May 4th seems like a date specifically designed to celebrate Star Wars Day, doesn’t it? “May the 4th be with you” has become a geek celebration date that Lucasfilm itself usually celebrates in a big way, and it has even surpassed May 25th, the day when A New Hope premiered and many consider the “geek pride day” (although, honestly, it is becoming less and less used). However, the origins of the May 4th celebration have nothing to do with George Lucas, Chewbacca, or Luke Skywalker, but rather with one of the least loved policies in history.
May politics be with you
Let’s go back to 1979. At that time, Star Wars was still living off the memory of its first movie, which changed everything two years earlier and was still being re-released from time to time, creating a whole expanded universe around it: Marvel comics made up whatever they wanted, and the same happened with the novels. Fans were so eager to have new adventures of their favorite characters that even the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special was accepted, like someone taking methadone because they have nothing else nearby. Everyone knew that The Empire Strikes Back was already being filmed, and it was a constant buzz in the film industry.
Star Wars era, despite the efforts of revisionists to assert otherwise, a movie that genuinely inspired admiration in society. Most people understood the references to the Death Star or lightsabers, and it was by no means a small film intended only for the usual four nerds. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise us that the first reference to May 4th as Star Wars Day came from… Margaret Thatcher. Yes, that Margaret Thatcher, the very Iron Lady.
On May 3, 1979, in the United Kingdom, people were not thinking about movies, because they were playing for something more important: the future of their country. On the Labour side was James Callaghan and on the Conservative side was a certain Margaret Thatcher who would end up thrashing her opponent. But before knowing it and to express their support, the Conservatives decided to cheer her on with a half-page ad in the London Evening News. And what did it say? “Dear Maggie, May the Fourth Be with You”. Some say that after this epithet they added “Congratulations”, but that is completely false. How could they congratulate her for an election that had not yet occurred?
On the official Star Wars website, it is said that in the summer of 1978 the phrase was already used to celebrate July 4th in American newspapers, but Thatcher’s was the first case where it was used on the correct day. We have to wait until May 4, 1982, to see someone who worked on the film celebrating the holiday: it was Randy Thom, sound designer of Return of the Jedi, who came up with the joke by looking at the date and sharing it with the rest of his colleagues. Since then, it has become an unofficial holiday for the Star Wars team… which would eventually get out of hand. To this day, the entire Internet knows about the pun, which has been adopted as an excuse to celebrate almost 50 years of galactic adventures. May the 4th be with you.
