STAR WARS

(May 1977, U.S.)

This is it! The big one! But before I even get started on my post for the one movie that's been discussed, debated and picked apart by every fan out there with a keyboard and an opinion, take careful notice of what I've done here: no Roman numeral or Episode number. The name of this movie is simply called STAR WARS, as it was when we first discovered it back in 1977. Take notice also that I do not begin the saga as the story plays out chronologically, beginning with THE PHANTOM MENACE and little boy Anakin. History is not meant to be screwed with, and history dictates that STAR WARS came first before the entire saga got completely turned upside down on its galactic ass!

What shall I say about the most spectacular space fantasy film of all time that hasn't been said before time and time again? Do I even need bother to describe to you the legendary tale of the farm boy hero, the royal princess, the renegade smuggler and his Wookie sidekick, the wise, old Jedi knight who fought in the Clone Wars, the beloved droids, and the evil dark Lord of the Sith? Of course I don't! You who are reading my blog now very likely know STAR WARS like the back of your own hand and such semantics and details would be futile. To be of my generation, of this generation - hell, to be alive and breathing in the world today is to know (and hopefully love!) STAR WARS! So, I think the best way I can pay tribute to this legendary motion picture is to get as personal with you as I possibly can.

That being said, let me ask you a question - when and where did you first see STAR WARS? Believe it or not, I’ve asked that very question to others on social media and the answers I’ve received are often quite detailed. Many remember the very day they first saw the new movie back in '77, the exact movie theater they saw it in, how long they waited in line to get inside, whether or not the show was sold out, and how long they waited before seeing it again...and again...and again. For those of us who grew up in the late ‘70s, STAR WARS was a cinematic rite of passage to a world that never existed before. If JAWS (1975) got the summer blockbuster up on its feet, then STAR WARS surely cemented it into the foundation of our lives. Those of us who were there at the very beginning devoted six years of our lives to the original trilogy. We saw the movies, we read the books, we listened to the soundtracks and we begged our parents to buy as all those Kenner action figures and other assorted toys. It was a simple stand-alone movie that opened on May 25, 1977 without fanfare, without marketing hype or word-of-mouth. It’s hard to imagine now, but it was also a movie that could’ve easily bombed. Up until then, sci-fi movies for my generation were grim pieces of dystopian societies like the PLANET OF THE APES, THX-1138, SOYLENT GREEN and LOGAN'S RUN. Even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was a real thinking piece that didn’t necessarily paint a positive picture for man’s future and his relationships with computer machinery and artificial intelligence. STAR WARS was a much more fun time at the movies, but it would’ve been difficult to know that just by looking at the movie poster and newspaper ads. In fact, if you really paid attention to the movie's earliest ads, you didn't even see what became its infamous tag line, A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Instead, you likely saw this...

Hard to believe forty-one years later, isn't it. But by June of the summer of '77, the word was out – you had to see STAR WARS and you had to see it now! That being the case, I’ll describe the conditions in which I almost saw STAR WARS for the first time (yes, I said almost). My family and I were still living in our Long Island home when the movie opened. Across the street lived my best friend in the neighborhood, David H. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were playing together at his house. His father asked if we’d like to go to a movie. The answer was obvious, but David H. and I needed to agree on what to see. He suggested something new that was playing at the local movie theater called STAR WARS. I rejected the idea for the simple reason that I’d never heard of it before. I asked if there were any monster movies playing anywhere (perhaps I wanted his answer to be GODZILLA VS MEGALON). He told me that there were monsters in STAR WARS, but I held my conviction and continued to reject the idea (ten year-old boys are not necessarily smart ten year-old boys). I felt determined that whatever we saw should be something familiar to the both of us. We finally came to an agreement and went to see (damn, I can hardly bring myself to say this!) FOR THE LOVE OF BENJI. Yes, I actually opted out of seeing the newest and greatest space fantasy blockbuster of all time so I could watch a silly sequel about a little, brown dog wandering an island in Greece. What David H. must’ve thought of me, I can’t even imagine!

