For some of us, Star Wars was – and is – kind of a big deal. It was an integral part of our childhood, of who we are now. Friends could be discerned by whether they knew the bounty hunters’ names, by a strange gear tattooed onto a bicep, and good friends could be singled out by which movie they believed was the best. (Personally, Return of the Jedi was the first movie I saw in a theater and it will always hold a special place in my heart. Yes, the Ewoks were a little too cute, but, come on, the rancor was fucking awesome.)

At some point, though, George Lucas decided to mess with perfection. He decided he was better than us. He laughed in our faces and changed our movies into something hideous and ugly – Darth Maul being the exception, of course – until we were left crying in dark rooms, convinced there was no longer anything good in this world. On some level, we knew what we had seen as children was still there, but it was hard to make it out through the noise and the pod races and Jar Jar fucking Binks.

But we had – have – faith, and that belief in our childhood, in our memories, though it differed from Mr. Lucas’s increasingly inconsistent canon, from what he wanted us to believe, was enough. We have what we remember, and no amount of CGI can take that away.

Or, for the rest of you, they’re just some pretty good movies.

In a wacky coincidence, we’ve got some stories tackling those very issues this month, though most of them don’t dwell on the Star Wars part quite so heavily. Or, you know, at all.

First up is “Exposure,” by Claire Joanne Huxham, followed by “The Toad and the Butterfly,” by RCJ Graves. Next is “Pentecostal,” by Lauren J. Barnhart. Then, finishing up the issue, is Mike Sweeney’s magnum opus, “CPA of the Sith.”

I’ll give you three guesses which one’s about Star Wars.

You can read the online version here or download the .pdf here.

And, don’t forget, you’ve still got almost a week to donate to Jersey Devil Press’s Danger_Slater’s Love Me Pre-Order-Donation-a-Thon.