It was 30 years Ago Today; George Lucas taught us all to say....

[puppetmaker]

"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 (Edit: I have been informed by another person who was there that is was Patrick not Sean in the outfit) 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.

Comments

[wandereringray.livejournal.com]

The story about my dad totally spoiling my mom. *laughs*

They were in a bookstore before they had seen Empire. Dad picks up the book, flips through it and turns to my mom:

"Hey, you know Darth Vader is Luke's father?"

*face palm* God bless my dad. :D

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Peter found out because he was working Marvel Sales at the time and he had seen the art work for the comic book adaptation that Marvel did of the movie. So he anticipated the gasps in the audience when he went to see it.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was Patrick who wore the Jawa costume. And I was Princess Leia. I remember we went to some Halloween thing at the planetarium and Patrick won a prize for best costume.

I think my favorite memory was one of the few times I was allowed to go along with you and Sean to the movie theater and see Star Wars, and sinking into my seat as Darth Vader lifted the Rebel guy off the ground with one hand and crushed his throat.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm

Maybe it was Sean and Dad that did the LEDs for Patrick.

But I do remember the Planetarium show and a lot of people taking pictures of the two of you. You were both soooo cuuuuute *grin*.

Star Wars entry

[heartnut.livejournal.com]

I just turned my response to your entry into a full-blown post in my LJ for posterity. So, click over there and read it if you would like to!

May the Force Be With You (http://heartnut.livejournal.com/125255.html).

Re: Star Wars entry

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Great Entry and I love the Icon too.

I think we all have good memories of that film.

I know Caroline loves them (well the first three produced).

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Wow. Was it really that long ago?

Dayam.

My favorite memory is skipping school one afternoon to see the first showing of Empire with about 25 of my closest friends. I was sitting next to a rather large, fuzzy guy who was a good friend of mine named Harris Parke. He was wearing a golf shirt of some kind, with all the buttons unbuttoned.

I remember I buried my face in his chest when Leia said "I love you." And when the platform dropped, with Han on it, I'd inadvertently clutched a handful of Harris' chest hair, which I promptly ripped out.

Upon hearing this story, my spouse, who is also rather on the fuzzy side, refuses to go to a movie with me in any shirt with buttons on it!

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

That's a great memory.

Did you know that Harrison Ford ad-libbed the "I know"? He was suppose to say "I love you too" but I think his line was much more Han-like.

[fufaraw]

Sitting in the dark in the theatre, and having the ship come into frame from overhead and going "Wow!" and then a few seconds later, the Imperial warship powered overhead after it, taking up the whole sky.

That trick's been done since, but SW did it first, and the impact was just galvanizing. For all the whinging about how bad the FX in the first one look compared to the second trilogy, SW was state of the art at the time, and changed FX radically, forever after.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yep. The opening after the crawl was fantastic and threw you into the world that Lucas created without any explination and asked you to come along for the ride.

[readinggeek451]

Going to Empire on opening day; Derek picked you, me, and Sean after school; Bill had taken off work to go stand in line. He was there early enough that he could have gotten into the earlier showing, but he selflessly waited for us--which means we were first in line for the 4:00? 4:30? showing. Afterwards, we went out to dinner and had a great time discussing it all. (Then my mom was upset because she hadn't known we were going to get dinner after, so she had been worried that I wasn't home yet.)

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yeah I remember that too.

That was a lot of fun.

One memory

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Rant overheard while waiting outside the theater for the midnight showing of Episode I: "In all of the post-Jedi novels, Luke's always getting his ass handed to him. He's always just barely getting away. He should be kicking ass and taking names."

My thought when I heard this: "Ah, so you want Luke to be in a John Carpenter film..."

Re: One memory

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

LOL

Mark said that he and David wanted to use the light sabers like they were sabers but were informed that they were much heavier and were two handed broadswords. Needless to say when he saw Ep 1 he had a serious "Wait a minute" moment when he saw the saber fighting.