I am an adult male who has never seen any Star Wars movies. Please, before you throw your garbage at me, let me explain. Well, actually, I don’t have much of an explanation, I’ve just never seen them. But of course, since the franchise is such an iconic piece of popular culture, naturally, many, many Star Wars references have whizzed past me in my lifetime like an X-Wing Fighter (that’s a thing from the movie that I know!). It’s sort of impossible to go through life not learning anything about Star Wars. Besides the fact that the movie has generally been an omnipresent American institution over the last 40 years, mentioned in countless songs and TV shows, I have been exposed to it in other, more specific ways, namely, working in a Toys R Us through the release of two prequels, watching Spaceballs once, and having friends with Star Wars tattoos.
So, here is my attempt at piecing together the plot of the movie from what I’ve picked up from pop culture references over the years…
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Star Wars begins with some flying words saying “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” We see our main characters in a space bar. Luke Skywalker’s there, Han Solo is there, Chewbacca’s making his wookiee noises, those two nerd robots are bickering like an old married couple. Then we cut away to the Dark Side and oh man, it is dark as hell over there. The Imperial Death March plays and we see Darth Vader walking down a long spaceship hallway on the Death Star. There are some Storm Troopers following him and one of them hits their head on the ceiling. Vader has his cape in a twist about something. He orders his Troopers to invade the Jedis.
Some of the Storm Troopers capture Princess Leia and bring her to Jaba the Hutt and she says “Save me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” and the close-up scene of her gold bikini has been worn out by virgins rewinding it so many times. Obi Wan hears her pleas somehow. So Obi Wan Kenobi’s like, “Gas up the Millennium Flacon and the X-Wing Fighter, you guys. Princess Leia needs help.” Han Solo is like, “I’ll fly us there as long as they don’t have snakes, which I am known for hating.” So him and Chewie start flying there and some bad guys try to attack them and Han Solo is all “Get off my plane!”
Eventually Princess Leia gets rescued but Obi Wan dies and becomes a blue ghost. So Luke Skywalker’s like, “Oh hell no, I’m gonna go fight this a-hole, to whom I bear no familial relation that I know of… yet.” But Yoda’s like, “A training sequence, there must be.” So Luke gets trained in the ways of the Jedi Knights. At the end of the training, Yoda says, “May the force be with you and I hope annoying people don’t post this on Facebook every May for all eternity.” He goes to the Death Star where the Jedis are fighting the Storm Troopers (this is what’s known as “a star war”). Boba Fett is there riding around on a jet pack, shooting everyone in the star war.
Luke finds Darth and breaks out his light saber. Luke hears Yoda in his head: “Use The Force.” There’s a big light saber fight between the blue light saber and the red one. Vader gets a good shot in and chops Luke’s hand off and drops the bomb on him that he’s his father all Maury Povich-like. And Luke is like, “Nooooooo!” Han Solo comes along and saves them and blows up the Death Star and then gets frozen in carbonite.
Then in the prequel, we learn that before all this happened, a character named Jar Jar Binks annoyed the shit out of everyone.
At the end of the movie, the camera pans out on George Lucas who sits at home counting his money.
The end.
How did I come to this conclusion, you may be asking? Good question. I first wrote out everything I think I know about the Star Wars movies. Here is all of the Star Wars knowledge stored in my brain in alphabetical order:
“A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…”
This is how the whole series starts. Some yellow words flying backwards through space like Dance Dance Revolution. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …uh… some people fought in the Star Wars and uh… after these words finish scrolling, get ready for the Star Wars, baby, here we go!” Ten words in and I’m already confused. How does Star Wars take place in the past when everyone knows space travel movies take place in the future. You trippin’, Star Wars. OK, maybe it takes place a long time ago because this particular far, far away galaxy has a more advanced society than ours and were flying around in spaceships millenniums before we were even drawing on caves, right? BUT THEN WHY DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH AND HAVE EARTHLING BODIES?
Admiral Ackbar
This is some Elephant Man-looking little dude and the most famous thing he does is say the line, “It’s a trap!” which became a meme people use when they get tricked or Rick Rolled or something. I don’t know what he is the admiral of or whether or not he has any other lines. I also don’t know what the trap is or who was getting trapped.
Anakin Skywalker
This is some little Jedi kid. He’s Luke Skywalker’s kid, I’m guessing. Wait, unless he was in a prequel, in which case he is Luke Skywalker’s dad. Wait, no, he can’t be Luke Skywalker’s dad because Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad which I know from the famous “Luke, I am your father” line. OK, so I’m gonna stick with my original theory which is that he is Luke Skywalker’s kid.
The Bar Scene
There is a scene in this movie where a bunch of aliens are hanging out at an intergalactic space bar, mixing it up. I know this because every time my friends and I end up at a sketchy bar they’ll say, “This looks like that bar scene in Star Wars” and I’ll be like “yeah haha hey do you think they have chicken fingers and Buck Hunter here or what?”
Boba Fett
Boba Fett is a bad dude. Like, a pretty high-ranking bad dude. He is the head of the bad guy army, possibly. Maybe he reports to head of the bad guys, Darth Vader. I’m relatively sure he’s got a jet pack and a gun and that he’s after Han Solo for some reason.
