May 25th 1977, The world of movies and Science Fiction changed forever. Thank you George Lucas for making history and for creating the magic that has inspired us all!!!
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I remember being 11 years old in 1993, only having seen Empire and Jedi and never having seen Star Wars, I saw it on the Sci-Fi channel and my life changed forever. I wanted to do art for a living and be like Dykstra and company when I grew up. I still do. Hopefully I will.
With all these anniversaries of these movies is making this once young lad very old now. I was 15 years old at that time. Time marches on is an understatement lol
Words couldn’t be anymore true, that Star Wars changed Sci Fi and it continues to do so.
As a kid, I wanted to be a starfighter pilot. As an adult it inspired me to write my own story.
My least favorite son in law, John you never cease to amaze me. Thanks for your help in Phoenix, I love you for it, and we couldn’t have done it without you. You gave above and beyond.
Thanks
your least favorite father in law,
Funny thing is right now as I type this I’m watching Return Of The Jedi and for the last few days watched all the movies. Damn I ws 7 years old when this came out and this movie still has some kind of magic about that can’t be touched.
It was out for a long time before I saw it. But once I did – WOW! By the time Empire came out, I knew what I wanted to do in life.
And had the bubble burst a dozen times along the way. But that probably happens in any job.
And I even got to work on one, well sort of – The Phantom Menace in 3d comes out next year.
Bests,
I wasn’t born until a bit under 2 years later but this has been one of my favorite films since I was a small child. Long before I ever saw Star Trek, I wanted to be a Jedi Knight.
This is the movie that started it all right here. A low-budget film with a bunch of unknown actors written and directed by an unknown who is a genius. He knew how to take that meager budget and stretch it to the limit to create one of the best effects movies ever. Now ILM, THX and Skywalker Sound are household names. And he also helped revive the Sci-Fi film genre, which a lot of people thought was dead at the time. Thanks for this great movie, George, and for everything that has followed and is yet to come.
Almost a year after i was born. Obviously i do not recall seeing either of the three in the theaters or drive-ins but simply put The Empire Strikes Back i felt was the best of the three, being the most real to me. It was solid and had all of the right elements. A New Hope was a testing ground for Lucas, not so fleshed out but still good. Return of the Jedi, the universe was seasoned enough but what ruined it was the Ewoks as the original idea was to have Wookies. As for the Prequals and The Clone Wars, don’t get me started!
I was 10 years old when “Star Wars” was released and I still vividly remember standing in line with my parents and my younger brother for over two hours, waiting to get into the theater. No one could have predicted the effect this film would have on me. I walked out of the theater a different person. I’d been transformed by the magic I saw on that screen. Not just from the story (even though for about a month afterward I demanded that everyone call me “Luke”), but from the dazzling special effects. I not only wanted to learn how they did all that, I wanted to learn how to do it myself! I read books about filmmaking, started sketching and designing my own spaceships and fighters, watched every Behind-the-Scenes special that aired on TV, and began building any plastic model I could get my hands on.
34 years later I’m still doing all that stuff, only now the models are made of polygons instead of plastic. I was already a “Star Trek” fan, but “Star Wars” ignited the spark that still burns inside me, and I have George Lucas to thank for that. May the Force be With You All!
It was in 87 when RAF Northfornt in Gibralter (the base I was living on.) got sky.
This was the frist film I watched on Sky Movies. I liked it but not loved it, but I did want to see more.
If was not the fact that the Royal Air Force had got Sky for us. I don’t think I would have seen this film until the SE was realsied in 97.
It was thanks to them, that I saw Star Trek TOS for the first time and a load of other great sci-fi films and TV shows.
They played a major part in me becoming a huge sci-fi fan.
What great stories!!! Sounds like we all have been so influenced by Star Wars and Star Trek that who knows what life would be like without either of theses fantasy-lands that have sparked inner fires in us to be something that we were unaware of till seeing these films,, Unbelievable what a simple 2 hours can do and setting a path and a dream for an imaginative future!!!!! HERE HERE to all these stories you all have shared and I am so glad we all have the same dream!!!!
Thanks again George
hey john, you’re gonna want to watch this, a younger you is sanding a plane in a superman shirt, it’s an interview with Grant McCune, I simply stumbled upon it today.
check it out, it if doesn’t work, type in john dykstra in the search engine on youtube and click on grant mccune interview for Japanese vfx museum.
it’s hard to watch because it’s all in japanese, sorry about that.
Star Wars changed my life, and I wasn’t even born when it came out.
