May the Fourth should be a celebration of Star Wars. Not an argument. Not a stress test. Not a day where every conversation has to get dragged back into the same tired franchise fights.
It should be a day to celebrate what we love: the characters, the adventure, the ships, the worlds, the music, the sense of wonder, and that feeling Star Wars gives you when it really hits.
That is one reason I still love The Force Awakens.
I do not mean that in a qualified way. I mean I genuinely love this movie. The trailers for The Force Awakens already recaptured the spirit of Star Wars for me, and then the film itself sealed it. It is one of my favorite Star Wars films, and every time I revisit it, I still feel that same spark I felt the first time I watched it. More than ten years later, it has not lost that magic for me. It still has heart, mystery, humor, energy, and a kind of cinematic joy that feels deeply tied to what Star Wars is supposed to be.
So on May the Fourth, I would much rather celebrate what The Force Awakens does so well than spend the day circling discourse I have never found very interesting in the first place. More than a decade later, this movie still gives me far too much to enjoy.
The characters are a huge part of why it works
Rey
Rey had my attention immediately, and the movie did not need dialogue to make that happen. Just watching her move across Jakku, scavenging through the wreckage of a fallen war and living alone inside an old AT-AT, told me she was someone worth caring about. She felt capable, lonely, inventive, and full of longing from the very start.
Then she puts on that old pilot helmet and looks up at the sky. I have loved that moment ever since I first saw it. It is small, but it tells you so much about her. You can feel the dream in her before the movie fully puts it into words.
And then there is the lightsaber catch at the end. When the saber flies past Kylo Ren and snaps into Rey’s hand, that is the moment I truly loved the character. It is one of the great Star Wars hero moments. It still gives me chills.
What makes Rey especially compelling is that she already has strength before the larger Force story fully opens up around her. She grew up alone. She had to improvise. She had to defend herself. She had to survive without anyone rescuing her. The movie builds all of that into her naturally, so when bigger things start happening, she already feels grounded as a person.
Finn
Finn is a fantastic character idea right out of the gate. A stormtrooper who breaks away from the machine and has to figure out who he is outside of it is strong material, and John Boyega gives him so much personality that he never feels like a concept first and a character second.
I especially like that Finn is brave without being fearless. He is scared. He panics. He does not always know what to do. That makes his choices matter more. His courage feels real because it costs him something.
Poe Dameron
Poe clicks almost instantly. He has charm, confidence, speed, and the kind of pilot energy Star Wars always knows how to use well. He also feels, to me, a little like what it might have been like if Wedge Antilles had been positioned as one of the central leads from the beginning. That is not all Poe is, of course, but it is part of why he feels so immediately right in this universe.
Oscar Isaac gives him exactly the spark the movie needs. Poe does not take long to become memorable.
Han, Leia, and Luke
The returning legacy heroes also matter here, not just as icons, but as part of the movie’s emotional texture. Han still feels like Han right away. Harrison Ford brings warmth, weariness, humor, and history with him the second he shows up, and the movie gets a lift from that.
Leia does not need much screen time to land either. Carrie Fisher brings command and sadness and intelligence all at once. I also just love seeing Leia in a position of strength again. That matters.
Luke barely appears, but his presence hangs over the whole movie in exactly the way it should. The ending works because the film understands that Luke still carries real mythic weight.
Chewbacca, BB-8, C-3PO, and R2-D2
Chewie still rules. BB-8 was an immediate win. C-3PO still gets a laugh out of me with “You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.” R2-D2’s late-film role is small but effective. None of them feel forced into the movie just to tick a nostalgia box. They feel like part of the fabric of Star Wars, which is exactly what they should be.
Maz Kanata, Kylo Ren, Hux, and Snoke
Maz brings warmth and mystery at just the right point in the film. She feels wise, strange, and deeply at home in this galaxy. Kylo Ren works for me because he is not a clean Darth Vader repeat. He is powerful, unstable, insecure, and trying very hard to force himself into a legacy that does not fit him cleanly. That makes him interesting.
Hux gives the First Order a sharp, angry edge, while Snoke is used just enough to widen the sense that darker things are moving behind the scenes. Not every character needs the same amount of emphasis to leave a real impression.
