Disney celebrated Star Wars day with an early streaming release for the film, the series finale of much-loved cartoon The Clone Wars, and a behind-the-scenes look at The Mandalorian.
May 4 is perhaps best known as “the day before Cinco de Mayo” — unless you’re a Star Wars fan. In that case, you might be accustomed to thinking of the date as May the Fourth… as in, “May the Force be with you.”
Certainly that’s how Disney wants us to think of this otherwise average date. Ever since it acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, Disney has celebrated Star Wars Day on May 4, with the first officially organized celebration taking place on May 4,2013. What Star Wars diehards have come to expect from the annual event are tons of sales on franchise merch and live spectacles at Disney’s theme parks, as well as independent events at bars, bowling alleys, and movie theaters that invite fans to share in the joy of their favorite movie series.
As the coronavirus pandemic hampers the 2020 edition of the “holiday,” Disney is focusing on the opportunity to market its Disney+ streaming service by expanding the service’s catalog of Star Wars content. Anyone anticipating this fall’s release of season two of The Mandalorian may appreciate a new behind-the-scenes look at the Star Wars drama, debuting Monday. The first episode of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, an eight-installment making-of series, is now streaming. Hopefully the show will provide new Baby Yoda content to coo at.
But that’s small potatoes compared to May 4’s biggest release: the Disney+ arrival of December’s Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker, the capper to the franchise’s far-reaching Skywalker Saga. The movie is now available on the streaming platform as a special May the Fourth gift; it was reportedly expected to arrive on Disney+ in July, but Disney bumped up its streaming release date by two months amid the pandemic, as it has done with other tentpole films’ Disney+ debuts.
