May the Fourth

May the fourth be with you. Happy Star Wars Day!

Yeah, I totally outed myself as a Star Wars fan. But honestly, this is an astronomy blog, so it can't be that surprising. Though people have pegged me for a Star Trek fan instead. Star Trek is good an all, but I ain't no Trekkie. Give me mystical space wizards with laser swords over super-intelligent space elves with autism any day.

Both have fascinating and complex galaxies, and I guess the biggest difference is that Star Trek is us in the future, in our own galaxy and exploring. Star Trek is more based in reality I'd guess. Star Wars is totally out there with anything possible, an entirely different galaxy with a different history built from the ground up. Having an entire galaxy to work with leaves for a fantastical amount of space for the expanded universe.

And though the expanded universe is pretty deep (and I've read a good chunk of it since the 5th grade, and not the little kids books, I started with the Hand of Thrawn) I don't keep up with it much anymore. After the whole 20 years later thing with Luke having a kid, I kinda got outta it. Occasionally I'll catch the Clone Wars cartoon, but I just feel meh about it.

The real draw of Star Wars are the movies. The original trilogy. It wasn't an overly complex story, and the basic use of character archetypes was enough to suck my in as a kid. That and the sights and sounds were believable, compared to the other stuff in the day. Star Wars made special effects what it is today and was able to get all the sounds for that world perfect. I love my dad for showing me those movies as soon as possible.

The new movies aren't too bad, I like them, but they don't quite live up to the original's standard. All the CGI felt like plastic molding over everything. But, I have to admit they were still better movies then most of the other crud Hollywood has been churning out.

I have to be honest, the prospect of exploring and studying the distant reaches of the galaxy helped inspire me to pursue studying astronomy. With out Star Wars I probably would have become something silly like a business or government major, maybe Biology or English? Heck I have a minor in international relations, I could have go on to international law. But the Universe is out there waiting to be seen.

So that's it for today. No astronomy stuff, just praise for Star Wars, cuz ima geek like that.

Also, my favorite is Return of the Jedi. Don't hate, people get so stuck up on the Ewoks.

But lots of awesome things happened: Jabba's palace, Yoda reveals truths on his deathbed,

huge space battle between good and evil, It's A Trap, and the Empire is finally defeated.

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