It’s Star Wars Day today, but it is also starting to feel a lot like Barack Obama Week.
One day before a much hyped sit-down with Stephen Colbert, the 44th POTUS teamed with Luke Skywalker himself Monday to celebrate May The 4th, as well as the upcoming opening of the Obama Presidential Center.
In a video posted today on social media, the ex-POTUS insists to Mark Hamill that the Chicago-based Obamalisk, as the over 200-foot granite structure has been nicknamed, is “much more than a museum.” Shifting to pun-o-rama, Obama goes on to say: “It is an entire campus built to empower you. A place to come together, get inspired, and become a Force — for change.”
Pausing for effect, the greatest orator of his political generation adds to Hamill: “See what I did there?”
“Strong, the dad jokes are,” replies the Jedi with a nod to no less than Yoda himself. “That’s perfect!” laughs Obama, looking off camera.
Long a Star Wars fan and having commemorated more than a few May The 4ths in and out of the White House, Obama posted another video with Hamill today tapping into the same vein. As Hamill uses the Force to reach out to Obama, the two-term Democrat snaps back from inside his center: “Mark, I told you you have to stop contacting me like this.”
The video then goes on to reveal that tickets for the June 19 opening of the multi-purpose Obamalisk go on sale Wednesday.
Built at an estimated cost of $850 million and criticized for taking almost a decade after Obama left office to be completed, the Obama Presidential Center saw donations from Shonda Rhimes, Philip Rosenthal, and Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. Of note, not simply because of today’s date, the Lucas Family Foundation, created by Star Wars bossman George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, handed over over $1 million too. Corporate America is represented with Microsoft and the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund pitching in big bucks.
A strong supporter of Democrats and Obama in particular, Hamill has said Obama made his presence known in the Star Wars franchise directly at least once. At SXSW in 2018, the actor admitted he snagged a gesture from Obama’s take on Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” for a pivotal scene in 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The current occupant of the Oval Office tried to share in some Star Wars Day glitter Monday with a very The Mandalorian and Grogu image. In a post that reads “In a galaxy that demands strength – America stands ready. This is the way. May the 4th be with you” Donald Trump appears as (big critic) Pedro Pascal‘s bounty hunter Din Djarin with baby Yoda on his hip. It doesn’t quite land like the Obama and Hamill videos, suffice to say.
May The 4th aside, Disney‘s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu hits the big screen May 22 all around the globe and likely in a galaxy far, far away.
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