May The 4th Be With You: People Worldwide Celebrate ‘Star Wars Day’

“May the 4th be with you” and a holiday associated with it has firmly become a part of nerd culture, and Star Wars fans worldwide are more than happy to use the fourth of May as yet another reason to celebrate their love for George Lucas’s timeless sci-fi masterpiece. Despite not being officially endorsed by Lucasfilm, the date is still revered by the fans who have created the holiday as a result of a play on words: “May the 4th be with you” sounds almost exactly the same as “May the Force be with you,” the famous words of encouragement and strength from the Star Wars movies.

People and establishments around the world celebrated Star Wars Day in a number of fascinating fashions, which once again confirmed the special place the franchise occupies in many hearts. For example, Space.com reports that the Wired team made an attempt to reenact one of the most picturesque battle scenes from Return of the Jedi, in which a Super Star Destroyer slams into the second Death Star, using a notoriously hard-to-find $800 Lego kit consisting of more than 3,000 individual pieces.

“Not content to let the Super Star Destroyer perish in vain, the Wired team decided to film the carnage at a rate of 1,000 frames per second, resulting in captivating footage. The Super Star Destroyer took the team over 16 hours to build and just seconds to destroy, yet the high-speed video has already earned a unique place of pride in their Battle Damage series.”

Disney, the current owner of Star Wars trademark, also did its best to capitalize on the unofficial holiday. According to the Inquisitr, the company commemorated it with Star Wars weekends, the launch of new merchandise, and other events, adding up to the growing hype around the seventh movie in the series, due this December.

“The company launched a limited line of Star Wars t-shirts and pins. The first pin from the collection is a Jedi Mickey that comes out on May 4th, while the second pin of Darth Goofy for Revenge of the 5th is set to release on Tuesday, May 5th.”

There was another reason that brought about “May the 4th be with you” – up until now, all Star Wars movies have premiered in May – however, the seventh part of the series will step away from this tradition, and will hit theaters on December 16.

[Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images]