May Star Wars Be With You

Today is the day. Today is not a simple December 16, but today is the day in which Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be finally released. A world premiere of the long-awaited seventh episode of the saga has been held in Los Angeles last Monday. At the event there were all the movie's cast and some celebs (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt dressed as Yoda).

So, today is the day. There is an electricity in the air, I can feel your excitement. I can see you, now, while you're holding the cinema ticket in your hands, with dreamy eyes, ready for tonight. Ok, but before there's a thing you have to do: brush up on the best tributes that cinematography paid to Star Wars.

Leaving aside the unforgettable parodies like Mel Brooks's masterpiece Spaceballs or Family Guy's remakes, references to Star Wars in other movies and series are a lot. Even Woody Allen paid a tribute to the science-fiction saga in his Deconstructing Harry, where he introduces a Star Wars-themed Bar Mitzvah.

In 1993 it's Hot Shots! 2 who recreated a fight between Saddam Hussein and Tug Benson armed with lightsabers by quoting Darth Fener and Obi-Wan Kenobi's lines.

Tributes didn't stop and a couple of years later a trailer that seemed to announce the release of a new Star Wars movie has come out, but it was a joke to promote Austin Power: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Even Back to the Future has thanked George Lucas in its own way, when Marty McFly, dressed like a “spaceman”, woke up George McFly in the middle of the night presenting himself as “... my name is Darth Vader”.

Even TV series have fallen to Star Wars charm. Big Bang Theory characters are huge fans of the saga, which is mentioned very often. Persons, who appears in dreams as Jedi, lightsabers and Star Wars t-shirts are just a few examples.

Victims of the movie's charm are also How I Met Your Mother's male characters, to the point that every three years they gather for a Star Wars marathon.

In Scrubs, Doctor Cox and Bon Kelso fight each other like in the movie, and in the sitcom Friends Ross confesses to Rachel that Princess Leia was one of his hot dreams when he was a teenager.

We have already spoken about Family Guy, but even The Simpson don't mess around: there are many references to Star Wars in the series, but my favourite one is when Lisa is talking to her dead friend “Bleeding Gums” Murphy as a cloud, and, at some point, Darth Fener appears and pronunces his famous phrase “Luke, I am your father”.