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Your Greatest Star Wars Day.

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After reading “DocLathropBrown” excellent thread about ESB and how the audience reacted to the big reveal I started thinking about that great day when I saw ESB for the first time. I decided this was probably the best SW day for me as a fan and wanted to here what you guys thought were your fondest memories.

So here is my story and there are spoilers though I doubt anyone hasn't seen the movies on this forum. First off my parents were recently divorced and I was 9. This was one of the first things my Dad and I did on our now recurring weekends together. In general this was probably one of the hardest times of my childhood as I was just getting use to the fact that my Dad would not be living with us anymore. There was still a lot of tension between my parents when my weekly handoff was made and this is one of the few fond memories I have of that time. I had been tremendously excited about seeing the movie all day but there was the true possibility that we would not be able to get in. There would be long lines being opening night at the Menlo Park New Jersey’s Twin Cinema. Twin meaning there were only two huge screens, not the 12 screen showings that are common now on opening day, and this cinema was showing an exclusive 70mm print. Sadly MPTC is no longer around; it was a truly beautiful theater. Anyway I can remember rushing my Dad when he got there so we would be able to get in that night, "stop talking to Mom lets go!”

When we finally got there my heart sank as the lines were all the way around the building. Like all of you I was a huge fan, had all the figures and had been waiting for what seemed like half my young life for the next chapter. When you are 9 years old 3 years is a third of your life anyway, and half of what you can remember. When we parked I quickly hurried to get in line praying that we could get into a showing. I remember being wide eyed at the older fans dressed up in costumes, this being my first of may experience with creative SW fans, plus there were teenagers there man this was cool. After waiting for what was probably hours but seemed like days the manager came out and performed the ritual of counting people in line. Finally as I was about to P- my pants he pointed to the couple behind us and stated that would be the cut off point for the next showing. That right we were the last people in line for that showing. Next the line started moving and we were in the cool of the air-conditioning. The theater was a classic big cinema house with all the trimmings, the kind that was built when movies were the only form of entertainment in this country and my young mind this only heightened the enjoyment this was a palace. I had never been to a theater like this before and it was to my father’s credit that he knew how important this film was to me and took me to such a great place to see it. So anyway the second wonderful thing that happened that night was the fact that as my father and I were following the line to the seats one of the attendants opened the balcony (yes they had balconies in those days). I pointed this out to my Dad and we rushed up the stairs. Needless to say I got to sit in the first row of the balcony on opening day of ESB to see an exclusive 70mm print!

The next great thing about that day was that I saw another kid there who had a comic book that seemed to be about the movie. After successfully begging my Dad to buy me one at the concession stand he left to go get the usual popcorn and movie fair that goes with the event. I can still remember sitting there with the anticipation of seeing the movie I had just seen highlights of on Good Morning America that morning. What were those big elephant things, how cool was this movie going to be! A few moments later my Dad returned with my prized Comic and some goodies which I could care less about. I only had time to briefly open it and look in wonder at the strange creature that Luke was riding before the lights went down to a huge roar of the crowd. This was eclipses by the roar when the words Star Wars descended on the screen. “Try to read the scroll as fast as you can before it is gone” kind of hard to do at 9.

The things I remember about watching the film were the fact that when every hero was introduced the crowed cheered but I seem to remember the crowd cheering the loudest for Vader's intro. When Luke single handily destroyed the At-At the crowed went crazy. One thing that is distinctly in my mind is when Luke hit Vader on the side of his armor with his Lightsaber during there battle at the end people cheered only to be quickly silent when Luke’s hand is chopped off. The crowd was stunned when the big reveal is related. Personally I didn’t believe it, I remember reading somewhere that a worried Lucas asked a psychologist what kid’s reactions would be and that kids under 10 wouldn’t believe it, however older kids that had more experience with disappointments of life were more likely to, and I tend to agree. I remember even when I was watching ROTJ where Luke asks “Is Darth Vader My Father” I said out loud “no” while Yoda said “yes”. I was so sure it couldn’t be true. Looking back it makes sense but my young mind didn’t want to accept it. After Luke changes Vader back the movies were much deeper then you standard good guy bad guy fair, but it pretty much ended any excitement in playing with my figures though.

