Yesterday was May 4, known among diehard fans and newscasters looking for human-interest angles to color their segues as “Star Wars Day.” It’s an annually observed holiday in which the world pauses briefly from discussing Star Wars to discuss Star Wars, and this year’s celebration was obviously extra-charged with Disney PR department-generated excitement, since there’s also a new movie to talk about. And as such, several involved with the saga also got into the act, on the day specifically set aside for observing our culture’s most frequently observed fictional work.
First up, the official Star Wars Instagram account posted the below photo of everyone’s favorite Star Wars character, Disney CEO Bob Iger, posing with Chewbacca. Captioned “Chairman’s new co-pilot” with no further elaboration, it succeeded in leading to speculation as to whether that is, indeed, Peter Mayhew in the costume, whether this is an official look at what Chewbacca will look like in Episode VII, whether that means Chewbacca has avoided graying through some sort of Wookiee Grecian Formula, and whether the half-glimpsed figure just over Iger’s shoulder is the ghost of a young boy who lived in the apartment that was later converted into the studio, and he committed suicide because he believed there would never be another Star Wars movie. He now haunts the halls of the production, his tormented cries forcing J.J. Abrams to listen to his thoughts on character development.
Over on today’s Good Morning America, the talk show asked a robot questions, either as a belated celebration of Star Wars Day, or as a perfectly timed sort of thing to do after too many margaritas on Cinco de Mayo. Among these were fan-submitted queries to R2-D2 about what it was like working with C-3PO, which the droid answered with a typically succinct series of beeps and squelches—a polite way of saying he was a condescending dick.
Later, the show photographed R2-D2 standing next to fellow early-’80s icon Rick Springfield. The “Jessie’s Girl” singer and the service droid compared notes on what it’s like to be a machine.
And finally, offering a very slightly more human form of fan dialogue, director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan combined forces to give them the details they’ve long waited to hear, on how both of them really miss their families. Abrams also mentioned offhandedly that casting announcements will “continue”—an exciting acknowledgement that the new Star Wars movie will have more than 13 people in it.
Anyway, it remains to be seen when those casting announcements will be made, or when other, actual news will next be released. Though it’s worth noting that we have an entire year between now and the next Star Wars Day before a new movie comes out. And so tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from Star Wars Day to Star Wars Day, to the last selfie of recorded timely promotion.