As May the 4th Be With You rears its head this year, Associate Students (AS) decided to celebrate the festivities early by hosting a “Star Wars” trivia night on April 5 at the Otter Express, bringing fans of the beloved franchise from across campus to flex their knowledge for the ultimate prize, a Star Wars X-Wing Lego set.
The trivia night brought out 60 participants, with 20 teams competing not only for the prize, but to claim the title as the one and only supreme “Star Wars” nerds at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB).
There were five categories: “The Original Trilogy,” “The Prequel Trilogy,” The Sequel Trilogy,” “Star Wars Shows” and “Star Wars In The Parks.” As the trivia night commenced, team members gathered, strategizing the best ways to tackle the difficult questions given.
The questions became increasingly more difficult, silencing many of the teams who came in rowdy before the start of the competition. However, it didn’t stop many of the participants from frequently yelling out “may the force be with you,” “hello there” and other classic lines from the franchise.
AS hosts Barrett Reinhard and John Semillio gave away voucher cards throughout the event to participants who answered quick “Star Wars” and AS related questions correctly.
The hosts also held a vote where participants would raise their hands to see whether they preferred Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin or Oscar Issac’s Poe Dameron. In the end, Oscar Issac’s portrayal of Poe Dameron captured the hearts of many of the participants, surprising even the hosts.
Once the final category was done, a collective worry filled the building as teams anxiously awaited their team name to be read by the hosts after calculating the final scores.
To the surprise of many, three teams tied, only getting two out of fifty of the total questions wrong.
The tiebreaker consisted of one of participants from each team standing next to each other, competing in a one-question round competition. The first participant to raise their hand and answer the question correctly would automatically win.
The final question was to name two non-force users who held lightsabers in the Star War Movies. C.J Clark from Team Jedi raised his hand the quickest and shouted out both “Han Solo” and “Finn.”
It was revealed to be Han Solo and General Grievous, not Finn. However, the hosts decided to accept the answer as Finn has always been speculated as being a force user by the “Star Wars” community, but has never been confirmed by Disney.
Clark, a lifelong fan of “Star Wars” who at 5 years old watched “Star War: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” in theaters, was proud of his team and thankful for the trust they put in him.
“I am really surprised we won because I thought for sure someone got 100% right. However, we came into this knowing we would win and we won, but seeing all the other nerds here did worry us a bit,” said Clark.
The hosts felt as if the trivia night went extremely well as it brought together not only the students of CSUMB, but the “Star Wars” community on campus.
“Since this campus is smaller and engagement is harder, it was incredible how large the turnout ended up being,” said Semillio. “Star Wars is such a universal thing that brings people together, and I am glad we had a chance to accomplish that by hosting this trivia night where a lot of students came together and had nothing but fun.”
