This week Neil Calloway uncovers a poll that surveys both voting intention and favourite Star Wars characters, with some unexpected results…
On Thursday, the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens dropped at around the same time as leaders of British political parties (minus David Cameron and Nick Clegg, who obviously stayed at home to discuss the minutiae of the trailer online) gathered for a debate ahead of the General Election on 7th May. The coincidence, as well as SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to Ed Miliband to help him form a government, which struck me as echoing Darth Vader’s offer to Luke Skywalker to rule the galaxy as father and son at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, led me to a survey which combined the two.
If you’re British, you’ve probably heard of YouGov, the polling organisation famous for its snapshots of the political landscape at any given time. They’ll be able to tell you whether it looks like the Conservatives will have to go cap in hand to UKIP to form a government after the General Election, or whether Labour will be courting the SNP to help them take power.
What you may not know is that they don’t just poll people on what they think of Nick Clegg’s latest election promise or David Cameron’s most recent speech; they poll people on everything; what foods they buy, what brands they like, and what films they watch.
Poking around the YouGov site I found a poll from last year regarding a small film call Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and people’s attitudes towards it. Of the 1696 people surveyed, 38% of them said they would watch the film (16% they definitely would, and 22% said they probably would). 51% of respondents said they liked Star Wars, with 19% liking it a lot, and 32% liking it somewhat. Men are more likely to like Star Wars than women, with 28% of male respondents saying they liked the films a lot, and only 10% of females questioned saying the same. Broken down by region, 20% of people questioned from the Midlands and Wales like the franchise a lot, whereas only 15% of people from London agreed with that statement.
Perhaps the most interesting information comes when voting intention is plotted against favourite Star Wars characters and the actors who portray them. Across the board among people who intend to vote for the four biggest parties (Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP), Harrison Ford is the person they are most looking forward to seeing return to the franchise. Only UKIP voters are looking forward to seeing Mark Hamill reprise his role more than they are to see Carrie Fisher become Princess Leia once again.
Looking at favourite characters, Han Solo comes out as everyone’s favourite. Amongst Labour and Conservative supporters, R2-D2 is the second most liked character. For Lib Dems, Princess Leia is their second favourite, closely followed by Obi-Wan Kenobi, with 10% of them liking the wise old Jedi the most. The stereotypical image of Lib Dem is a a sandal wearer with a beard, so maybe they relate to Obi-Wan as he is the Star Wars character most like themselves, or maybe they just don’t like R2D2 because he was played by Kenny Baker, and they are getting him mixed up with Kenneth Baker, the Tory Education Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, and dislike him on that basis. Or maybe they agree with C-3PO’s assessment of him as an overweight glob of grease.
For those that intend to vote for UKIP, Darth Vader is their second favourite character. This, I thought, was unusual. Surely UKIP would see Vader as the enemy, and compare the Empire to the EU, with the roguish Han Solo their equivalent of Nigel Farage, but 9% of their supporters surveyed picked the Sith Lord as their favourite character. 51% of UKIP supporters don’t have a favourite Star Wars character, the only party with more than half of their supporters who were surveyed saying they didn’t have a favourite. Maybe if they spent less time worrying about EU subsidies and immigration and concentrated on important stuff like what happened a long time ago in a fictional galaxy far, far away they would pick a favourite character.
Perhaps the thing missing from the pre-election leadership debates has been questions about favourite Star Wars characters. Forget policies, they should just show the new trailer for The Force Awakens to the party leaders and film their reactions. If they don’t gasp when they see that crashed Star Destroyer on Tatooine and don’t smile when they see Han Solo say “Chewie, we’re home.” then you know they can’t be trusted to run the country.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future installments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pnc360pUDRI&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
