There isn't a particular day for me like that. It's just an overall feeling or state of mind about how that summer felt. I went to see it every week, sometimes more, so it's all blended together. Man, I remember that theater vividly - the screen, the seats, concession stand, everything. There was a weird area just in front of the screen that went back about twenty feet. The screen was set back into the wall. I can remember that as though it were yesterday. The screen wasn't just hanging on the wall like it is in the multi-screen megaplexes of today. Also, the screen was insanely huge. The theatre only had two screens. It was a free-standing building, just off of the freeway. Many, many years later, it was bought by one of those cinema conglomerates and remolded into an eight-screen theatre. No more bigger-than-life screens and giant seating areas with huge seats. About ten years after that and after having sat unused for quite a while, it was finally torn down and a strip center is now in it's place. The parking lot, the landscaping, even the street in front of it - all of it - completely gone. It's as though it were never there.

When I listen to the soundtrack or watch the film these days, I'm right back in that state of mind. It's comforting, familiar, every bit as magical and distant as it was in 1977, and it's just as special as it was then. That's why I don't just throw the movie in and watch it randomly. It's a somewhat planned event. I set aside the time, ignore the phone and doorbell, and go on the adventure again. When I see the 20th Century Fox logo, I'm right back in that theatre, looking at that huge deep-set screen, in that cavernous room, waiting for the crawl. Once it starts, I'm a long way from home.

That's something the teenage fans of the new stuff can't understand. They've not felt the march of time, or seen the world change, or suffered loss. They only think they have. They're favorite movies haven't been altered or become unavailable. They're still in their movie moment. No matter how much they think they can imagine, or think they know how they would feel - they can't. You can't just imagine the passage of time like that, no matter how hard you try, you have to experience it. And everyone has to experience it on their own. The character of Ben Kenobi makes a whole lot more sense these days - his calmness, his intelligence, his experience, his mental and physical fatigue. The lifetime of thoughts that you can see on his face.

Thirty years from now, all these conversations will make much more sense to the teens on this board. If they even remember them.