Star Wars No Longer Cool?

My wife, who teaches high school, reports to me that Star Wars is no longer cool.

She has screened the movie for years for her classes and used its elements as examples of mythology, but says it doesn't interest the students these days like it used to.

It's hard to remember a time in my life when Star Wars wasn't cool. Of course, I was around and old enough to remember what a phenomenon it was beginning in 1977, and how hoards of people waited outside theaters when The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi opened three years apart.

I suppose the kids who came of age when the prequel trilogy was released already had enough to wow and amaze them. It was nothing they hadn't really seen or played before.

The Smithsonian hosted a fascinating exhibit 10 years ago or so called The Myth and Magic of Star Wars. I found some photos last week I had taken of the exhibit and a couple of images of the Emperor's Throne Room at Lava Lake were among them. Though the set was never used, I can only wonder what it would have been like.

It would have been cool.