It was 30 years ago today: George Lucas taught us all to say….
Posted By Kathleen David on May 25, 2007
“May the Force Be With You.”
Yes, Star Wars premiered 30 years ago changing some of our lives forever.
A friend of mine told me that I must see this movie she had seen the night before with her father who worked for a local paper. She arranged to have her mother drive us to a matinee the day it opened. We had off from school because it was Memorial Day weekend. From the opening notes to the closing music, I was hooked. I came back home and told my parents that they HAD to see this film. And we did several times. We talked about the film at home. That Halloween my father rigged some LEDs to a small battery pack and my mother made my brother Patrick a Jawa outfit which really good great. We still have a lot of the figures that were released the next year all mixed together and well played with.
A year later there was a dollar theater in our neighborhood managed by this nice elderly gentleman who eventually just let us stay from show to show and watch Star Wars over and over again. The other bonus was that it was summer and the theater had air conditioning. I know I have seen it over 300 times. It holds the record for most times seen on a Movie Screen for me.
Star Wars has meant a lot to me in my life. I have made friends in the fandom which a number are still my friends. I have also met most of the original cast sometimes professionally, sometimes as a fan, and sometimes through mutual friends. A number of them are now people I would consider friends. When I was working at Del Rey I worked on both the Star Wars fiction and Non-fiction and had great fun with all the authors I worked with. When Caroline was born the folks at the ranch sent a very nice receiving blanket and a very cute Skywalker Ranch jersey which became her convention outfit until she outgrew it.
I know all the flaws but there is still something magical about that first film to me. My favorite character was Obi Wan followed closely by Han at the time. I loved the run at the Death Star. Some of the phrases used in the film became stock lines in my family. And we waited for the next film which was not released for another 3 years down the road.
So what is your favorite Star Wars memory?
I am grateful for Star Wars for so many reasons.
“I know all the flaws but there is still something magical about that first film to me.”
That’s pretty much the thing with this trilogy, it was’t great, it had flaws, but it was magical. In some magical way it worked just right.
I saw Return of the Jedi first. I was only 7. I’m not sure I understood everything; afterwards, when I saw it again there was something new to it.
I had an audio cassette of Return of the Jedi. I’ve listened to it so many times. For me the experience of the movi is almost more auditory than visual. My memories are of lines and voices — Darth Vader, Han Solo, Obi Wan (what a great voice).
My parents bought 5-year old me a landspeeder (the toy one, obviously!) two weeks before we saw the movie. Up until then, I was a cowboy cop nut. My sister, who was 17 at the time, explained the whole thing to me before we went. I don’t think my mouth closed the entire time that first time. Or the second. Or the umpteenth. It was right then I decided to be an astronaut. Ironic, since I’m such a space cadet.
I was dragged, unwillingly, on my 10th birthday to see Star Wars. Several years later, I cut class to be among the first to see Return of the Jedi. Such is the power of the Force. 🙂
Only saw the original Star Wars once on the big screen, a big drive-in theater screen. I sat mesmerized on the tailgate of a Ford Torino station wagon and fell in love with the universe. I played with the toys and read the books and comics, almost everything was Star Wars for many years. I didn’t see SW on the screen again until the re-release in the 90’s, but it still has the same magic for me. Han shot first.
Like you, I’ve met most of the original cast members, and a couple are now among those that are friends. Empire is my all-time favorite though, saw it about 15 times in the theater and was the first VHS tape that I ever bought on my own (when the stupid things ran over $50 each new).
It’s hard to pin down any one favorite Star Wars memory, since every time I see the original trilogy, especially on the big screen, it’s almost like seeing them the first time again.
One of the things I’m really looking forward to, though, is watching them with my daughter for the first time, sharing the experience with someone for whom it is new.
-Rex Hondo-
Heh.
We’d already seen it two weeks before the premiere, at a special showing that a bunch of us who ran clubs or conventions or both wangled invites to.
And Avery Davis saw it two weeks before that, because it opened a month early in limited release in ten cities of which D.C. (where he was co-opping with the CIA, i think) was one, so i was (sort of) ready for the opening shot.
Or thought i was.
It was Impressive as hëll, anyway.
The only other opening sequence in SF film i can think of that has that much visceral impact on the big screen is the moment when the US version of “Mad Max 2” cuts from narrow to wide screen.
(I’d love to see just the first five minutes of “Star Wars” or “Road Warrior” in Imax.)