It eventually gets better. Jump ahead two months to August. My father announces that he’s finally taking me, my younger brother and my grandmother to see STAR WARS. I was happy, of course, but I wasn’t exactly jumping out of my skin because I still wasn’t fully aware of what I was about to see because my access to public word-of-mouth and marketing hype wasn’t too great. We drove nearly an hour to a neighborhood theater in the Hamptons, got our tickets and seats easily, and without waiting or hassle. When the lights went out and the movie’s opening crawl began, I remember feeling disappointed because I didn’t like starting off a movie that required me to read what the story was about. That disappointment lasted only through the extent of the crawl because as soon as the camera panned downward and the great Star Destroyer shot its way across the screen above the planet of Tatooine, my eyes widened, my mouth opened and I was caught in its grip. The age of ten felt was surely the perfect age to experience STAR WARS. It was a glorious age when a little boy started to break away from childish entertainment and discover the true meaning of heroes and adventure on screen. The ancient mythology of the hero and the villain were incomprehensible to me, but as someone filled with curiosity, wonderment and awe, men like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo defined what a young boy wished he could be in the fantasies of his own mind. When it was all over, I felt so fulfilled, and yet so unsatisfied because it was a feeling that I didn’t want to end. I asked my father if we could stay in our seats and watch it again (you could still easily do that back then). He said no and I’m sure I did my best not to hold a grudge against him. What really became intolerable was the fact that I spent much of the remainder of ‘77 and well into ‘78 repeatedly asking my parents if I could see it again, and their answer was always no. Not since JAWS, had I felt the pinch of being denied access to a popular movie. This was worse, actually, because I’d already seen STAR WARS and I knew just how great an experience it was. Every weekend, the movie section of the Sunday New York Times was there on the table, and every weekend, I had to stare at the images of what was now my favorite movie of all time, and contend with the fact that I wasn’t getting any closer to a second go-around. Unlike today, where a blockbuster movie plays for only a few weeks at the local multiplex before making its way to DVD, Blu-Ray and stream upload, STAR WARS played continuously in movie theaters for nearly a year and eventually surpassed JAWS as the highest grossing film of all time.

For the time being, the closest I got to seeing the movie again was watching THE MAKING OF STAR WARS on ABC on September 16, 1977, just four months after its release, or repeatedly listening to THE STORY OF STAR WARS, a record album of one hour’s worth of action and dialogue from the movie (to be teased like this was just not cool!). Thankfully, however, even the most persistent of nagging kids can inevitably get their way. On July 20, 1978, STAR WARS officially ended its first theatrical run in the United States, but due to its overwhelming popularity, it was given a wide re-release the very next day on July 21st and remained in theaters until the following November (I guess there are some movies you just don’t take away from people). By the time it was all over, between 1977 and 1982, I’d managed to see STAR WARS on the big screen five times. By comparison to many die hard fans, that’s insulting low, I’m sure. Those people clearly had money to burn and more agreeable parents than I did. All in all, from age ten well into my teens, STAR WARS was a major “force” in my life. I’m truly grateful for that and I thank its creator and all those involved from the bottom of my heart for being such an important and influential part of my growing up.

Now regarding what Mr. Lucas chose to do with it back in the 1990s, well...let's just say that I consider myself a movie purist. That means I generally don’t approve of a filmmaker going back and changing their work years later. With very few exceptions, I do not go for Special Editions, Director’s Cuts, Final Cuts, or anything of the sort. I’m of the opinion that once a motion picture has had its general release, and its impact on the moviegoing public has established itself, good or bad, you walk away, you leave it alone and you move on. Sure, I own the Special Edition of the film because it’s what’s available in high definition Blu-Ray, but I’m fortunate that I still keep a working VCR in my life so I can, once in a while, watch STAR WARS as it was (as of 1981, anyway) before Georgie got his hot, little hands on it and unacceptably changed things, in particular the infamous issue of who shot who first at the Mos Eisley Cantina (Han Solo did shoot first!).

The world of STAR WARS has changed so much in the forty-one years since the original film first hit movie theaters, that sometimes it’s difficult to wrap my head around all of it. What started out as a two-hour motion picture of a fairy tale quest inspired by multiple themes and inspirations, including Flash Gordon and Akira Kurosawa’s THE HIDDEN FORTRESS, has since become an uncontrollable (excuse the pun) “empire” comprised of sequels, prequels, computer-generated TV shows, books, video games, graphic novels, YouTube fan made videos, smart phone apps (geez, the list is endless!). But what the original STAR WARS has come to define for a man my age is another time and another meaning compared to today’s generation of fans that fall under the new ownership of the franchise by Disney. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy all eight STAR WARS films (even the prequels) and believe it or not, I still own some of the old toys I managed to hang onto from when I was a kid (and a few extras purchased on eBay over the years), but the reflections I have of the past are perhaps incomprehensible to those who enjoy it all on a different level today. When I was a kid, STAR WARS was just simply a great movie, and always will be.

I'm now left only with what STAR WARS meant to me as a kid and what it still means to me as the adult I am now. It’s my favorite film of the entire saga that I watch when I want to remember that I still have an active imagination. It’s the film I watch when I need to recall a time when a new step forward in science fiction fantasy had been taken and the world stood up and took notice. It’s the film I watch when I want to shake off the stress of the daily grind of adulthood and remember when things in my life were simpler. In short, it’s the film I’ve come to define as my favorite comfort movie. It serves to remind us all that we, as fans of great science fiction, are in the ongoing process of committing ourselves to cosmic and character events, revelations and realizations that play out like a giant inter-galactic soap opera. Mind you, we’re not complaining. We love it! Perhaps it’s even made some of us happier when life gets us down. It has for this guy!

I dedicate this post to David H. I hope he's forgiven me by now.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Luke Skywalker: "So, what do you think of her, Han?"
Han Solo: "I'm tryin' not to, kid."
Luke: "Good."
Han: "Still, she's got a lot of spirit. I don't know, whaddya think? You think a princess and a guy like me...?"
Luke: "No!"