The Rip sends a reporter to witness a galaxy far, far away for the first time

In the past, I thought droids were cell phones.

I didn’t know what The Force was and why it needed to be with me. Stormtroopers may have just been what weathermen called themselves on the weekends after too many beverages, because until very recently, I had never seen “Star Wars.”

This doesn’t mean that I had never heard of or knew anything about the movies. I knew Yoda talked backward, and if someone said you looked like Jabba the Hutt it wasn’t a compliment. But the one thing I knew for sure was that if you tell someone, “I’ve never seen ‘Star Wars,’” the reaction is always the same: a jaw drops on a shocked face that precedes the “You have to watch it!” speech.

So I finally did. I watched episodes IV through VI and finally realized that there is a lot more to the movies than their reputation may suggest.

At first, I didn’t understand what the big deal was. It’s a standard good versus evil plot, but in space with groundbreaking special effects.

However, after a while I found myself laughing at the things C3PO would say in response to R2D2, and wondering when Luke Skywalker would find out who his father really was. I would smile when Obi-Wan Kenobi said something wise and insightful. I was proud of how Princess Leia was never a damsel in distress, but always a rebel in more ways than one. I found myself feeling sorry for Darth Vader as he struggled internally with his choice between his son and the dark side.

I realized the strengths in the movies aren’t in the light-saber fight scenes or inter-galactic spaceship feuds, they reside in the characters themselves, and how easily it is to get caught up in their story. When Episode V ended, I couldn’t put in VI fast enough.

The movies aren’t perfect though. There are parts where you get stuck wondering why it looks like Ray William Johnson did the transition editing, and how this could have all been avoided if someone had hugged Darth Vader as a child, but that all leaves your mind by the end when you’re unreasonably happy those over-grown Furbies help defeat the stormtroopers.

Earlier in the week, I would have given the movies a four out of five stars, because yes, they are kind of nerdy and there is no way Princess Leia’s hair would have stayed that perfect the whole time she’s fighting bad guys. But even with its flaws, the movies don’t deserve 4 stars.

I had never seen the movies, and yet I was humming along to the soundtrack because I knew it by heart. I walked in to Barnes and Noble and was greeted by Lego Star Wars play-sets. I couldn’t get through one episode of the “Big Bang Theory” without a “Star Wars” reference or six. When people found out I had finally seen them, they wanted to immediately discuss what I thought about them. That, to me, is five stars.

I recommend that you should really try to watch the movies if you haven’t already, or, as Yoda would say, “No. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

The movies are iconic for a reason. Once you watch them, whether you like them or not, you’ll come to appreciate how influential the movies have become, not only our pop culture, but also our lives in general.