May December the 14th be with you! It doesn’t quite have the same ring as ‘May the fourth be with you’, but nevertheless, every Star Wars fan will be counting down the days until this Thursday...

Love it or hate it, it won’t have escaped your notice that The Last Jedi, the latest instalment in the blockbuster Star Wars franchise, is about to explode onto cinema screens across the world. 

To celebrate the force being so strong this month we’ve trawled through our archives to bring your some Star Wars themed memories.
Just as it was the case in 1977 when A New Hope came out - and this time two years ago when The Force Awakens was released -, we can expect to see packed out cinemas and sell out performances all over the country. 

Both the Odeon in Southend and Cineworld in Basildon are set to hold sell out screenings for die hard fans at a minute past midnight on Thursday.

Even though the Star Wars franchise has become one of the most popular on the planet, none of the films can claim the title of the highest grossing movie of all time. That honour goes to Avatar, which had a world wide grossing of $2.7 billion when it was released in 2009. Titanic (1997) comes in second with $2.187 billion, while The Force Awakens, does take the third place with $2.06 million. We don’t have long to wait to find out if The Last Jedi can knock Avatar off the top spot.

For many youngsters Star Wars sparked a childhood full of special memories. For the Echo’s Neil Reeve a serendipitous win of Star Wars, tickets paved the way for a journalism career.

“I won my tickets to see the first Star Wars film from the Echo - Steve’s Gang - when I was seven,” explained Neil.

“I also won tickets for the Empire Strikes Back from the Echo a few years later. Seeing my name in the paper was the spark which made me want to become a journalist. I started work at the Echo in 1988 and I’m still there now. So Star Wars has a lot to answer for!”

Just for fun, here are a few Star Wars snippets you might not know, such as the fact Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, labelled the films as “fairy-tale rubbish”. Despite the legendary actor’s reservations he managed to he negotiate a deal to earn 2 per cent of the gross box office receipts for the movies he appeared in, earning him over $95 million.

Meanwhile Harrison Ford was paid $10,000 for his performance in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. No bad, however, considering he was never intended to be Han Solo and was just hanging around helping other actors read their lines as George Lucas was auditioning hopefuls.

One final fact, did you know Luke Skywalker was actually going to be called ‘Luke Starkiller ‘ in the original film? Director J.J. Abrams has resurrected the name with the “Starkiller Base” in The Force Awakens.

Among the images in our Star Wars gallery are Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers meeting fans on the streets of Southend as part of the promotion of the original 1977 Stars Wars film and sequels the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Long queues of Star Wars fans from 1977 can also be seen outside the original Odeon Cinema, at Elmer Approach

A photo from 1978 shows shoppers in Southend town centre were puzzled by the sight of Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper sidekick wandering the streets and even taking a call in a public phone box.
Just for fun we’ve added some snaps of youngsters at Laindon Park School dressing up for a Star Wars day. Expect to see plenty more Princess Leia buns over the coming weeks....