The Star Wars franchise is one of the biggest and highest-grossing franchises in media, grossing over $51.8 billion since its inception in 1977. It is a generation-defining franchise that heavily inspired the sci-fi genre at its time and still does today.
It has spanned a number of films, TV shows, novels, video games and more. It’s a franchise that means something different to a lot of people, no matter how old or new of a fan one is. Star Wars has connected to its community in one way or another with the abundance of stories that the franchise tells.
A long-time fan of the franchise, Alex Angeles, recently rediscovered his love for Star Wars after years of being slightly disappointed with the recent trilogy of films.
“The newer series on Disney Plus, ‘The Mandalorian,’ was what really brought me back,” Angeles said. “Just a really cool show that has this badass character going on random adventures throughout the galaxy, and that’s what I wanted more of, smaller stories in such an interesting universe.”
Even films that most fans disagree with have something for newer fans of the franchise that brought them in.
UC Irvine student Rahnya Moubayed was previously completely turned off by the franchise, but when she gave the films a shot after the sequel trilogy was released.
“I never thought I would enjoy it, honestly, but they are all just fun movies with fun characters,” Moubayed said. “I like how the story comes together and how each character interacts with each other. While it was confusing, I still liked learning about a world I know nothing about.”
While the majority of fans can always provide memories that they can associate with the films and TV shows, there are also those that hold some weight and those that mainly associate the franchise with other forms of media like video games and novels.
Saddleback College student Luis Bustos barely remembers the majority of the films but will always have nostalgic memories of the video games he played while growing up.
“I grew up playing a lot of the ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ games back on the Xbox,” Bustos said. “Being able to be part of those big battles from the movies was really cool. That and, funnily enough, the ‘LEGO Star Wars’ games was the main way I experienced those movies.”
The Star Wars franchise means something different to everyone and shows no signs of ever slowing down.
May the force be with you this May 4th.