Despite numerous media claims that Star Wars Day is an international event celebrated the world over, in Metro Vancouver it appears to be little more than a pun gone wild.
Supposedly, Star Wars fans celebrate May 4th by donning their best and most intricate costumes, holding public light saber fights and jokingly calling "May the fourth be with you!" at passersby.
Or at least they would – if they knew about it.
To paraphrase the saga: you'll never find a more wretched hive of Star Wars geekery than a local collectibles shop. But at Vancouver's Comic Shop, voted the best of its kind two years in a row by the Georgia Straight, they've never heard of the unofficial international holiday.
"Never," clerk Keith told ctvbc.ca.
"We had some Star Wars guys in on Saturday," he added. "They never mentioned it."
Those customers belonged to the 501st Legion, Keith said, a worldwide organization of fans who own "screen-accurate" replicas of Imperial Stormtrooper uniforms.
They are among the most die hard fans of George Lucas' films -- yet the website of B.C.'s 501 chapter, Badlands Garrison, features not a word about Star Wars day, even in the message boards.
The staff at Golden Age Collectibles, located on the Granville Strip, had never heard of it either, despite immediately appreciating the pun slogan -- a play on the famous "May the force be with you" adieu uttered by the likes of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Obi Wan Kenobi.
But the apparent lack of fan awareness didn't stop media from observing the holiday this year; the Christian Science Monitor posted its top 10 favourite Star Wars Quotes, and the event was given lip service in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and USA Today.
In fairness, the holiday, which was first reported in 2008, is in its infancy -- and with two Star Wars-themed TV shows in the works, galactic fandom is anything but dying out. Give Star Wars Day a few more years of blog and newspaper bolstering and fans may even be persuaded to participate.
It could be too soon to underestimate the fourth.
