Kevin's Watch

When it first come out, Star Wars (since named 'New Hope') was only screened in 35 cinema in the entire world, I've been told...

For those that are old enough, what was the atmosphere like, the excitment, when the films first came out at a cinema near you?

It was 1977, and I was in 3rd grade. I remember sitting in the front row, right in the middle (otherwise known as the nerd seat.) Like every other child my age, I was totally captivated by Star Wars. It truly was the grandest thing around at the time.

I was 23 years old, and happened to be at a Star Trek convention, held at a hotel which had a theatre attached, the only theatre in the Kansas City area which was showing Star Wars. My Trekker buddy and I took a break from the convention and went to the movie.

I had already read the novelization a couple of months previously, and it seemed just okay, nothing really spectacular in the genre of space opera. The novelization didn't do the film justice. For its day, the special effects were phenomenal and the atmosphere in the sold-out theatre (one of the biggies, not these little multi-plex crackerboxes we have now) was electric.

It was quite an experience. That, coupled with my first Trek convention, left me on a natural high for a week.

I was 12 when my next-door neighbor’s mother finally consented to take my friend and I to see A New Hope. I don't know quite how to describe what I felt. I was completely entranced. I remember the awe I felt the first time I saw the Star Destroyer slowly wash down from the top of the screen in pursuit of Princess Leia's tiny (in comparison) ship. It only lasted a moment but that first time the hull seemed to go on and on endlessly until finally terminating with those huge, movie screen sized, engines. I had never seen anything so impressive before. The rest of the film was so exhilarating that when it was over I was already scheming about ways to return. One of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had at a theater.

I remember the midnight showing of TPM - there were several people who showed up in costume, and there must have been 100 lightsabers. When the lights went down, the place just exploded with cheers. Another round of cheering happened with the Lucasfilm logo, and yet another round when the famous line "A long time ago.." Really cool.

I saw it like 7 times. Since the first film, I have grown steadily disappointed and finally bored by the whole damn thing, though.

Excess, thy name is Lucas.

I was a little kid. A theater in the Detroit suburbs, about an hour's drive from where I grew up, was one of those first theaters where it showed, IIRC. The lines to get tickets were endless...seeing it was exhilerating.

It took several months before it came to be generally released. I got to see it a couple more times then at theaters closer to where I lived.

The only problem was that everyone else in my family hated science fiction and fantasy, so no one else could stand the movie.

I was 18 years old and still in High School. I saw it 12 different times .... each time with a different girl friend. At about visit 10 the usher exclaimed "another one!" when he saw me with friend #10.

LOL.

Luckily I was always honest and open with my relationships. Or I would have been in trouble (as it was, my friend just laughed.) And then of course the usher would have been in trouble!!

Back in '77 I was a mere 7-year old and newly arrived in the West from China. I doubt that I saw the first run of Star Wars; I must have seen the re-release the year after. Since I was just learning English, most of the movie went over my head anyway. Well, when you're a 7-yr. old, I guess most things do go right over your head, figuratively and literally. But that didn't prevent me from liking those cool lightsabers, the Falcon and that girl with the funny hairdo. I remember making some drawings of things I'd seen in the movie for my 1st grade class or something like that. I horribly mangled the spelling of 'Millenium Falcon' of course.

Oddly enough, it was the music soundtrack that really captivated me and gave me what I needed to fall in love with this thing that was Star Wars. I remember listening to the soundtrack album over and over. (Yes, I still have the original SW double LP, as well as the Empire double LP, but I have no respect for the lame single Jedi LP.)

It was not until Empire Strikes Back that I was old enough to have some sense of the whole picture, as opposed to just fragmented images in my mind of the first movie. And WHOA--! Empire, both the film and the music, made a deep and lasting impression on me. Scenes like when Han got frozen in carbonite really freaked me out as a kid. The presence of stunning characters like Yoda and Boba Fett, the charismatic Lando Calrissian, and the commanding figure of Darth Vader, made Empire the coolest movie experience I had ever had. So, yes, the totality of the Star Wars experience didn't hit me until Empire.

Back in '77 I was a mere 7-year old and newly arrived in the West from China. I doubt that I saw the first run of Star Wars; I must have seen the re-release the year after. Since I was just learning English, most of the movie went over my head anyway. Well, when you're a 7-yr. old, I guess most things do go right over your head, figuratively and literally. But that didn't prevent me from liking those cool lightsabers, the Falcon and that girl with the funny hairdo. I remember making some drawings of things I'd seen in the movie for my 1st grade class or something like that. I horribly mangled the spelling of 'Millenium Falcon' of course.

