So, to put it frankly, I have a super Star Wars obsessed boyfriend, who, of course, is very much excited for the newest addition to the latest trilogy; The Last Jedi. Which to be quite honest, puts me in a very awkward position. On one hand I’m like yay, date night! On the other, it’s like ouch, 2+ hours of spaceships, bad vs evil and some weird guy that has awful respiratory issues. But, being the best bae that I am, I’ll tag along and try my best to pay attention.
It’s been 3 years, to be fair, I’ve become quite fond of the Star Wars franchise and even though I’m not THAT excited for new releases, I’ve paid to see worse movies before. Rewind 3 years, Darth Vader, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Chewbacca meant diddly squat to me, but look at me now, naming them off as if we were BFFs.
The way they even made Star Wars is confusion overload. As far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong) to understand the story, it makes more sense for you to watch the prequel to the trilogy first. The prequel movies are Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Episode 2: Attack of the Clones and Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. These films were followed by the original series consisting of Episode 4: A New Hope, Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back and Episode 5: Return of the Jedi.
I know the ‘lingo’ in the movies can be like ‘what did he just say?’ or ‘who is he talking about?’ so I’m gonna’ let you all in on some secrets with a little cheat-sheet!
Jedi: A warrior who uses the ‘force’, they usually have a lightsabre of a certain colour too!
Lightsabre: The lightsabre is the big glowy thing that the Jedi’s use to fight with. They make super weird noises, but we’re not here to talk about that.
The Force: The force is a mystical, magical thing that all the Jedi’s use. It’s supposedly a good thing and something that’s very powerful that binds them all together, you may hear a lot of ‘may the force be with you’ it’s godly like, let’s put it that way.
The Rebellion: All the good guys. Que the Jedi’s.
The Empire: Pretty much Darth Vader and his pals. The evil ones, we’re not allowed to like these ones apparently. Oops.
Padawan: A Jedi in training. A Padawan will be trained by a Jedi Knight, who is a Jedi that has passed their training.
Rule of Two: The rule that says there can only be one Sith master and one Sith apprentice.
Sith: The bad guys who use the dark side of the force. These guys are still ‘at one with the force’ like the Jedi, but use it for evil means.
The Dark Side: If you go to ‘the dark side’ you basically use the darker side of the force and are probably BFFs with Darth Vader.
Stormtrooper: The guys dressed in white. They’re the soldiers of The Empire. In English? More bad guys.
Droid: Short for android, the ‘droids’ are the little robot guys. R2D2 and C3PO are both droids. (probably my favourite characters)
The Death Star: The Empire’s biggest and best weapon. A big, planet looking space station which can destroy an entire planet at once.
Ok – that should be enough to get you through without completely going mad. Next, I’m going to give you a run down on who’s who in the ‘galaxy’.
Luke Skywalker- This guy is a big deal so ******** read carefully. He’s a Jedi. The hero apparently, and everybody in The Rebellion looks up to him. Good guy. Green lightsabre.
Han Solo- Captain of the ship The Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca’s BFF. Not a Jedi, but a good guy all the same. No lightsabre for this one.
Chewbacca- Big hairy guy. AKA Chewie. (another one of my favs) Han Solo’s co-pilot on the Millennium Falcon. Fights in the rebellion. Speaks a weird language because he’s a Wookie, but it’s super entertaining so you’ll learn to love it.
Princess Leia- Han Solo’s bae. Also fights in the Rebellion. A little bit ‘at one with the force’. You might know her from that episode of friends when Rachel and Phoebe put pastries at the side of their heads. Pretty much the only girl – you’ll see her, don’t worry.
Darth Vader- The guy with respiratory issues, big black suit, hard to miss. He’s the bad guy – apparently someone’s Father too, but I won’t give that one away yet. Red lightsabre.
Yoda- Speaks like this he does. Little green guy he is. Ok you get it, he talks weird. But again, super cute. Green lightsabre, but his is much shorter because he’s only a lil’ guy.
Obi Wan Kenobi- Another Jedi. Shows up as a ghost most of the time. Luke’s mentor. Blue lightsabre.
Just to give you a little insight into the plot – it’s basically good vs. evil. The Rebellion vs. The Empire. The Jedi vs. The Sith. Most of the movies (in my opinion) centre around The Rebellion trying to destroy The Death Star. To be fair to all those Star War’s loving men out there, it is a little interesting once you know what’s going on and there are little bits of added humour to help you along your way too.
Overall? It could be worse.
Star Wars Episode IX: The Last Jedi hits Irish cinemas on the 15th of December.
Happy Star Wars-ing.
Oh,
And may The Force be with you.
Photo credit: imagequiz.co.uk