declaring May 4th as the unofficial Star Wars Day appeared in a post titled "Why go out?" published in The Guardian on May 4th, 2006. To celebrate her victory her conservative party put out an ad in the London Evening News that read: "May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. May the 4th, also known as "Star Wars Day," was chosen as the series' unofficial holiday because the date sounds like, "May the Force." One of the original uses of the phrase can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher's May 4th, 1979, victory in England's Prime Minister race. MemeGenerator has over 500 images referencing the force. On May 29th, 2005, Slate published a piece on an upcoming Star Wars fan-made movie titled "May the Force Be With You, and You, and You …" On June 21st, 2005, the quote was included in "AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time." As of April 2014, the Facebook page for "May the force be with you," has gained over 4,000 likes and DeviantArt has over 46,000 pieces of fan art tagged with the phrase. It was also famously used in a later scene, when Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who has been skeptical about the force, says the phrase to Luke (Mark Hamill) as a show of support before he goes into battle. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters." The phrase was used by General Dodonna (Alex McCrindle) when wishing Luke (Mark Hamill) good luck as he prepares to fight the Empire. The line "may the force be with you" in its entirety was first said in Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope, which was released on May 25th, 1977. ![]()
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