The last time a Star Wars movie commandeered the silver screens of the world was in 2005, with Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. It’s been a lightning fast decade full of explosive change. Here’s one thing that happened relating directly to the galaxy far, far away: Disney paid George Lucas $4 billion for the Star Wars franchise in 2012.
But it’s not just the franchise: the world that J.J. Abrams’ new Star Wars: The Force Awakens launches into is different in many ways. Here are 10 of them.
- iPhone, 2007, ‘Nuff said
- Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman, and Dave Chappelle were still on TV
- Lost (J.J. Abrams), 24, and The Sopranos were on TV
- Barack Obama — few Americans had heard of the young Chicago politician
- Russia was led by Vladimir Putin — no wait, sorry, still same deal….
- GPS — Nowadays you can only get lost in your own head now
- Twitter, which will feature about a billion Star Wars related tweets in the next few months, arrived in 2006
- ISIS was still just a mythological god, as far as the West knew
- Lady Gaga was still Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
- Hello? Adele was still four years from ’21’, let alone ’25’
- Netflix — the streaming giant’s main business was sending DVDs through the US Mail
