Fans mark 40th anniversary
off from work to pose in costume for photographs at landmarks such as the Taipei 101 tower and the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. “I liked Star Wars since I was small,” said Annie Tseng, a 40-year-old communications specialist dressed as archvillain Darth Vader. “I chose Darth Vader because I think he’s very handsome,” she said.
This year’s event in Taipei featured a duel with light sabers at the Living Mall, a shopping mall with a giant orb that resembles the film’s Death Star space station, organisers said.
The original Star Wars film, written and directed by George Lucas and starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, hit movie theaters in 1977. Since then, 11 Star Wars movies have been released, sparking a devoted worldwide fan base and generating billions of dollars in sales of tickets and branded merchandise.
In the United States, even the Federal Aviation Administration got in on the fun.
On Twitter, the agency posted a photo of a huge Star Destroyer spaceship crashed on the surface of fictitious planet Jakku, with an FAA investigator standing next to it. “It was a very long day for the only FAA accident investigator on Jakku,” the tweet said.
Other events in the United States included special Star Wars- themed activities at the Walt Disney Co’s Disneyland amusement park in California.