One Thursday evening, the exact time and date being 5:30 PM, October 25, 2012, I saw headlines on the internet about something called Star Wars Episode VII.

Preposterous.

Well, after I saw enough headlines, thinking for a while that people were running off of some sort of joke, I realized that something was up. I had always thought this was impossible. Star Wars was done. The trilogy was complete. Nothing more needed to be added. I had witnessed the completion of the saga within my lifetime, and Revenge of the Sith wrapped up the end of an era. it had never occured to me, not even once, that the trilogy might expand. It had its place and time, and it would continue on in timelessness to persist into the present without having to have anything added on to the body of films, since it had an unstoppable momentum in all other facets of culture, from books to comics to video games to anything else you could think of. It would be kept alive through pop culture references, mainstream culture osmosis, and the way it shaped its way into our very identity as a society. We are a society of Star Wars fans. There are Yankee fans and Minnesota Twins fans; Green Bay fans and Vikings fans; DC fans and Marvel fans; Republican Party fans and Democratic Party fans; but almost everyone is a fan of Star Wars, and since its release it has become part of our common heritage as a global culture. Since it's completion is has become the great epic of cinematic culture, and with its six episodes in place it became the biblical canon of all that is wonderful and good with the big screen. It had become the alpha and omega. It had nothing left to prove.

Then I looked more carefully at the headlines and it dawned on me...well, I really can't describe the feeling. What I can say is that, quite simply, it was the biggest announcement since the first film came out in 1977, when it changed everything. Since that film came out, the completion of the first six films was inevitable, and thus was hardly news. Building off of something so big and monumental seemed impossible.seemed unlikely, and I anticipated that future generations would respect their legacy for what they were and let them be.

Yet, it was like seeing the second coming of Christ. Everyone expects Christmas; it comes every year. But this was different. It means that I truly don't live in the times that I thought I lived in, a post-Star Wars culture. It's still with us, still going on, and the best way I could describe the feeling of realizing this was to cite the exact time and date that I heard this news. For good measure, I could have also shared with everyone what I was doing at the time, too. It was one of those moments.

So, the Star Wars continue. This was unexpected. And like its first arrival, this changes everything. There have been a lot of popular culture announcements going on lately, but they now all take place within the context of a cinematic culture with Star Wars in it. Star Warsis the face of the big screen, the main player in its narrative. It's the cultural common denominator that unites and binds moviegoers.

Naturally, I had my concerns, but Disney is stepping up their game lately and making a comeback from their decade of lukewarm sitcoms. They have shown that they are willing to innovate again, perhaps not in the same way that they did in their Renaissance, but through power players such as their Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Marvel, and Pixar, and with Star Wars under their belt the pressure to innovate, get things right, and recapture the magic of the big screen is upon them like never before. In a way, they are both restoring each other, like a match made in Heaven, and I wish them the best. My only regret is that it is unlikely I will hear the 20^th Century Fox fanfare before the words "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" materialize on the screen with their calm blue hue.

There were some other natural concerns. I am not a fan of the Expanded Universe post-saga. I like some of the concepts, but ultimately I felt cheated that the Sith were depicted as returning, and Sideous even came back as a ghost when that didn't make sense with the rules established within the films and novelizations. Anakin was the Chosen One and I wish for future films to respect that, and I wish the finality of Sideous's death to remain final. So my hope for this next story is that the writers find villains other than the Sith to work with. To my understanding, Disney is actually honoring some old ideas of Lucas's, which I am quite pleased with. People may be upset with his directing, but he is an excellent producer and ideas person, and the philosophies he ultimately has that governs what Star Wars is are the ones I trust the most. So here's hoping that the main villain is a bounty hunter or crime lord, or some prominent figure within the galaxy's "wretched hive of scum and villainy." Many of the wrongs set by the Expanded Universe can be set straight and Star Wars can truly force a new path, while at the same time gliding easily on the ideas and concepts established by writers who pioneered before them.

Good news also came to me when I learned that J.J. Abrams was directing. He essentially made Star Trek into a space opera and single-handedly made the genre cool again, and his style is completely inspired by Star Wars, so I trusted thus decision. In fact, I trusted this far more than almost any director casting I have ever seen. His main inspirations were George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the latter being someone he has worked with personally. He also knows exactly how to take a beloved franchise that began to get old and revitalize it, and do so lovingly by honoring everything about the source material.

My only concern was that he might use his usual collaborator, Michael Giacchino, to direct the score. It would have been a fare match, especially since Giacchino strongly resembles a certain supernova among film composers in style, but somehow I didn't want to see that happen. There was one last thing I needed to see confirmed to be completely content with the direction these films were going. I didn't need to know any other details, anything about the plot, or anything about the casting. I have not been looking at any Star Wars news whatsoever, because I don't need to know all the news that's coming out, since I'll watch it anyway regardless. I know what it is. It's Star Wars. All the things that this entails would come together on their own, but there were only three elements that I needed to know. The first was for the continuing saga to respect the inclusive narrative of the original movies, that the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker, permanently brought an end to the Sith through his death. The second desire I had was for a director who had the same style as George Lucas (though perhaps a better ability to work with actors). The third was that the film score had to be amazing. If those bases were covered, everything else would fall into place on itself. I am very optimistic for these movies and I know that they will be good. It's Star Wars. There's no way it can't be.

My optimism, if not sheer joy, jolted up to eleven yesterday night. My question about the composer was answered, and the friend who broke the news to be made my day, nay, my entire month. I ran out screaming, jumping up and down with joy, and I ran back to him to give him a giant bear hug (to his girlfriend's shock). It's now down on my calendar, the date and time. The time was 10:00 PM. The date was a Sunday, September 1, 2013. It also happened to be my cousin's birthday.

It is also such great news that it deserved a reflection all on its own.