C3PO
C3PO is the neurotic robot nerd made of solid gold and his only friend is a beeping garbage disposal. Everytime I see him I think of that Star Wars auditions skit on SNL where he says “It’s Richard Dreyfuss! I told you I didn’t want to wear the damn mask!”
Chewbacca
Chewbacca’s a big ol’ bear man that everyone thinks they can do an impression of. He might be a wookiee on account of they’re both hairy. But for some reason I thought wookies were tiny. Maybe I’m thinking of the tribbles from Star Trek? That’s not one of the Star Wars sequels, right? Just kidding, I know it’s a prequel. Beam me up, Chewy!
The Dark Side
The Dark Side is where all the bad guys are at. Boba Fett is there. Darth Maul is over there, probably. Darth Vader is DEFINITELY there. He’s like, King Shit of that motherfucker. The Dark Side seems like a lonely place though because they’re always like “come over to the Dark Side.” Kinda makes you feel bad for the Dark Side people.
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is the meanest sonofabitch in this galaxy. Whenever he walks around he’s accompanied by the Imperial Death March song. He’s voiced by James Earl Jones but not played by him because I don’t think anyone would be scared of Darth Vader if he was shaped like kindly old James Earl Jones. Is James Earl Jones still alive, by the way? Hang on, lemme Google this shit… Yeah, OK, he is. Whew. Anyway, when Darth Vader takes off his helmet, he looks exactly like the head of a penis. I know this because one time when I was eight I was at a sleepover and my friend said in the middle of the night, “You know, Darth Vader looks exactly like the head of my penis.” Since he didn’t specify that he meant without his helmet, I spent many years wondering if I had a weird penis because it didn’t look like a shiny, smooth space helmet. Eventually I saw a photo of Vader without his helmet on and felt a somewhat better about my non-space helmet penis.
Darth Maul
Darth Maul is a bad guy and his most notable characteristics are his black and red face paint and his light saber which is special because it’s a double-sided light saber. He was a super popular Halloween character one year. I’m gonna take a guess that Darth Maul is Darth Vader’s son since they’re both bad guys with “Darth” in their names. Or maybe “Darth” is as common as “Mike” or “John” in the Star Wars realm.
The Death Star
via Flickr
This is a big huge space station where all the bad guys live. Darth Vader definitely lives in there. He keeps all his bad guy shit in there. But the Death Star gets blown up at some point, I know that. So I’m guessing that’s a win for the Jedis.
Droids
Droids are like, lil robots or whatever. I know there’s a line that goes, “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” So I’m guessing there are different kinds of droids and people go looking for them for some reason.
The Force
The Force is the power the Jedis have. It’s like magic, kind of. It lets you levitate stuff and be good at fighting. Jedis love that shit. They’re always talking about The Force. They’re usually saying things like “May the force be with you” and “the force is strong with this one” and uh… “may The Force be with you.” Did I say that one already? I did. OK well, that’s what The Force is. The funniest instance I ever saw involving The Force was this episode of MTV True Life where this dad was a super embarrassing Star Wars nerd and dragged his kid to a Star Wars convention. The segment ended with him trying to use the force to open the automatic door and failing. Here, this is it:
Han Solo
I’m like, 90 percent sure this is Harrison Ford’s character. I don’t know any of his lines but I think he’s like, a cocky fighter pilot so he probably says things like “hang onto your butts” and other smartalecky things like “I didn’t kill my wife!” I want to say that his co-pilot is Chewbacca. I feel like I’m always seeing those two together and they seem to have a real will-they-or-won’t-they Ross and Rachel thing going on. Things don’t end well for Han Solo though and I’m pretty sure he’s the character who gets frozen in carbonite at the end of one of the movies. I wonder how Chewy took that. Also, Han shot first, whatever the shit that means.
Hayden Christensen
That dude from the Shattered Glass movie is in one of the newer Star Wars movies though I don’t think people liked him very much.
Hoth
Hoth is a planet that is cold as hell. I know because of that one episode of the Clerks cartoon (which holds up way, way better than the majority of Kevin Smith’s catalog, anyway) where Jay says they could cut Silent Bob open and stay warm for the night. So I think that happened in the movie.
Light Sabers
These are laser swords. When I worked at Toys R Us, kids would take them out of the packages and beat the living shit out of each other with them, which was fine by us since then we could keep them in the back of the warehouse and beat the shit out of each other when we didn’t feel like working which was always. So not to brag but it’s safe to say I’m a Jedi Knight when it comes to beating the shit out of someone with a reshopped light saber.
Jabba the Hutt
This is the fat bastard who keeps Princess Leia captive. This leads me to believe that Princess Leia is maybe not the smartest character in the series since you’d have to be dumb as hell to get captured by a big, fat, slow-moving slug. Just run away when he offers you his space candy or whatever, dummy!
