I was born in 1973, which made me four years old when Star Wars arrived at the cinema in 1977. It was quite possibly the first movie I went to see, and predictably I don’t remember an awful lot about the trip to the cinema at all. I do remember returning home from watching Star Trek - The Motion Picture a couple of years later - principally because my Dad told us he was going to “warp speed” on the way home and turned the car lights off for a few seconds.
I remember the excitement of leaving the cinema in the dark - walking on air, and wanting to talk about the movie to anybody who would listen as fast as I could. I remember wanting to run down the street twirling an imaginary light saber, and making the noises.
It’s easy to forget that Star Wars arrived in the days before recorded media was common. Our only exposure to the Star Wars universe in the UK was when the various television channels fronted up the cash at Christmas time to show one of the movies, a “behind the scenes” featurette, or one of the Christmas Specials that were recorded. I can remember finding the listing in Radio or TV Times, and eagerly waiting for the show to start.
Mark Hamill was Luke Skywalker. When he appeared on “3rd Rock from the Sun” a few years ago I smiled broadly when the cast crossed into Star Wars folklore;
Sally: I can’t believe we got bumped for Luke Skywalker. (Making fun of Mark Hamill) ‘Ooh, look at me! I’m so important! My father is Darth Vader!’
Dick: He is?!
I wish I had photographs of my bedroom from the early 1980s. You wouldn’t have noticed the flatpack desk, the unmade bed, or the trendy mushroom shaped plastic lamp. You would have noticed the two shelves across the width of the room stacked to the edge with spaceships, weird machines, and various dioramas. The Millenium Falcon, Slave One, an X-Wing, a Snow Speeder, an ATAT, a Scout Walker, Hoth, Dagobah, a Rancor monster, and many, many little action figures. I can still remember the Tie Figher pilot figure smelling of Trifle (don’t ask me why I had smelled him).
Each Christmas throughout the 1980s would bring new boxes, new spaceships, and new adventures throughout the household. String would be tied across doorways to provide a high spirited escape, Tarzan style, from the Imperial army. The appearance of Mum wielding the vacuum cleaner was the approach of a Star Destroyer.
The toys were not played with to destruction - we knew we were lucky, and we looked after everything we had. Some things did get broken (the Christmas night when my aunt’s fat dog chewed up Boba Fett’s gun sticks in my memory), but for the most part it all survived. In my early teens the entire collection should have been donated to a childrens home, but was bought at the last moment by a hard up parent - or at last I have to believe that’s what happened. My more cynical mind tells me that somebody knew damn well what they had, and probably sold it all off at a huge profit.
I was in California in 1999. I stayed with family in Marin, north of San Francisco, and saw “The Phantom Menace” on the second night. The first night was more or less reserved for the army of Storm Troopers that had camped around San Rafael and Larkspur for several days.
In 2008 I took our eldest daughter to see The Clone Wars, and completed a circle of sorts. Star Wars has been there throughout my life, and now it is a part of hers. It’s interesting to see children continue to pick up sticks and make light saber noises, where once they would have seen swords or guns.
While watching the first movie (A New Hope) with the kids a few weeks ago, our six year old saw Darth Vader make his entrance, turned to me, and asked “Is that the baddy?”