Hard to believe it has been 30 years since Star Wars made its debut, shrouded in doubt by Twentieth Century Fox; they grudgingly gave Lucas the $8 million to make it ($27 million in today’s money, a bargain by current standards). Meanwhile Time magazine was nuts about it and that’s how I knew of its arrival—my parents had a subscription. Knowing when the movie would be playing in Champaign-Urbana, IL was another problem for an eight year old. I didn’t read the paper outside of the comics and I was unaware of the movie’s limited distribution. Then I heard an ad for Star Wars on WLS-AM complete with sound effects and my campaign to nag my parents to take me to it began. If it was playing in Chicago now, it wouldn’t take long for it to come downstate was my logic.
It finally arrived within a month or so. I can’t remember the exact date but I know school was out for the Summer (June) and it was playing at the biggest movie house in the area, the Virginia Theater. The crowd was so large that evening (we went on a Wednesday), the management opened the balcony, a rare event then. We also got to sit there and have one of the better views in my opinion.
With the film’s thunderous opening theme and its initial starship-chase sequence, I was completely entranced. I was also rather confused and surprised when the audienced boo’d during Darth Vader’s first appearance. I already knew he was the villain from the Time article; how did everyone else know? The other strong memory I had was how tense it made me feel. Tense? Seriously. I was only eight so I had only been to Disney flicks and my movie IQ was low, therefore I thought Darth Vader had a good shot at stopping Luke Skywalker. Could have happened too if you look at the general nature of Seventies films: The Parallax View, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, The Omen, The Exorcist and The Wild Bunch.
From that Summer on and probably until I finished high school, I was obsessed with all things Star Wars along with the millions of others from my generation: toys, videogames, novels, comics, trading cards and games. I remember it was the first movie anyone saw more than once in a theater which was weird to me; why see it again if you already know what’s going to happen was my thinking. Then again, I was a tad jealous because the closest thing I could do to seeing the movie over and over was sorting out my trading cards according to their scenes (ultra-nerd move). Star Wars went on to become more than an obsession for kids, it took the country like mad (and probably Canada). It played in some places for over a year (impossible now). It was the crux of jokes on SNL, The Tonight Show, and even the “unhip” Bob Hope Christmas special in 1977. There were T-shirts, jewelry, action figures and glasses from Burger King. Past licensing with movies was rare and toys based upon any franchise were uncommon (Mego dominated with Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Superheroes and Happy Days). Not so with Star Wars, everyone wanted his own Falcon or X-Wing Fighter and George Lucas with Kenner Toys made it possible.
I do miss the magic of that time now because it seems like every other movie is another attempt to recapture the licensing bonanza Star Wars became. All the toys and crap are made ahead of time regardless of how well the film may do. I should’ve taken it as a warning when The Phantom Menace was about to hit the screens eight years ago since Lucas went on to make three disappointing, tepid prequels. Doesn’t matter now since I’m sure another movie would’ve come along to do the same thing.
On the upside, this movie kicked off a dozen space operas my brother and I played with our toys and friends. It had a relatively positive effect on my life too. Now my nephews (especially Nick) and my friends’ kids (namely TJ and Jack) are getting into it, which is pretty cool. They’re too young to see the flaws in the prequels or the strengths of the character-driven elements of Empire. They just enjoy it and Uncle Maggi can answer all their questions since he still remembers all the “useless” information about secondary and tertiary characters.
Epilogue: Sorry about the dealy, I’ve been out sick lately. This story was written in several forms much earlier.