Family, Not Just Nostalgia, is Behind Popularity of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As expected, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has done blockbuster business opening weekend, earning over $250 million. I also heard a statistic that said\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/2015\/12\/family-not-just-nostalgia-is-behind-popularity-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Family, Not Just Nostalgia, is Behind Popularity of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As expected, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has done blockbuster business opening weekend, earning over $250 million. 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{"id":7044,"date":"2015-12-22T09:45:53","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/?p=7044"},"modified":"2015-12-22T09:45:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T14:45:53","slug":"family-not-just-nostalgia-is-behind-popularity-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/2015\/12\/family-not-just-nostalgia-is-behind-popularity-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens\/","title":{"rendered":"Family, Not Just Nostalgia, is Behind Popularity of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"StarWarsForceAwakens-5\"$ <\/a>As expected, \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d has done blockbuster business opening weekend, earning over $250 million. I also heard a statistic that said 71% of the people who attended were adults. To me, that suggests the movie\u2019s popularity is about more than simple pop culture nostalgia, but something deeper.<\/p>\n

\u201cStar Wars\u201d is popular among 40-somethings like me because we saw the original movies when we were kids and it captured our imaginations like nothing had before. But we were likely so young at the time, we wouldn\u2019t have gone to the theater by ourselves. A parent or some other loved one probably took us.<\/p>\n

For myself, I remember my father taking me to Manhattan to see the original. We never went to the city to see a movie, so this was something special. And when I mentioned it to my father the other day, he even recalled that the theater we went to was in the Murray Hill section. Apparently, this trip left an impression on him, too. It was the first (and the only time I can remember) that we made a trip outside of our home borough of Queens just to see a movie.<\/p>\n

I suspect a lot of other people my age have similar memories of going to see their first \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie. And for the generation who were kids when the prequels came out, their experiences are likely similar.<\/p>\n

As such, the draw of the \u201cStar Wars\u201d franchise isn\u2019t just the mythology it created; it\u2019s the memory of the family we saw it with. It\u2019s not just about feeling seven years old again, but feeling seven and re-experiencing just a touch of our lives back then with the family that raised us and loved us and made us feel secure. At least, that\u2019s how my Christmas-infused, sentimental brain sees it.<\/p>\n

That connection to family is a perfect sentiment for the Christmas season. It\u2019s a Force that spans generations.<\/p>\n