THIS month is the annual celebration of one of the biggest franchises in history.

May 4 is Star Wars Day, due to the pun of May the Fourth be with You which is inspired by the series.

Star Wars is an epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, beginning with the film A New Hope in 1977.

The films soon become a pop culture phenomenon and the franchise has been expanded into a whole range of different media.

This includes television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas which all relate to the vast, fictional, universe.

The series has become the highest grossing media franchise of all time.

The Star Wars franchise depicts the adventures of characters "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" across multiple fictional eras, in which humans and many species of aliens co-exist with robots.

The Star Wars universe is vast and consists of a range of different planets. Some of which are sprawling, futuristic cities, and others desert wastelands with hardly any inhabitants.

However, travel between the planets is simple for the characters in the series as they are able to get around with advanced, fictional, technology.

A key theme of the series is 'the force' which controls the whole galaxy and those who the force is strong with can grow stronger with it, having typically superhuman abilities.

These photos show the influence that the films have had on people in Cumbria. We can see people dressed as characters from the series at Whitehaven Carnival and Wigton Carnival, Storm Troopers presenting the opening of a Star Wars film at a cinema in Penrith, and a superfan in costume at the University of Cumbria.