The White House had a 'Star Wars'-themed press conference to close out the year

President Barack Obama started and ended his year-end press conference on Friday by talking about the new "Star Wars" film.

"Good afternoon everybody," Obama began. "Clearly this is not the most important event that's taking place in the White House today: There's a screening of 'Star Wars' for Gold Star families and children coming up. So I'll try to be relatively succinct."

After about an hour of taking questions from reporters, the president left the briefing room by simply stating: "OK everybody. I got to get to 'Star Wars.' Thank you."

In an unusual twist, White House press secretary Josh Earnest then emerged with two people in Stormtrooper costumes and R2-D2, the famous "Star Wars" droid.

According to a pool report - which referred to the incident a "some deep-level sponsored content" - the characters were there for the Gold Star families' children. The Gold Star program is for the families of those who died serving in the US military.

"Reporters joked that this now clears up which side of the force the administration is on," the pool report said.

Watch part of the photo-op below: