“Hello there!” is my take on the traditional “Hello world!” which has become of those “first thing” you are supposed to do when learning a new language. In Python, it would look like:

print("Hello world!")

While some of what we will discuss here will include the computability of narrative features of discourse—that is, how we can use computers to analyze stories—the focus of our discussions will really be on stories and storytelling. And so, it seems to me, it is better to begin with “Hello there!” a line from the original Star Wars, later subtitled “A New Hope.”

“Hello there!” first makes its appearance when the hooded figure who has been kneeling over Luke Skywalker hears a noise, looks up, and pushes back his cloak to reveal a white-haired and bearded old man. Wizened some might say, and the resonance with wizards is not unintentional we can safely assume. Spying a huddled and afraid R2D2, the old man says “Hello there! Come here little one.”

Later revisitations of the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi had him using it as something of a catch-phrase at various moments in the prequels.

I’ve long liked it as the first line that, in introducing the audience to Kenobi, emphasizes his open and gentle nature, a nature he has maintained despite seeing, as we learn later, so many of his friends killed and his own apprentice turned against him.

It’s a good first line. So, “Hello there!”