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 leaving theaters in a matter of weeks,
films stayed pretty much as long as they made money. Since people couldn't
really watch movies at home and because TV went off the air at eleven or so,
people also went 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.
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. So Star Wars came out again in 1979, 1980, 81, and 82. (It came out
again in 1997 but that's another story.)
I’m pretty sure my very first movie going experience ever
was seeing the 1979 rerelease of Star Wars when I was five years old.
Even though it was so long ago, I remember a couple of things
with great clarity. We saw it in a single-screen theater in a little town
called Rupert, Idaho. My brother and I sat together with Dad on one side and
Mom on the other. Of course, 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. My mom whispered the words to me
because, you know, I was four. After the words disappeared, there was just a moment
of silence and a field of stars.
Then came the moment that I (and most other nerds) remember
perfectly: blazing across that field of stars comes a small, white 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 a kid 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 transfixed - 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, and by the light sabers. Swords
made out of lasers? Even at four, I knew that was a hot cup of steaming
awesome. Seeing that movie was a big moment in my life, and it still resonates
with me all these years later.
Next week, I’ll take my family to see Star Wars episode VII:
The Force Awakens, and unrealistically or not, my hopes are high. I am excited
about the possibility of wonder and the potential return of the fun that was so
absent in the prequel trilogy. I look forward to taking my kids and sitting
next to them in the theater like my parents did over three decades ago. For a
lot of people, Star Wars is an inter-generational thing we can enjoy and talk
about and argue over. I hope the Force is with J.J. Abrams and his team and
that this film almost 40 years in the making can somehow live up to the hype.
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