The original Star Wars movie was released in 1977 when I was three years old. This was long before the days of VHS, DVD, Blu Ray, YouTube, or even pay-per-view, and so rather than hustling a movie out of theaters in a matter of weeks, films would stay pretty much as long as they were making money. Since people couldn't really watch movies at home and because TV went off the air at eleven or so, people went out to the theater a lot more often. Star Wars episode IV: A New Hope showed continuously in some theaters for over a year. Got that? After it was released in May of 1977, you could take a date to see it for high school graduation, catch a late show after fireworks on the Fourth of July, dress up as a Storm Trooper to see it for Halloween, catch it again at Christmas, and then take your prom date to see it in the spring. Crazy, right?
In addition to these epic runs in theaters, there was also a time when a successful movie would get re-released in theaters after it had been gone for a while. These days, a movie generally only gets a theatrical re-release if it has been converted to 3D or if it's a significant anniversary or both. (Titanic's 3D ten year anniversary, anyone?) So Star Wars came out again in 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1982. (It came out again in 1997 but that's another story, another blog post.)
All of this is to say, I'm not exactly sure when my first movie-going experience was. The only thing I have to help me nail it down is that I know my family was living in Burley, Idaho when my mom and dad took my brother, Jason, and I to see Star Wars. We moved from Burley when I was almost five - so that means I probably saw the 1979 re-release version.
Anyway, even though I was only four or five, there are a couple of things I still remember with great clarity. We saw it in a single-screen theater in a little town called Rupert, which is about ten miles from Burley. Jason and I sat together with Dad on one side and Mom on the other. All Star Wars movies start the same way: yellow words explaining the set-up of the movie crawling from the bottom of the screen to the top and then disappearing into space. I think I remember my mom whispering the words to me because, you know, I was four. After the words disappear, there's just a moment of silence and a field of stars.
Then comes the moment that I (and most other nerds) remember with perfect clarity: blazing across that field of stars comes a small, white space ship, its thrusters glaring against the darkness of space. In the next second, a giant, triangular ship a thousand times bigger than the first one plows across the screen, shooting streaks of red lasers at the tiny, obviously outmatched first ship.
I was four or five and had no idea what a "rebel alliance" or a "galactic empire" were, but I didn't care. For the next two hours, I was utterly transported - by Darth Vader and his obsidian-black samurai helmet, by Greedo and the other sketchy characters in the Cantina, by the weird asymmetry of the Millennium Falcon, the menace of the Death Star, and by the light sabers, oh the light sabers. Swords made out of lasers? Are you kidding me? Even at four, I knew that was a hot cup of steaming awesome.
I suppose we had popcorn and soda, those eternal standbys of American movie-going. I was probably tired and exhilarated when the movie was over. I'm not really sure about details like that - I mean, it was thirty five years ago. But what I do absolutely remember about my first time at the movies is that I wanted to go again and as often as possible.
I think it was a combination of feeling transported (literally to a different world in this case) and the sense of being together with my family that made that evening in south central Idaho all those years ago so memorable. Movies, I think, are both individual and communal. We go because of how we relate to them in our own unique, solitary ways but also for how we can share the experience with the other people sitting there in the dark with us. I loved meeting Luke Skywalker (what a name!), but I especially loved meeting him with my mom on one side of me and my brother and dad on the other. I have never minded going to movies by myself, but I have always preferred going with people I love. The movie is good, but how much better is it if you can experience it twice by talking it over with your buddy or spouse once it's over?
Holy crap. You're old.
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