Star Wars, explained by someone who’s (gasp) never seen it – CNET

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Star Wars came out in 1977. CNET’s former editorial intern Perla Shaheen was born over two decades later. To this day she’s never seen any of the films.

Twentieth Century Fox

When it comes to pop culture, something that can define you, for better or worse, is your relationship to Star Wars. There are fans who love it, people who hate it and some who have never seen it. CNET’s former editorial intern Perla Shaheen falls into the last category.

However, Star Wars is so omnipresent in our society that even a member of Gen Z who’s more or less avoided Star Wars her whole life knows quite a bit about the films and the fandom around them.

“I’ll tell you my dirty little secret: I have never seen Star Wars,” she confided to several of us in the newsroom. “I was born about 20 years after the first Star Wars film came out.”

This immediately raised the question: How much does someone who’s never seen Star Wars actually know?

A lot, it turns out.

Perla was kind enough to let us quiz her Star Wars knowledge which resulted in both amazingly accurate answers on things like Darth Vader and horribly hilarious responses about Han Solo and Jar Jar Binks.

“That big hairy creature? I don’t know his name,” says Perla. “The short, wrinkly green guy with enormous ears? I thought he was in Lord of the Rings.”

We should note, CNET isn’t the first to have someone who has never seen Star Wars explain it. Nor will we be the last.

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