Jar Jar Binks
People HAAATE this mother fucker, I know that. He basically ruined the whole series. We had so many Jar Jar Binks figures left over at Toys R Us that we used to stack the boxes of them up and see who could bunny hop over them on a bike. None of us ever made it or even came close and there are several boxes of crushed Jar Jar Binks figures stuffed underneath a shipping dock out there somewhere.
Jedis
Jedis are the good guys. They are Knights. They dress like they ran through the laundry room at a resort and draped whatever towels and robes they could grab over themselves.
Lando Calrissian
Star Wars fans like to tell themselves that Star Wars is not a racist movie because Lando Calrissian is in it and he’s black and he drove the Millennium Falcon. I know this from that scene in Chasing Amy that devoted like, 15 minutes to this.
Luke Skywalker
Luke is the main good guy, played by Mark Hamill who went on to do… uh, other things. For some reason, I thought I remembered hearing that he is Princess Leia’s brother. Is that right? So I’m guessing there’s no sexual tension there unless it’s some weird incestuous thing like Back to the Future where Marty has to pretend to fuck his mom. Luke also gets his hand cut off at the end of one of them. The second one, I think.
Millennium Falcon
via Nerdist
This is the ship the good guys fly in, possibly piloted by Han Solo (Lando flew it at least once). When I was a kid, my friend had a huge model of it in his bedroom I and fell on it and crushed it while impersonating a sick dunk I saw on NBA Jam. He has not spoken to me since.
No Idea
Some evil guy, I guess.
Obi Wan Kenobi
Maaaaaan, I’m drawing a blank here. He’s some old-ass Jedi, right?. Maybe the head Jedi? No, Yoda is the head Jedi? So is the order of Jedis: Yoda, then Obi Wan, then the rest? Obi is a ghost at one point, right? Like, he’s glowing and blue? I know Princess Leia says at one point “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” But then he dies so he failed at saving her probly.
Pod Race
I know that this was the only cool thing about the Star Wars prequels. Again, big ups to that underrated Clerks cartoon for keeping me up to date about a movie series I’ve never seen.
Princess Amidala
This character is played by Natalie Portman and that’s about all I know. Not sure why she’s dressed up like some Japanese kabuki theater character.
Princess Leia
Princess Leia is a princess of… something. She has side buns, a gold bikini, and every dude between the age of 30 and 50 wants to fuck her as evidenced by that Blink-182 sexual fantasy song and that one episode of Friends where David Schwimmer makes Jennifer Aniston dress up like her, because apparently a woman who looks like Jennifer Aniston is otherwise not sexually appealing to a dude with the face of David Schwimmer.
R2D2
This is the little Roomba-looking robot that hangs out with the Tin Man. I honestly have no idea what value a robot this small could bring to the table. Star Wars was written in the 70s though so R2D2 is probably just a glorified cell phone, with an alarm clock and a calculator that adds up big numbers and a button that makes a rap horn noise.
Rebels
The Rebels are the army extension of the bad guys. OR, wait. Maybe they are the misunderstood good guys who might seem bad but are really fighting on the side of good, kinda like Dennis Leary’s character in Demolition Man. (Yes, I have seen Demolition Man and not Star Wars. Many, many times, in fact.)
Samuel L. Jackson
I know Samuel L. is in one of the Star Wars movies. I don’t know who he played in it though but I bet he said “mother fucker” as his contract entitles him three “mother fuckers” and one “badass mother fucker“ per film.
Sith
Ahhh… jeez, this is getting tough. I’m drawing a blank here. There are so many groups that I’m starting to lose track. You got the Rebels, the Jedis, Slytherin, the Dark Side, and the Siths. The Siths probably lean on the bad side, along with the Rebels. Maybe Siths and Rebels are like an army/navy thing for the Dark Side.
Storm Troopers
This is Darth Vader’s army. They kind of look like him but have white uniforms. There’s one scene where one of them hits his head on the spaceship door and George Lucas left it in there.
Tauntaun
This is some animal that you can ride around and also slice up and use as a sleeping bag on Hoth.
This Tall-Ass Walking Thing (Not Sure What It’s Called)
No idea who uses these. Seems dumb as hell though. Just push ’em over.
Tractor Beam
I know this is a Star Wars thing, and was once included in a song by nerdcore rapper, MC Chris, who’ve I’ve heard is kind of a dick in person. Anyway, I’m gonna take a guess that a tractor beam is the thing that comes out of the light saber or some laser they use to shoot other fighter ships.
Wookiees
As mentioned above, wookiees are these big Harry and the Henderson-looking guys. I’m assuming some of them are females. Here’s what came up when I googled “female wookiees”:
Nice.
X-Wing Fighters
This is a fighter jet, smaller than the Millennium Falcon. I built one made out of Legos one time and the thing cost something like $80. George Lucas could probably buy himself a house on Lego money alone.
Yoda
Yoda is the Buddha of the Jedis. He is small and decrepit but he is wise and good at fighting. He talks backwards like this: “Too many characters, there are.” “Get out of the house once in a while, you must.”
That’s it. That’s everything I know about Star Wars without ever having seen it. I’m sure I got one or two things wrong. Feel free to tell me on Twitter. Live long and prosper, friends.
