Force Friday — Star Wars Creep is Upon Us

Force Friday

Here’s how I know my Mom rocks. Early last Friday, September 4, 2015 (Force Friday) I got a call while I was still in bed from my mom. I don’t recall exactly what time it was when she called, so let’s just say it was still dark outside. I answer the phone to hear mom exclaim, “I heard on the news this morning that it’s Star Wars Day at Walmart, Target and Starbucks. Brush your teeth and get ready to shop. I’ll pick you up in an hour.” So I got up, brushed my teeth, and got ready. She comes and picks me up and we go directly to our local Walmart. We go inside and get to the Star Wars section of the store and were surprised to see that we may have busted out.

Just to make it clear, I don’t live in a ‘major metropolitan area.’ The town I live in has 25,000 people in it, so it was with some amount of shock that I saw these virtually barren shelves when it was still pretty early in the day. I did try on one of the Kylo Ren masks just for funsies.

Apparently Kylo Ren doesn’t have as huge a cranium as I do…
Nothing that was left on those shelves looked like anything we wanted, so we decided to head to the next town over and try their Target. Yes…my town doesn’t even have a Target. We have to go to the BIG city for fancy stuff like shopping at Target. But as we walked out of the aisle, we saw the reason for the bare shelves was that an aisle display had been set up not far from where we were. That’s where we saw the actual new Star Wars stuff, so we went over and looked at it all, choosing to buy the Star Wars Lego Advent calendar. My wife got me one of these a few years back, but she got it in the summertime so it was on sale. Legos are fracking expensive.

It’s immense fun. Thus bolstered that we had found at least one item and that our Star Wars shopping day was not in vain, we boldly set off toward our next destination…Starbucks.

Which, as it turns out WAS a bust. Apparently, the Star Wars Starbucks promotion was only at ‘participating locations.’ Ours was not participating. We got coffee anyway. Then off to the Target as mom and I talked about Star Wars. We talked about how excited we are about seeing the new movie, how we all plan to go see it together as a family. We are pretty blessed folk in my family. I live about two blocks away from mom, and my Brother lives in the same city with his wife and son. We have a standing family night every Sunday where we take it in turns to host and cook dinner and either watch a movie, or a Spurs game, or play a board game, or what have you. It started with us watching all the Best Picture Oscar winners…but we eventually ran out of those…

So we decided that coming up the release of The Force Awakens, we would watch a Star Wars movie every week prior, so we backtracked dates and made our plans. Before you can even ask, we’re still not sure if we’re including the prequel trilogy in this equation. Part of me wants to be a completest…the rest of my family are not as willing to sit through those films again. And if I’m being 100% honest with myself I’m not sure I want to either. But I will. At SOME point before the new film comes out I know I’ll slog through those prequels. But that’s a blog for another day.
Well caffeinated, mom and I made our way into Target, and were immediately greeted by a huge cutout of Chewbacca that roared at us as we walked in. That made me so happy. It said to take a pic with Chewie and give your own Wookiee roar. You don’t have to ask me twice.

‘Nuff said.

We made our way back to the display and my mom squee’d when she saw a two-foot tall plush big-head Chewie that growled when you hugged him. She immediately picked him up and did just that. Then she saw that he was $100 and put on her sadface and set him down. Then I pointed out that there was a much smaller version of the toy for only $15 and she squee’d again. She plucked one up straight away and told me this would be a gift for my nephew Owyn, who is about a year and a half old. Sure it’s for Owyn mom. Just keep telling yourself that.
She also got Xmas presents for my brother and myself. Then she did the Jedi mind trick on me so that I would forget what she got me. I am not weak-minded, but my mother is strong in the Force. Then as we were getting ready to leave I had to take another selfie.

Our Star Wars shopping trip a success, we went home. I was telling mom about how I thought BB-8 was a CGI creation after seeing him in the first teaser trailer, but that I had learned he was an actual practical droid. Mom didn’t remember him from the trailers, so as we pulled into the driveway of my house so she could drop me off, the last thing we did was watch both the teaser trailers.

I got goosebumps. Again.

Now I didn’t tell you all this just to show off how cool my mom is, or gloat over the fact that I can randomly go shopping with her on a Friday morning, but to serve notice that Star Wars Creep is officially upon us. For those of you not familiar with the term, I first heard about it in regard to Christmas. ‘Christmas Creep’ is when you see that your local store has started putting up their Christmas merchandise well in advance of the holiday, and that the day that happens seems to creep earlier and earlier each year. Soon it’ll be February and instead of Valentines decorations there will be a little corner of the store with tinsel and sleigh bells and a sign that says, ‘It’s never too early to do some Xmas decorating!’

Well, this is Star Wars Creep. It started on that Friday and I guess it will end December 18th with the release of The Force Awakens. But now that it’s begun, don’t expect it to stop. For the next three and a half months there will be more Star Wars stuff than you can possibly imagine. Merchandise and Corporate collaborations galore. Uncle George may not be running the show anymore, but the Mouse House is a pretty good promoter in their own right, so I fully expect the next few months to be similar to the days before The Phantom Menace came out, when, as I’ve said before, you couldn’t swing a Gundark without hitting a picture of Darth Maul.

All this and we haven’t even seen the FULL trailer yet. I’m not sure if I can handle the antici…
Noah Westerfield can handle the onslaught of Star Wars merchandise that is about to be more pervasive in our daily lives than ever before. After all, why just have a blanket when you can have a Star Wars blanket? Why read a book when you can make it a Star Wars book? Why eat Spaghetti-o’s when you can eat Limited Edition Star Wars Jedi-a-Roni’s?

…pation.