Today is the best day to be a Star Wars fan. Today. Not tomorrow. Not Thursday. Not this weekend. It’s today. There is no better day. Savor it. You will never get it back. This is the only day that will feel this good.
If you are reading this on Monday, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will never be a better movie than it is right now. I remember in 1999, there was a time in the lead up to The Phantom Menace that The Phantom Menace was the greatest movie ever made. We had waited so long! Sixteen years! Of course it’s going to be great! I mean, no one could tell us any differently. It was exciting. It was fun. When I do experience Star Wars nostalgia, it’s for those days, when that movie could have literally been anything, and it was just me and my friends talking about what it could be. That’s what’s fun about all of this.
That’s why today is the best day.
On Monday night, The Force Awakens will have its premiere. You will start to see famous people and some members of the media share their vague opinions on social media. On Tuesday, a lot more media people will see the movie (including this reporter). On Wednesday at 3 a.m., reviews will be up (including one at this website written by this reporter), plot details will leak, opinions will be expressed. Some people will be ecstatic! Some people will be tempered. Some people will think what they saw was stupid. The waters will be sullied. It won’t be innocent anymore. Not like today, when The Force Awakens can be literally anything we want it to be. Today is the best Star Wars day.
It’s been 10 years since there was a Star Wars movie. For Star Wars fans, this week is a special week. You will never get to see The Force Awakens for the first time ever again. After this week, it’s just another “Star Wars movie you’ve seen,” just like all the other ones. But, on this day – the best day to be a Star Wars fan – you haven’t seen it yet. But you will see it really soon. This week! And, right now, no one outside of the cast and crew and studio honchos have seen it. Right now, it’s a level playing field. That will change tonight. Then we will all have opinions. But, at this moment, on this day, it’s still an innocent thing. It can still be anything.
The Force Awakens is a direct sequel to Return of the Jedi featuring Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2. This, on its own, makes it more interesting than the prequels. Finally, we get to find out what happens to the characters we loved from the original trilogy. We may love what happens to them. We might not like at all what happens to them. We don’t know yet! That’s why this day is the best day to be a Star Wars fan.
When Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith came out, it still felt special. First, because there were three-year gaps in between each movie. Second, we were told at the time that this was it. No more movies… and we believed what we were told. So, even in a world where we were getting the prequels, it still felt like something we’d better savor because, after Revenge of the Sith, that was it.
Now, we are going to, most likely, get a Star Wars movie every year for the rest of our lives. We already know there’s one every year until 2019. We will never know how the story ends. Every year, this will become less and less special. This will all become more routine. We will still look forward to these movies, but not like this. There can only be one more direct sequel to an original trilogy movie and this is it. And soon we will see it! And then it will be over. But, right now, it’s not over. It’s still a thing we get to do. This week. We still haven’t seen The Force Awakens.
Savor this day. You will never get it back. It will never be as good as it is right now. It will never feel quite like this day ever again. Today is the best Star Wars day.
Mike Ryan lives in New York City and has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and New York magazine. He is senior entertainment writer at Uproxx. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
