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If you saw Star Wars in 1977, what do you remember?

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I remember the cinema seats and being shocked when Luke disparaged the millennium falcon when he first saw it. I was only 7.

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colars
grappling hooks

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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I mostly just remember the giant garbage bag of popcorn that we brought with us in the back of our station wagon (I saw the original Star Wars at a drive-in theater and was only two years old at the time).

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I expected the grappling hook but not that one.

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I was 17 and saw it 5 times in two theaters, and I remember each time vividly. Too much to relate. I guess one unique thing was walking through a graveyard at night to take a shortcut between the dorms and the theater. (during that summer I was away from home at a school)

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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Drive-in. The seventies were strong in my family.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I remember the biggest line to get in I’d ever seen at that point.

Also, during the movie, I was in WTF mode for the first fifteen/twenty minutes, thinking the droids were the stars of the film.

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I was 6 or 7 and my grandmother took my brother and I to the Star Wars premier, or a preview screening at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, London. She had been in the film business since the 1930s so had been given tickets probably from the cinema, studios or someone else involved.

I remember the neon display outside the building with space ships shooting each other in sequence, going into the theatre and it being a big event - each seat had a programme on; landscape format full colour, 20 or so pages with lots of stills etc. My brother did a project on UFOs at school and cut his up, not sure what happened to mine.

It’s difficult to remember what made the big impressions on me then, and what came after from future viewings but I do know that the sand guys and stormtroopers confused me - I didn’t know if they were monsters, humans or robots inside.

I was also confused as the programme had photos that weren’t in the film, one particular one I was fascinated by was a close-up of a dinosaur head in the desert. Maybe someone can post a link to this?

Anyway, I was really eager to tell everyone at school the next day as everyone was talking about it. I said I’d seen it and immediately got knocked back with “don’t lie, it’s not out yet!” and there was nothing I could do to persuade them. I didn’t know that I had seen a special showing!

The figures were the hottest thing that the toy shops had since Action Man. I had an R2-D2 and a Darth Vader, and I also had a ‘no-brand’ light sabre knock-off which cost £1 or thereabouts.

When I first went to The Empire Strikes Back I was in France on holiday with my best friend and his mum. The visuals were enough to keep us occupied until I saw it again as the double bill (when Star Wars gained its subtitle ‘A New Hope’ (it was decades before geeks started calling it ANH!) but I do remember Luke calling “Earr-doo! Earr-doo!” while looking for his squeaky tin-can friend on that jungle planet.

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I saw it in 1977, at a theatre in the town where I grew up in England. For being a a fairly small town, the theatre was fairly large, it was subsequently converted to two theatres by simply splitting it right down the middle. TL;DR, it was a fairly sizeable screen.

The one memory I have was of the opening scene, where the first ship seen is Princess Leia’s, and my thoughts were “Man, that’s a pretty good sized ship.” Little did I know what was coming seconds later. 😃

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I remember my folks showing the newspaper movie section with the SW showtimes and artwork. They had heard all the hoopla in the news about how its the new definitive sci-fi movie. They really built it up. I saw it opening night after church. Actually, I dont recall if it was a Wednesday nite, or a Sunday nite. But it was the first week of release. I rememebr having my peeny loafers on and the floor of the theatre was sticky. The moment the star destroyer engulfed the screen, I was mesmorized. I recall telling my best friend the following day about how after the stormtroopers stormed the blockade runner, “Then the Empire walked in.” (Darth). Ive never looked back. I saw SW in the theatres at least 30 times,that I can remember, probably closer to 100 times. I remember it playing at the Fremont HUb in the bay area in the early 80’s and seeing it several times there. No matter what I did, I could never get enough of it.