Rebel ‘Star Wars’ commercial reminds us how inclusive ‘The Force Awakens’ was

Lucasfilm, Disney, and Target are here to remind us Star Wars fans are everywhere and there's a “Rebel in all of us.”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the most progressive film in the franchise to date. And that's great! But there was some backlash when the public found out the new Star Wars trilogy was going to be lead by a woman, a Black man, and a Hispanic man. While Lucasfilm still has work to do (just like most of Hollywood), they're making progress everywhere you look and don't look to be stopping anytime soon if this latest commercial is any indication. Even if there's still people who underestimate how much girls/women love Star Wars, they're not going to let the public forget it.

Quite different from the fan-made-yet-official toy commercial we posted about earlier this week, StarWars.com debuted a new commercial celebrating the launch of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story products which featured a few fantastic fans.

StarWars.com explains the thinking behind the new spot:

Fans connect with Star Wars for different reasons. Some love the story. Some love a certain character. Some love its lessons and themes. (And some love it for the exploding Death Stars and podraces and speeder bikes, which is totally fine.) Some love all of that, yet still connect with it through yet another way: a shared spirit of rebellion. Doing things their own way, thinking of alternatives, being creative.

And yes, the folks featured in the commercial are real fans. Kiddo Charley Burns, teacher Dan Zehr, mom Amiyrah Martin, and bride Jennifer Landa Busch.

Nine-year-old Burns says her dad introduced her to the epic story and even gave her his old Star Wars toys. While Han Solo and Chewbacca are her favorite characters she told them, “I love all the sci-fi fantasy space coolness of Star Wars. And I also like all the hardcore girls like Princess Leia.”

“Our first date, Josh and I discussed the anatomy of tauntauns at length so we knew we had to have a tauntaun and wampa cake topper,” Busch told StarWars.com of her relationship. And on her wedding day her father “dressed up as Darth Vader for the father/daughter dance. It was his idea and I was happily surprised when he showed up on the dance floor in an awesome Vader costume.”

Busch and her husband introduced their daughter to the universe at just three weeks old but Martin is a little further along in her parenting experience and talked to the website about her child's experience with Star Wars:

My son is already impacted by Star Wars, and all of the fantastic fanatical living that we do because of it. He knows that it doesn”t matter where he comes from, how he was raised, or what he grows up to be, he always has the option of being the hero. He always has the right to be the good in the world. And, he can be the one to save the day, even if it seems like he”s the underdog.

And that's just a few examples of why it's so important Star Wars represents everyone.

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