And to my 6 year old eyes and mind there was magic before I even sat down in the theater with my mom- I could barely comprehend why there was a 3/4 of a mile long line (literally) of happy excited people waiting to see this film. And not some die-hards who camped out for weeks either- these were normal everyday people. And afterwards everyone talked about it... for weeks and months afterwards. There wasn't the buzz-factory and Hollywood crap that shoved down our throats every week these days to get us to waste $10 on some over-hyped movie-du-jour. This was the real deal. Pre-internet good ole human love of good cinema. Good entertaining cinema that had accessible human characters thrust into situations that were familiar feeling but entirely new. And tickets were affordable enough that people would go back to see films over and over- in no small part due to the fact that there was no home video market. People used to count the times they went to films and wear those numbers as bragging rights. Hell between the intial release and subsequent re-releases of 'Star Wars' I saw it in the theater 27 times. And I do not count the one viewing of the SE as #28 either.
Being a part of that experience was absolutely my 'first step into a larger world' and part of me actually is saddened that anyone else had to experience it any other... but that's life, right?
