I’m sure everybody out there is glued to the TV waiting for election returns, but just in case you need a break from the grim spectacle of our political process, check out this precious artifact from a simpler time:

It’s a wonderful reminder that Star Wars used to be a movie instead of a franchise, that the droids were once considered the central characters of the story, and that people simply loved it instead of wanting to analyze and debate it to death. It amuses me to no end that Gene Shalit compares it to Rocky and predicts that it will be “one of the biggest money-making movies of our time.” If only he knew.

Oh, yeah, that little princess girl was really cute back then, too.