I remember leaving the theater in stunned disbelief. I called my Mom that night totally in shock and hurriedly told her all about it. As she tells the story she was really upset about the divorce having seeing my Dad that night but as I was talking to her I said “guess what Mom there is still hope there is another movie coming out” according to her she found a much deeper meaning in my statement. There was always hope in life.

So that is my ESB story. I saw it many times later that year, my sister took me, one of the first things she did with her new driver’s license. I also had my Grandma take me and I remember explaining every character to her in a half empty movie theater probably to the annoyance of the other people sitting there. She told my mom she enjoyed it though she had no idea what was going on. I also read that comic book to death. Remember they didn’t even have Videos in that day all we got were comics. I would be interested to hear some other stories from other fans about those days. As we all know the 70’s and 80’s really were the best time to be a kid.

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Wow, what a great story. Very neat and totally sweet.


Heheh, but speaking of new driver's licenses ... that's what I had when I first saw Star Wars in 1977. It was already June by the time I was convinced the movie with the gay commericals was really a fantastic fantasy film. Yada, yada, loved the movie, life unknowingly changed from that moment on ... but on the way home, none of my 4 passengers were likely aware that they boy who'd been driving solo all of a week was suddenly a daring X-Wing pilot on the highway - - rather than the cautious, newly-licensed teenager who should have been behind the wheel.

I nearly wiped out about 3 times. I really didn't know what had come over me, but it was my first hint that a certain movie had gotten way deeper under my skin than I could possibly imagine.



That's far from my best Star Wars story, but I've got a million of 'em. Something tells me I'll be posting in this thread a lot.
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I suppose my greatest Star Wars day was the first, and that was December 25, 1995, the day I got the trilogy and seven action figures. Until then, my only exposure to Star Wars had been the clips and parodies on shows like Muppet Babies, so while I had barely known the characters all my life, it was still all pretty new. And, of course, the more action figures and vehicles I got, the easier it was to act out the movies while watching them. It became a very organized affair.

And along with the driving story, I do the same thing sometimes while listening to the Trench Run on my soundtrack and to the battle scene on the Serenity soundtrack. I don't almost wipe out, though. I've been driving for four years. I'm far too mature to do that. ^_~ But when I was a kid, I used to ride my bike around the apartment complex and pretend I was piloting an X-Wing. And I'd imagine a few other squadrons flying with me, who would get picked off one by one until I was the only pilot left to save the day!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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February 1, 1983:

That was the night it premiered on HBO, and I could finally watch SW endlessly. I was 10 years old, and back then nobody had a VCR in my neighborhood, so you had to wait for the damn movies to come to Cable TV!

It had been 5 1/2 years since I saw SW in 1977, and I couldn't wait. I remember watching it with my older brother and just loving every minute and once Luke blows up the Death Star, that cemented SW as my favorite movie of all-time, and I realized it wasnt a fluke when I saw it in 1977, it was just as great 5+ years later.

I remember the next day was a snow day in the South Jersey area, and my Elementary School was closed, so I watched SW at 8:00 in the morning, went over a friends and watched it at 12:00 in the afternoon, and then watched it again that night at 9:00. (Those were the days of just one HBO and not a huge library of movies, so they would replay the big hits multiple times a day.)

To this day, when I hear the drums and the 20th Century Fox logo come on the screen, I think of SW from 1977, and Mr. Lucas could can f**k with the movies all you want now, but you can't take those memories away.
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It was still playing on HBO in May of '83 ... because one morning when my buddy and I came back to our apartment for our morning shower after sleeping on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulveard where we had been living for the better part of a week in front of the Egyptian Theater waiting for the premier of Return of the Jedi ... lo and behold, Star Wars was playing on cable TV to our complete freaking delight.

We had barely missed the first few minutes, and stayed away from the line longer than we should have so that we could watch the whole movie. We were living in StarWarsian frenzy that week, so ... even though it was on TV, it was one of the best viewings of Star Wars ever.







Later that week, the night before the show, we brought our TV and VCR to the parking lot behind the Egyptian Theater, and screened Star Wars and Empire between midnight and 4:30 a.m. for hundreds of rabid fans too excited to sleep the night before Jedi opened ... and, even though those showings were also on a tiny TV ... they were two of the best StarWars movie screenings I have ever attended.


