Last week at Star Wars Celebration Orlando, attendees and millions of eager viewers on the web took their first steps into a larger world. “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” debuted its long-awaited teaser trailer, and we saw a glimpse of where Star Wars plans to take us next. While this saga is for many an escape from the bothers of the real world, for others the series is undeniably linked to the history and politics of the last 40 years.
Star Wars at its core is a story of good overcoming the forces of evil. It’s light versus dark and right versus wrong. What George Lucas offered us with the original trilogy was a sense of moral clarity, a world where your choice is the white robe or the black robe. The series debuted in 1977 with “A New Hope” and dominated popular culture until 1983, concluding with “Return of the Jedi.”
