... did you think I was gonna write about anything else today?

Story time, boys and girls!

I guess I should set the stage, though, huh? Okay…

In 1977, I was eleven years old. Thanks to a wonderful elementary school librarian, Ms. Elizabeth Matthews, I was at the beginnings of my love affair with movies. She had noticed that I was blazing through the usual books at our school library and brought me some of her personal collection of books. One of them was a huge thick volume called Warner Brothers Presents. It was a history of the Warner Brothers studios and was full of details of the Warner Brothers output from their founding until 1974, when it was published. And man, did I study that book. I read every word to the point of memorization. I studied every photo of Cagney and Bogart, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Cary Grant and Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper and John Wayne. I kept that book until I got my own copy for Christmas, and it became a mainstay of my reading. From there, I had to know more about Universal Studios, MGM, RKO Radio Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. I memorized titles, cast members, directors, cinematographers, screenwriters. I stayed up late to watch monster movies on Chiller Theatre (Friday night, 10 pm, Superstation 17, WTBS, thank you, Ted Turner…), and caught every other movie I could find on all eight (yes, eight) channels.

But, then… 1977 happened. Specifically, the summer of 1977.

Everybody was talking about a new movie that had just opened, a science-fiction film that was taking the country by storm. And, lo and behold, it was opening at The Alamo, the one and only movie theatre in my little town. Now, in 1977, in this little town, there was no real panic about kids going to the movies by themselves. Nobody was scared of crime then. Your parents could drop you off at the theatre, you watch the movie, and when it was over, you walked out to the phone booth on the corner, called your parents, and they would pick you up in ten minutes. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Three of my friends and I met at The Alamo, got our tickets, our big Cokes and our candy (one of those super-size Chunky bars for me, the ones about the size of a brick), and went to get our seats. I was a devoted member of the “close, but not TOO close” audience, so I headed to the third row left aisle seat, and let the others scooch by and sit. I did manage to get the straw into the cup before the lights dimmed.

And then, it happened. The red curtain parted, the Fox logo appeared, with that iconic fanfare. But then, the screen went black again. Instead of a movie, though, words appeared on the screen. Simple lettering, in a calm light blue color. They said “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXDnFYu91vY

Immediately my brain was spinning. “A long time ago??? That means in the past! How can a science fiction movie be in the past?? What the crap?”

Before I could even process those thoughts, with no warning, BOOM! The first notes of John Williams’ score hit, loud and jolting, and the words “STAR WARS” appeared. And more words! But they were scrolling up and away from me! As I read, again, my brain spun. “Wait, all this has already happened? We’re in the middle of the story? What the crap is going on???”

Then, the words faded into the stars, and, from out of nowhere, we were shown the surface of a planet, one that definitely did not look like Earth. And, from seemingly over my left shoulder, a spaceship appeared. It was shooting at something behind it as it traveled away from me.

And then, again, from over my shoulder, the ship that was chasing that first ship appeared. And it kept on appearing! It was bigger and bigger with every second! It kept on coming until it completely filled the top half of the screen! It was HUGE! The camera angle reversed, and I saw that humongous ship catch up to the smaller one, move over it, and capture the ENTIRE ship in some sort of docking bay. We saw legions of soldiers running down corridors, manning battle stations, and, through all of this, we, the audience, were all collectively thinking one thing – “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING, BUT I LOVE IT!!”

I was instantly delivered from the small town movie house into an entire world, hell, an entire GALAXY, that I had no idea existed, one that was in a civil war that happened “a long time ago,” and I gladly and willingly let that galaxy take me wherever it wanted to go. To say I was enthralled is putting it mildly. I sat, unblinking, when the towering black-armored Darth Vader walked onto the ship, cape swirling behind him. He looked like a robot, with his mysterious control panel mounted on his chest, but, when the light hit his helmet right, you could vaguely see through the dark red lenses of his mask and see what looked like human eyes behind them. But his breathing was so mechanical in sound… but why would a robot need to breathe? And who was that absolutely beautiful young woman who was feeding something into that squat little android? Was she the princess the scroll had spoken of just minutes before?