The locations help the movie feel lived in
One thing I still love about The Force Awakens is how much it enjoys the physical world of Star Wars. Jakku may be a desert junk planet, but it does not feel generic to me. It feels like a world built out of wreckage and memory. The old machines are not just background dressing. They feel like the remains of a larger history that Rey is literally living inside.
That is one reason her introduction works so well. Jakku is not just where she lives. It tells us something about her. She grew up in the bones of older stories, making do with what was left behind.
I also still remember some of the concept art that imagined Jakku as a flooded world, with towers and wreckage rising up from deep water while Rey scavenged among them. I thought that was a fascinating idea. I can also understand why the movie did not go that direction. It would have changed the opening atmosphere a lot and probably made the film feel less immediately recognizable as Star Wars in those first scenes.
Even so, I still hope Star Wars uses an environment like that someday. It would be beautiful and eerie and genuinely new for the films. The fact that I can admire that unused version while still loving the Jakku we got says something good about the movie. The final choice still works.
Takodana changes the movie’s temperature in a way I really like. After so much sand, metal, and wreckage on Jakku, Maz’s corner of the galaxy feels older, greener, warmer, and a little more storybook. There is music in the castle, there are travelers passing through, and there is that sense that Star Wars still has strange old rooms you can wander into and get lost in for a while. It also gives the movie space to slow down just enough for Rey’s pull toward the saber, Finn’s uncertainty, and Han’s growing awareness that bigger things are moving again.
Starkiller Base does almost the opposite, and that contrast helps. It is cold, severe, and built around dread. The snow, the dark interiors, and the scale of the weapon make it feel less like a lived-in place and more like a machine built to turn fear into spectacle. By the time Rey and Kylo Ren face each other in the forest, the movie has shifted fully into myth: winter woods, red light, blue light, trees splitting apart, the ground opening under them. Takodana opens the galaxy up in a different way. Starkiller Base makes it feel harsh, dangerous, and legendary.
And of course, the Millennium Falcon still has the power to make everything feel more alive the second it really enters the movie. The Force Awakens knows how to move through different environments without making the galaxy feel small.
The music makes the emotion land even harder
John Williams is a huge part of why this movie works as well as it does, and Rey’s theme is one of my favorite themes in all of Star Wars now. It has wonder in it, but also loneliness, curiosity, and movement. It feels bright and wistful at the same time, which is exactly right for her.
I love that the movie gives Rey music that really belongs to her. It helps define her from the beginning, and it stays with you. It is one of the musical reasons she never feels like a vague placeholder dropped into the saga. She arrives with identity.
And then there is the lightsaber catch. Part of why that moment hits so hard is the music surrounding it. The Force theme carries memory with it. It reaches back into the earlier films and connects Rey’s moment to the larger spiritual and heroic current of Star Wars.
For me, that makes the scene even more powerful. It recalls that sense of calling and decision from earlier in the saga, when Luke chooses to step onto a larger path and learn about the Force. Rey’s moment is not the same scene repeated, but it rhymes in a way that feels exactly right. She is no longer standing outside that story. It is hers now too.
That is one of the reasons the scene feels so big to me. It is not just a cool action beat. It is a destiny moment, and the music understands that perfectly.
It may echo A New Hope, but it still feels like its own film
Yes, The Force Awakens shares some surface DNA with A New Hope. I have never felt any need to deny that. But for me, that does not erase what makes the movie distinct. The surrounding events are different. The emotional shape is different. The characters are different. The central energy is different.
This is not Luke leaving home with Obi-Wan. This is Rey surviving alone in the wreckage of history. This is Finn breaking away from the First Order. This is Poe helping kick the whole thing into motion. This is Kylo Ren collapsing under the pressure of inherited myth. The movie has its own identity, and I think that matters much more than flattening everything into one comparison.
Why I still celebrate The Force Awakens on May the Fourth
On May the Fourth, I want Star Wars to feel joyful. I want wonder. I want desert horizons and old ships and funny lines and new heroes. I want music that lifts a scene into something mythic. I want that feeling that the galaxy is wide open again and full of possibility.
The Force Awakens gives me all of that. It did the first time I saw it, and it still does now. More than ten years after its release, it still has not lost that first-watch magic for me. That is why it remains one of my favorite Star Wars films, and why it feels so easy to celebrate when May the Fourth rolls around.
May the Fourth Be With You.