That's a pretty cool story, MM - thanks!

Wow... sounds like one hell of an experience... I mean you don't really get that these days... The effects back in the good ol' days must have seemed out of this world... I wish I was an old person...

I wish I was an old person...

Who're you calling old?

MM - I'll hold him while you stomp him into a greasy spot.

When Star Wars first played at the theaters,
there were a line that went around the front of the movie house
and at least another 50 yards away.
Tickets ran out for the viewing that was scheduled and I had to wait
until the show played, ended, and the seats emptied
before they let anyone else inside.
(If I remember right, a 2 hour; 20 minute wait in line
just to BUY a ticket!!!)

This was in a time before multi-plexes;
One moviehouse - one movie screen - one movie at a time.
But they could seat 2 - 3 times more people inside the theater
than what the multi-plexes now seat.

But to answer the question:
I loved the movie the first time seeing it and
thought that the f/x were unsurpassed.
Never before had the visuals looked so realistic (for it's time)
and the action seemed non-stop.

The plot was a bit familiar though...
boy meets girl-falls in love with girl-loses girl-saves girl.
The damesel (sp?)in distress and the hero that saves her.

*note - A Star Wars advertisement was shown in theaters
almost a year BEFORE it was released. I seem to recall that it was
advertised to be the 4th episode of 9 movies.
(Sounded confusing then; the 1st movie,
but the 4th episode? ... out of 9 episodes?)

A Gunslinger wrote:I saw it like 7 times. Since the first film, I have grown steadily disappointed and finally bored by the whole damn thing, though.

Excess, thy name is Lucas.

My sentiments exactly. I can't stand star wars now.

I was 9 when I saw it. My father was furious that we actually had to wait in line to go see a movie. I was completely blown away. The sounds, the music, the visuals....Amazing. The first time I'd ever seen a standing ovation in a movie theater...a 5 minute standing ovation.

Ah, 1994. 5th graders were dressing like Kurt Cobain, I had no idea what the hell was going on, and at some point during that year I left the local Blockbuster with Star Wars. At the time I was 9; I'd seen no cinema of its caliber, so it was quite mind-blowing (and numbing, to boot; it took me a few viewings to grasp the plot and back story sufficiently).

6/24/77 isn't 5/25/77 I had to wait for nearly a month after the initial limited release to get my first full viewing. (I was actually hooked the Christmas before, with the trailer presented with another 20th Century Fox film called Silver Streak)
What an awesome 16th birthday present! With newly obtained driver's license in hand, I packed the car with friends and headed to the best theater in town. The theater easily sat 800 people. Star War was presneted in state of the art 70 mm dolby surround sound.
The place broke out in cheers as the camera panned down and Yantive IV raced acrossed the screen!
Within two weeks I had seen the movie at least 10 times. Two of my brothers also celebrated birthdays in June and July, so I had to take them. I had to be careful when asking girlS out on dates to be sure that they hadn't seen the movie already or, if they had seen the movie, I hadn't taken them.
My wife of nearly 20 years gave me my favorite moments during the viewings. She giggled as pointed out the ding in C3PO's head after the Tusken Raider attack. But her out and out guffaw (outburst of laughter) as we were hit with sights and sounds of the Catina scene quite frankly made me fall in love with the woman.

Since I wasn't there when Star Wars was new, and I naturally grew up with all those films on tv, it wasn't a particularly impressive experience; it was just a film.

However.

A few years ago, just after Lucas "remastered" the original three (and before the Phantom Menace) the Star Wars films were re-released in cinemas, and I decided I had to see them on the big screen to get the full experience. My spine was tingling right from the 20th Century logo, and when the appeared, with that explosive fanfare, it actually brought a hint of tearfulness to my eyes, just from the sheer grandeur and the experience of a legend in its natural setting.

Well, I was all of Seven years old, and I remember waiting outside the old Glenwood Theatre in KC (fantastic theatre...sniff....), and being completely overwhelmed.

Most of all, I remember my Grandfather saying afterward (to give me a little grief, I believe) something along the lines of "I figure under it all, Vader's a good guy".

I was 17 and the movie blew us all away. The film pushed the technological envelope and thrust so many new things at us. The Force, Jedi Knights, light sabres, the whole Empire/Rebellion on a galatic level, the cantina sequence - long a staple of manya SF story finally realized cinematically, and the moving camera used for the space fight sequences.

...and the glorious music. It was awesome.