Gen Z Star Wars Fans Have Found A Surprising New Way To Engage With The Saga

Everyone remembers when they learned that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father. Some folks were fortunate enough to catch it in the theater back in 1980 or shortly after when "The Empire Strikes Back" made its way to home video. As a 1990s kid, I saw it sometime around 1999 when I watched the original trilogy for the first time in the lead-up to the release of "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace." The reveal blew my tiny little mind, and there's a reason it's not just one of the greatest moments in the entire "Star Wars" franchise, but also one of the greatest movie moments ever. Unfortunately, it's a reveal that has become such an unignorable part of America's pop culture fabric, there are also an immeasurable number of people who likely learned about Luke Skywalker's paternity discovery from a bit in "Tommy Boy," a joke on "Family Guy," or the countless memes that have been circulated for years.

This unfortunately means that unless a parent prioritizes showing their younglings "Star Wars" early on in life, Vader's big secret doesn't hold nearly as much weight as it did for those of us lucky enough to grow up before the internet became omnipresent. Vader as Luke's father is everywhere thanks to cultural osmosis at this point, with the majority of cognizant humans already knowing this fun fact even if they've never watched anything related to "Star Wars." Fortunately, younger "Star Wars" fans are finding ways to keep the saga engaging, and have even turned it into a low-key trend on TikTok. If you search "Star Wars First Time Reaction" you'll find a flurry of videos of friends, romantic partners, and kids all watching the "Star Wars" films. However, they're not reacting to the father-son Luke/Vader reveal or really anything else from the original trilogy ... they're reacting to the prequels.

Fans have been debating for over a decade what constitutes the best way to view the "Star Wars" saga. I grew up watching the films in release order, but that's because I was a kid when the prequel trilogy hit theaters. For generations who were born after the completion of the prequel films, no rule says they have to watch the films in release order as opposed to chronological order.

Considering the original films — which are canonically the middle of the film series — are pretty ubiquitous, starting a full franchise watch from "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" allows for the major moments in "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" to pack a punch practically equal to that of the big reveal the rest of us got to enjoy when we were first immersing ourselves in a galaxy far, far away. And since social media is now a place to document everything, it's become a trend to record people reacting to moments like the issuing of "Order 66" or, most commonly, Anakin Skywalker becoming the Sith Lord known as Darth Vader.

(Yes, fans should realize that Anakin Skywalker is destined to be Darth Vader if they know the "No, I am your father" reveal already, but unless it's at the forefront of their mind, making that connection isn't always as obvious as it seems.)

The trend really kicked off in 2019 ahead of the release of "Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker," when a lot of diehard fans took the end of the new trilogy as an opportunity to introduce the saga to their loved ones for the first time. However, because Disney+ has been consistently putting out new "Star Wars" shows like "The Mandalorian," "The Book of Boba Fett," and especially "Ahsoka," the trend has repeated over and over again.

The Anakin Arc got plenty of play around "Ahsoka" season 1 after the series made one of George Lucas' most controversial "Star Wars" decisions pay off. FOMO (or the "fear of missing out") is very real, and if someone you know is going absolutely feral over something a new Disney+ series did and everyone on your social media feed is talking about it ... you want to join in on the fun, too. Ergo, a new crop of viewers check out the "Star Wars" franchise for the first time, and a new group of people get to have their minds blown by the secrets of the saga that aren't as prevalent.

I'll admit, when I first saw these videos (and also realized a lot of younger folks default to "Episode I" as the first "Star Wars"), my initial response was an existential crisis about how old I'm becoming and the Old Man Yells At Cloud shock that "the big 'Star Wars' reveal" wasn't Luke/Vader but Anakin/Vader. But the more I think about it, the more I love that this is how younger generations are enjoying one of the most influential film series of all time. I will never know what it's like to live in a world where the truth about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader has been a well-known fact understood by pretty much everyone, so it's not up to me to determine the "best" way to watch the films for the first time.

I've personally made my peace with spoiler culture, but that doesn't mean I don't still prefer to let the magic of the movies keep me surprised. I think it's pretty damn cool that Gen Z has figured out a way to keep "Star Wars" feeling fresh and exciting after all these years by doing their own thing.