The movie became more than just a movie to me – it became an inspiration, a gospel, a religion.

I have no recall of anything my friends might have said to me during the movie. I know I drank that big Coke because I crushed the cup during the final battle to defeat the Death Star and nothing spilled. I also know that I never even opened the Chunky bar. When the final credits rolled, everyone in the audience, including me and my buddies, stood up and applauded, something I had never felt the need to do before in a movie. I walked out of the theatre, went to the phone booth, called my parents, and told them not to bother picking me up because I was going back in to watch the movie again. I don’t know if they said anything back because I hung the phone up after that one frantic sentence, bought another ticket, and went right back to the third row, left side, aisle seat, and watched it again. And I went back the next night, and the next.

I saw the original Star Wars 17 times in various movie theatres, most of them at The Alamo. My parents bought me a record album, “The Story of Star Wars,” that was a cut down version of the movie, no visuals, of course, just the spoken words, but I listened to that record until the grooves wore smooth. To this day, when I watch the film, as the Millennium Falcon is pulled into the Death Star by tractor beam, with that foreboding music playing, my brain whispers, “… turn the record over…”

As I learned more about the movie and it’s creator, George Lucas, I became fascinated by the fact that one man, a guy who grew up dreaming about stories he wanted to tell, had created the most incredible tale, but, more than that, he created a universe. A universe where rebel fighters fought evil empires run by monstrous cyborgs cloaked in black had powers that were only matched by a dying breed of fighters called Jedi Knights, where smugglers with best friends who looked like Bigfoot were cool as hell, and farmboys with no real idea who they were or what they could be could become heroes of the galaxy. A universe that had giant orbital spaceships that could destroy planets, where funky bars were populated by creatures who looked like nothing I had ever seen or even dreamed possible, and where mysterious old desert hermits sacrificed their lives so their code could carry on.

It became as real to me as anything I had ever been witness to before, and, truthfully, ever since. Star Wars showed me that anything could be possible, as long as you believed in it. If you had a story to tell, you had to tell it, and tell it with every detail you possibly can, so others can believe in that same dream.

I later read in an interview that Lucas had not only dreamed up Star Wars, he had actually written an entire saga from start to finish called The Star Wars, and had been forced to tell just the first part of the story for that first film… which meant… somewhere out there… there was more story to tell… a lot more…

To say I was hooked like a trout on a fly line is putting it mildly. My father, bless his heart, worked for the ONE company in the COUNTRY that had scored the rights to print bedsheets, bedspreads, curtains, and sleeping bags with the Star Wars logo on them, and he brought home EVERYTHING for my room. I had movie stills and posters and magazine covers thumbtacked to every open space on two of the four walls of my room (the other two walls, with shelves, held all my Universal Monsters collection, because, well, you don’t get rid of perfection just because you find more perfection – you MAKE ROOM FOR MORE STUFF!!). I had a Falcon model hanging from the overhead light that I would lie back in bed at night and I would stare at that model for hours, wondering what it would be like to pilot that beautiful “hunk of junk” through the galaxies. I had every Kenner toy I could get my hands on.

So, gentle readers, tonight, being May The Forth, the day now recognized as Star Wars Day, I speak to you as one who was a fan from that first viewing, not on TV, not through a VHS or Betamax tape, nor from a disc or HBO (but lemme tell you, when that movie hit HBO, I went from “rabid fan” to “movie junkie…). You may have all the debates about the prequel trilogy, the follow-up trilogy, or even the other two in the ORIGINAL trilogy, and I will join in with any of those debates.

But, when all is said and done, Star Wars changed my life. It opened every door in my mind to the infinite possibilities of film, of the magic of storytelling, and of the power of one person to create a universe. And for that, George, I will always be in your debt. I may not have always agreed with your decisions, but, dammit, son, you brought my world to life. Thank you for that, sir.