According to a Wall Street Journal article out this week, people in China just don’t know that much about the Star Wars franchise. Their unfamiliarity with the original movie trilogy, which came out when most Western media was still being suppressed in that country, poses a challenge for Disney. The company behind the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens would benefit immensely if overseas sells could match the record-breaking numbers here in the United States.
So as a service to confused moviegoers in China and elsewhere, Stephen Colbert took it upon himself to deliver a tidy plot summary of the original three films, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
“Star Wars is the story of a simple farm boy who buys two robots,” Colbert began. “One looks like a garbage can, the other is programmed to be scared all the time for some reason, I’m not sure why.”
Colbert went on to explain Luke Skywalker’s quest to defeat a “handicapped man who needs a full-body respirator just to stay alive” and the ride he receives from “criminal and his screaming dog friend” to outer space where he “makes out with his own sister.”
Ultimately, “the farm boy helps kill the bad guy because the bad guy killed his father even though he actually is his father and the whole thing ends with a dance party with a bunch of teddy bears and ghosts.”
“And that’s Star Wars,” Colbert concluded, adding, “They also made three prequels, but those don’t make any sense at all.”
