I was five years old in 1977. My dad took me to see Star Wars at a movie theater a few minutes from where I live today. Not a huge multiplex, but a cutting edge 2-screen theater.
A few years later, there would be a line around the building for Jedi, but that Tuesday, it was a small crowd. We were there on a Tuesday because he had come to get me from school just before lunch.
I heard him tell the office lady, "I'm taking him to the dentist."
I was not pleased about the dentist. No one told me it was time for that torture again. How pleased was I to learn it was a lie. A great lie. Lesson learned pop!
Regardless, it was quickly forgotten with a bag of popcorn and a soda. Who of us who were there could ever forget John Williams score exploding onto screen as those first yellow letters crawled by:
"It is a period of civil war."
Just a great opening line.
I've seen A New Hope hundreds of times in part or whole so who knows what I really remember from almost 5 decades ago. But it was enough to shape my life, like millions of others.
I've dreamed of space travel my whole life. New worlds, new civilizations, unexplored, untroubled. It likely started there in that movie theater on a mundane day of the week. Before that I remember Gun Smoke and Rawhide. After: nothing but Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia—soon supplemented with Starbuck, Buck Rogers and anything else that was set anywhere but earth.
I'm happy that so many enjoy Star Wars. I do wish it still had the mythic quality it once did instead of the more mundane product-of-the-week. But, I supposed that is the nature of modernity and our popular culture.
There's a great moment in Reign of Fire (2002 - McConaughey and Bale) when Christian Bale's character is storytelling to a group of children born and living in a post-apocalyptic world without movies or television or electronic media of any kind.
So, Bale borrows from his character’s own childhood and relates the tale of Star Wars. Recreating the epic battle between Luke and Darth that results in Luke losing a hand and his innocence when Darth Vader admits that he is Luke’s dad. The reveal works just as well in that future as it did 50 years ago. I admire the idea that this myth can live beyond the media conglomerate existence it is today.
In any case, May the 4th be with you.