(Little did I know it was the start of a night-before-opening tradition that would continue till 2005!)
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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.
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I have two best Star Wars days - I'll keep them short:

1) My parents took me on a birthday surprise visit to The Dominion theatre in London to see ROTJ in 1983. The experience was furthered by a visit to Hamleys (the world's biggest toy shop!) to stock up on LOTS of new figures and ships!

2) I saw the OT back to back at Elstree in 1993(?). It was the last official Lucasfilm approved showing of the OT before the SE's were released. There was even a message from Lucas himself.

JD

Creator of Star Wars Begins, Building Empire and Returning to Jedi
Follow me on twitter @jamieSWB. Please support me at - http://www.patreon.com/jamiebenning/

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Yep, I remember that huge-sceened theater in Long Island like it was yesterday. Alas, I moved from NY to L.A. the next year ... and missed seeing Star Wars on the vast screen of the Chinese Theater. Empire and Jedi played at the Egyptian Theater, down the street, which also had a very huge screen. I was ecstatic in '97 when, though it was the Special Edition, I finally got to see Star Wars at the Chinese ... which felt like the authentic and ultimate Star Wars theater by virture of its famous original run there.


But my next story is about the Egyptian Theater. In 1986 or '87, the Egyptian ran what I believe was the world's only officially-sanctioned triple-feature of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The vast auditorium sat in the neighborhood of 1,200 people.

Ah, but that wasn't good enough for the theater management: They printed up and sold hundreds of tickets in excess of capacity. During Star Wars, people were sitting in the aisles, along the sides of the theater, and in the huge space between the front row and the gigantic, curved screen.

My friends and I were sitting in the front row ... it was one of the few theaters where the screen is far enough away to be in focus, and the screen from that perspective wraps around you and envelops you completely in StarWarsian goodness. But the area between our row and the screen was so full of people sitting on the floor that folks were leaning directly on our legs. It was really very annoying and greatly diminished my first viewing of Star Wars on a huge screen in about 8 years. Bah.


Well, not being a big fan of The Empire Strikes Back (yes, it's true, I don't like that movie), I missed most of that screening by leaving the theater and driving to the local fire department ... where I filed a complaint with the fire marshal about the theater having people filling the aisles and all the available floor space. Then I blithely drove back to the theater and watched the last half hour of Empire.


Well, during the intermission before Return of the Jedi, the fire marshal and several deputies arrived at the Egyptian Theater and announced to the crowd that the last movie would not be shown until everyone in the auditorium found a seat ... and that anyone who did not have an actual seat would have to leave the theater.



It was not a pretty scene.


People tried to squeeze in two-to-a-seat, but the fire marshal would have none of that. It took nearly an hour for hundreds of people to quit the the theater and have the fire marshal confirm there was a seat for everyone remaining in the building. Jedi started quite a bit later than expected. My seat was vastly more comfortable without people leaning on my knees .... but, well, I was not exactly a popular fellow at that point (my earlier complaints to theater management did not go un-noticed by most of the audience). I received a few death threats, and more beat-the-shit-out-me threats than I could count ... and theater security had to grudgingly escort me to my car after the show. Yikes.


I guess what I did was pretty obnoxious. But really, don't mess up my long-awaited, big-screen viewing of Star Wars and everything will be just fine. Got it?



.
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Heh, maybe it was obnoxious, but it was the right thing to do. Pretty stupid of the theatre to do that. And death threats? Over a movie? Especially Return of the Jedi? I mean, they'd already seen the two best ones. I love Star Wars, but I'd never kill anybody over it.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen
... the screen from that perspective wraps around you and envelops you completely in StarWarsian goodness.

http://www.triumphrat.net/images/smilies/beerchug.gif
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Never had a big moment with the OT because I got an interest for it gradually, watching ESB for the first time at 1988, then watching the other movies, then the 1995 set, and then the SEs, which by that time I thought that it would NOT replace the OOTs and would be a one-time only presentation (so I was kinda excited to see it).

So the greatest moment was being on the line at the theater for The Phantom Menace, about 5 minutes before getting in. I could feel my heart beat. Some minutes later, it began to go downhill...
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering
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I should point out that my mentioning the younger members on the board, and pointing out how things are different for them, isn't meant to be a knock. There are feelings and a deeper understanding of things that await them many years from now.

