By Amanda Knox

When I think about watching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, I remember cuddling up with my mom and sister in Mom’s big (or so it seemed at the time) bed after popping the VHS into the built-in slot of a chunky, 32” TV perched on her dresser. Warm in our fleece pajamas, we passed between us a freshly microwaved bag of extra-butter popcorn and endlessly sucked on our salty, oil-stained fingertips. After the previews, a conspiratory hush settled, and I tempered my giddy anticipation in order to dutifully recite the opening crawl, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...”

Last Monday, cheers and clapping lit up the mainstage at the Triple Door Theatre downtown. STAR WARS burst onto the familiar, starry backdrop and smiles were exchanged between me and my coworkers. We sipped beer and wolfed down shared plates of pad thai and satay chicken skewers. “When was the last time you saw this in theater?” asked Gregg, for whom it had been ages. Dean and I exchanged a look. “I think we’re too young to have ever been able to see it in theater,” I grumbled, remembering the decidedly less-awesome Episodes I, II, and III that came out in my own time.

Yet there we were, and not by accident. Since October 2012, when Disney purchased the rights to create a third Star Wars trilogy, there has been a flurry of activity to rekindle the nostalgia for the original trilogy in anticipation of the December 18, 2015 release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

Before I knew that Episodes VII, VIII, and IX were in the making, I noticed that Pet Co. had stocked, overnight it seemed, an inordinate quantity of Chewbacca-shaped chew toys. But seeing as my local petfood dealer is, like myself, a Star Trek fan and offers a variety of Star Trek-themed pet paraphernalia just for the fun of it, I wondered if someone at the Pet Co. corporate office was gratuitously expressing a similar personal allegiance. I only starting figuring something was up when I noticed T-shirts with the blueprints of AT-AT Imperial Walkers (the big, spindly-legged ones from the ice world in Episode V) hanging up at Target. My suspicions were confirmed when I read news that GIRLS star Adam Driver was going to play a Dark-side-of-the-Force-wielding Knight of Ren (whatever that is. Sorry fans!).

Back at the Triple Door, the conjured nostalgia was gleeful and palpable. Our fellow viewers were not quite in Comicon mode, but many had donned their Star Wars T-shirts for the occasion. Like a well-rehearsed chorus, this room full of strangers seemed to know by instinct to silently observe, absorbed, as Luke maneuvered down the trench towards the target of the Death Star, and to collectively cheer when Obi-wan Kenobi urged, “Use the Force, Luke.”

An altogether very different experience of viewing Episode IV than what I was familiar with. It occurred to me that I was, in fact, experiencing a whole new dimension of Episode IV—that something old become something new—that odd, beautiful, and sometimes disconcerting experience of rediscovering the familiar.

It made me think about how the present moment is both ever new and ever changed because it is an accumulation of all my present moments now past. It is a reminder that every present moment, however mundane, is unique. And this is a reminder that every present moment can and should be observed and appreciated for the uniqueness it offers.

The present moment is also subjectively unique. My present, even when shared with you, is colored by my own personal accumulation of past moments, just as yours is colored with yours. The scene where Darth Vader tortures Leia for information is going to strike a slightly different chord for every person who witnesses it, because diverse connotations are invoked by our diverse past experiences with abusive authority, male-female power relations, pain...

It’s something special when so many strangers can come together, and everyone—no matter where they’ve come from and where they’re going—can agree that Chewbacca would make a brilliant first mate. Also, alas...they hooked me. While I’m not about to go buy out the paraphernalia and overdose on nostalgia-squeezing consumerism (however tempting it might be to dress up my sassy girl cat as Darth Vader), I am looking forward to seeing Episode VII. In the meantime, this Monday the Triple Door is showing my personal favorite, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Can I still pull off Princess Leia's side-of-the-head buns?