May the Force Be with Us. Forever. Seriously, they will make these movies until the sun explodes.

Congratulations if you are reading this.  You have survived yet another exciting Black Friday shopping event.  You have survived Black Friday, Chartreuse Thursday, (the holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving) and you now find yourself in the middle of Broke Blue Saturday. 

Before this year, I had never participated directly in Black Friday, although I did pick up my wife once to take her to breakfast after she had been shopping for EIGHT HOURS.  This curb-side pick-up, though, is the closest I had ever come to the mayhem that is the exclamation point in our profanity-laced holiday sentence.  Lest we ever forget why much of the world offers us the one-fingered wave whenever we turn around to tie our shoes, we merely need to briefly examine some Black Friday security videos. 

            “Oh, yeah,” we will mutter while inspecting the footage of adults literally punching each other to secure a video game filled with characters digitally punching each other.  “I guess that is kind of messed up.”

            This column, though, is not about Black Friday of this year, or even Christmas of this year, two topics that we can probably all agree are much too passé to consider this late in November.  This column is instead about the Christmas season of 2015, which will undoubtedly be saturated by the December 18^th release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Return of a New Pile of Money.

Like many dorks around the world, I experienced an authentic emotional response upon learning a few months ago that George Lucas had sold Star Wars. Due to our steady food supply and indoor plumbing, many of us in the United States are often forced into creating our own dilemmas, and this dilemma, the one where the Walt Disney corporation gets to decide what Darth Vader’s grandchildren do with their pretend lives, has filled me with a pathetic degree of anxiety.

This concern is undoubtedly related to the fact that my connection to Star Wars has deep roots.  The first movie I watched in a theater, way back in 1977, was the original Star Wars.  Because my parents happened to be visiting a friend who lived in Los Angeles at the time, I actually had the privilege of watching the movie in Hollywood, of all places, in the actual Grauman’s Chinese Theater.  Star Wars paraphernalia permeated much of my childhood, and although I eventually put the toys away, the enthusiasm for the franchise never really left.

            More importantly, I am not alone.  Countless people throughout the world have devoted an unjustifiable amount of their memory to this cultural phenomenon.  Thus, in some respects, we are glad that George Lucas has allowed the story to continue.  We are pleased in a weird little way that our own children will be able to experience some of the space operatic magic that infused so much of our own formative years.

            However, another part of us, the part that believes we somehow “own” the version of the story we were told, is concerned.  After all, we were told a story about a very flawed human who succumbs to temptation with very grave results.  We were told a story about a son who risked his own life to save that flawed human from his own inner demons.  That is the story we were told.  That is our story.  We assumed that when Vader was killed and Anakin redeemed, the story was over. 

The rebels win, the Empire loses, and peace reigns throughout the galaxy far, far, away. Right?  Apparently not.  Apparently something has gone amiss.  I suppose we will find out in two years. 

In the meantime and in closing, let us recall another little band of rebels who fought against a greedy empire many, many years ago, in a land not far away at all.  These rebels, too, won their victory, and a few years afterward their leader spoke certain words to pass down through posterity. 

 “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,”  George Washington proclaimed on October 3, 1789, “to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor…I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being…we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks...”

Washington continues about all the things for which the infant nation ought be thankful:  victory in the war, civil and religious liberties, the rational institution of a working government.  Things we now take for granted. 

And great Black Friday shopping deals, of course.  Washington just goes on and on about all the great deals.