Revel in the journey - it's pretty damn awesome.


On an unrelated note - a question for Obi Jeewhyen...Are you really a Gynecologist? At first I thought it was just a clever play on words, but reading your posts, I realized you're old enough to have gone to medical school and built up your own practice by now. Just curious.
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Hahaha, no I'm not.

Right after the opening night Phantom Menace show, a friend of mine was being interviewed by the L.A. Times in the famous-footprint-forecourt of the Chinese Theater. He couldn't keep the names of the characters straight, and so purposefully flubbed a combination of Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jinn as 'Obi ... um, Obi G.Y.N.'


I laughed my head off. That particular quote of his didn't make the paper, but I've used it with his permission as my moniker on Star Wars message boards ever since.




Now, of course, I wish I'd gone to med school after all, heheh.
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Ok, I'm gonna double-post because I was reminded of another great Star Wars day by something in another thread ... and with my failing memory, I have to strike while the iron is hot.


This one has nothing to do with the movies, or lining up for the movies ....

... but rather was a trip to Death Valley to visit all the Star Wars filming sites!!!!!



Words cannot describe how awesome that was. We were a group of around 25 ... and while a few of us were visiting Star Wars second unit filming locations .... most of us were on frelling TATOOINE!!!!!


Sand gets everywhere on the Dunes where Artoo took off on his own, much too rocky way. Having a miniature R2 really helped recreate the scene (actually, just one shot in the movie was filmed here).

Toys also helped sell the perspective of the Sandcrawler canyon. And I could swear I saw a landspeeder zooming across the salt flats in the center of the Valley, where the heat distortion subsituted nicely for vaseline-smeared lenses.

The most fun was to be had at Artoo's arroyo, as there were several shots filmed here of the poor droid's encounter with scavenging Jawas. And nearby was the bluff where Sandpeople were spotted by an unsuspecting Luke Skywalker, as well as the canyon floor where those same Tusken Raiders hop adroitley upon their Banthas (both played by a single elephant trucked in from Los Angeles). So many second unit shots were captured in this particular area that even the most stoic among us finally felt as if they were really visiting a certain planet farthest from the bright center of the universe.


But I think I most enjoyed the Mos Eisley overlook. Because we could get cars almost right up to the cliff edge, we were able to blare the appropriate John Williams soundtrack que .... over and over and over again. How many times can you never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy?


Kudos to my friend Kolby who, on previous visits to Death Valley, had researched and mapped out all the filming sites, and had interviewed many of the national park personnel and local residents who had memories of the second unit filming for the unlikely hit movie.

And though there were probably less than a dozen shots filmed in Death Valley for Star Wars, the location simpy IS Tatooine. It was eerie, and more coolsville than I could have possibly imagined.


(Oh, and we visited a couple of Return of the Jedi Tatooine filming sites, too.)


What a great Star Wars Day!
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I guess my best Star Wars day was seeing ROTJ opening day, May 25th 1983. My mom let me skip school that day, and it was the only Star Wars film I saw the first day of it's release (I saw SW and ESB during their 1982 theatrical re-releases). I was really excited! I couldn't wait to see it and find out what happened to Han. I remember being so worried that Luke was going to get killed! There was also the "who's Leia going to end up with- Luke or Han?" discussion still going on back then (LOL!) I saw ROTJ 2 or 3 more times that summer.

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Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen
The most fun was to be had at Artoo's arroyo, as there were several shots filmed here of the poor droid's encounter with scavenging Jawas. And nearby was the bluff where Sandpeople were spotted by an unsuspecting Luke Skywalker, as well as the canyon floor where those same Tusken Raiders hop adroitley upon their Banthas ...


But I think I most enjoyed the Mos Eisley overlook. Because we could get cars almost right up to the cliff edge, we were able to blare the appropriate John Williams soundtrack que .... over and over and over again.

Both of those would be pretty damn cool. I do a lot of motorcycle traveling. Death Valley has always seemed like a must-see (I've always wanted to see The Racetrack, I think it's called) - I would have to set aside time to go see those two places you mentioned.

Cool stuff, man.

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Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen


But my next story is about the Egyptian Theater. In 1986 or '87, the Egyptian ran what I believe was the world's only officially-sanctioned triple-feature of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The vast auditorium sat in the neighborhood of 1,200 people.
I don't know about that- they also showed the trilogy in NYC back in '86 or '87. I didn't go, but I've still got a videotape of the TV coverage and a full-page ad from the NY Times. I'm pretty sure that was an official showing too. I think they did it in other states as well.

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1978 - saw Star Wars for the 2nd time in theatre and then my Dad took me to a store and bought me an R2D2 figure. That was easily my happiest Star Wars memory...hence the avatar.
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Originally posted by: Mielr

i don't know about that- they also showed the trilogy in NYC back in '86 or '87. I didn't go, but I've still got a videotape of the TV coverage and a full-page ad from the NY Times. I'm pretty sure that was an official showing too. I think they did it in other states as well.

Yeah, I wasn't clear. It was something done all over the country (and perhaps other parts of the world), but just once. In other words, that same day in every city, one triple-feature showing per city. A one-time event held in many different places.

My bad.


Point was, unless you caught the showing that day ... you have been out of luck ever since. And I sorta robbed people of seeing the final movie who, through no fault of there own, had tickets to the event that never should have been sold. (Though, of course, I see it as the theatre who robbed them ... and well, me just being the guy who ratted them out. Hmmmm, why don't I feel any better about it?)


.

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The single day that stands out in my mind is when I saw the Star Wars Special Edition in the theatres a couple of days after the premere. I know, it was the SE, and even changes and all, it was the first time I got to see Star Wars in the theatres. I never got to see Star Wars in theatres when it was out originally (too little for SW, and my parents wouldn't take me to see ESB or ROTJ). So it was great to see it there, even if there was a bunch of silly additions.
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They showed the trilogy in 87 at several places for the 10th anniversary. I saw it in Century City and it was packed. I had never seen people in costume at a movie before.
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I have two - the order may seem sacreligious, but in #1 I was 22 years old, in #2 I was eight. Big difference.

1) When SW:SE released in theaters, me and my two closest friends traveled two hours to the best movie theater that we knew of. We did this on no sleep, laughed hystercially all day, and were absolutely blown away during SW. I was on the edge of my seat even though I had seen SW hundreds of times by then. The theater experience made a huge difference.

The last showing we went to that day involved a radio station having a little promotion based on what sort of merchandise the filmgoers had relative to the characters: weapons, action figures, costumes, etc. The DJ asked if anyone had Luke stuff, Vader stuff, Han stuff, Leia stuff, etc. Then the question came: "Does anyone have anything Chewbacca related?"

I don't know why, but I leaned forward in my chair and howled: "RRRRRRRAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!"

Hundreds of heads turned to me. That was quite an experience.

The DJ was tickled. "Hey, you! Come down here!"

So I walked down to the front of the theater and the DJ did a quickie interview: "Hey, what's your name?"

I replied, "vote_for_palpatine."

"Well, vote_for_palpatine," the DJ asked, "could you do that one more time for the folks here?"

Of course I could: "RRRRRRRAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!"

The theater laughed and the DJ handed me a free CD for my efforts. Good times.


2) I was eight years old in 1983 and I had only seen SW to that point, and that on TV. But my dad took me to go see ROTJ. I was in ecstasy the entire time. When the Millennium Falcon flew into the heart of the Death Star, I knew I wanted to be a dork for the rest of my life.

Want to book yourself or a guest on THE VFP Show? PM me!

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Wow, I had no idea the trilogy repeated in '87. And grrr, I could have traveled the vast distance of 6 miles to Century City to see it! Fine!


Reading other responses reminds me that one of the best pleasures for me of the Star Wars Special Edition playing at the Chinese Theater in '97 was taking all of my young friends, and friends' children, who had been too young to see the original in theaters. It was awesome. These kids who had seen Star Wars on TV dozens of times were blown away, and audiences night after night would cheer and laugh and applaud as though they'd never seen the film before.

Crappy revisions or no, I will always hold one fond spot in my heart for the special editions simply because of this particular theatrical run ... which really generated more audience excitement than any of the two or three previous Star Wars re-releases (none of which, btw, played at the glorious Chinese Theater).
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Amazingly, even after 19 years of moving around, I found my ticket stubs from 1987, and the tickets were only a dollar each! http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l16/maxzorin_2006/tix.jpg