I wish I could see the versions I grew up with again, but Lucas denies us. I’ll never understand that.
Go to these links on Amazon,, I found these at Target a few years back and it’s a dvd set that has the original theatrical release version on them as well as the crappy new versions from the 90′s!!!! Highly worth it and they are cheap too!!!
I thought they did that at one point. Yeah, you need to nab those while you can get them. The Blu-Rays due out this fall will have only the “special” editions with even more added crap than they did for the 1997 releases and original DVD releases. Honestly, I wonder what possesses George sometimes. Those films stood on their own for 20 years before he started messing with them again. Leave them alone!!
I’m not content with non-anamorphic transfers of the 1993 Laserdisc master with DVR smear actually making it look worse than the Laserdiscs. I guess I should be, since Lucas is trying to keep the Academy Award winning versions on the back burner…
It’s either that or you have to live in a world where Greedo gets a shot off before or at the same time as Han.
I actually liked the remastering, except the Greedo redo and of course the Re-Remastered end where they replaced David Prouse with Hayden Christensen.
It was Sebastian Shaw, not David Prowse. Prowse was only Vader when he had his helmet on. But that’s not important right now.
As for the change, you know George, he can’t leave well enough alone. He probably wanted to link the movies together better. That’s probably also why he replaced the woman with baboon eyes with Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine in TESB. Though, I have to agree, I don’t mind the changes either, though sometimes I do want to watch the originals, since those are the movies I grew up watching, so I’ll probably get the 2-disc DVD editions one of these days. I used to have both the Special Edition and Original VHS copies of the movies, but I’ve only gotten the Re-re-reedited DVD copies.
one thing this blog has done for me…given me an eye for art instead of just taking things like this great one-sheet for granted. Very nice!!
And ya, I was one of the ones lined up around the Cine Capri on opening weekend in the increasing spring heat of Phoenix…what a GREAT place to see a visual epic like this!
I’ll pass on the prequels.
Although I’m probably going to get the mega-box set of all six movies when it comes out later this year.
George Lucas is going to make more money than China.
I was only 7 years old when Star Wars came out back in 1977, yet I remember opening night with crystal clarity to this very day. The theater was absolutely packed with people, all excited and enthusiastic about what we were about to watch. It just totally blew everyone away, and the crowd response was phenomenal. When Darth Vader closed in on Luke’s X-Wing and Han Solo showed up at the last second to save him, the audience went absolutely crazy. The applause was deafening. This was more than a movie – it was an event, and I’ve never had another experience like this at the movies before or since. It will live on in my memory forever.
In the meantime the cow is still being milked as we all know.
http://www.theforce.net/topstory/story/George_Lucas_Talks_SW_LiveAction_Series_138409.asp
John
Great post. I still think the original 1977 non CGI version of Star Wars is the best.
Star Wars. No “Episode IV”. no “A New Hope”, and no “Greedo shot first” nonsense. That’s how I spent my summer vaction in 1977. The theater where I lived charge $1.50 for admission, and during summer weekdays they weren’t too agressive about clearing out the theater between showings. So 15-year-old Mysterion and his friends would go to the first showing in the early afternoon and watch Star Wars two or three showings at a crack. By the time school started up the following September, we had the damned thing memorized. Simpler times. Good times.
Star Wars changed my life. I wouldn’t have been a little sci-fi geek for the rest of my life if I hadn’t seen it that day in 1977. And I think I turned out pretty good!
Also – best Star Wars poster ever.
I had four knocking me off my socks moments (quite literally) in the cinema, four fleeting moments I’ll never forget:
- “Make your lovin’ brother happy” with Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda in “Once upon a Time in the West”, it still sends shivers down my spine
- “Three…two…one…” BOOOM, The Enterprise blows up…I’ve grown up with TOS on television…Nuff said…
- De-embarkation on Omaha Beach, Saving Private Ryan…couldn’t speak for hours
- Blockade Runner careening off into the distance, mwah nice…followed by the never ending filling up the screen with a Star Destroyer…GAAASP, GURGL….
As some-one who thoroughly enjoyed both franchise, I’ve never understood the falling out between the two fan-bases of the two…Sureley the ralms of imagination is big enough for the two of them…
a great movie poster. and not a photoshopped stars photo face to be seen;)
*applause applause*
Was there the first day (Friday), and then back again on the third (Sunday), and then several times again that summer of ’77, along with many viewing of CE3K. It was cool back then, you could just stay in your seat and watch the film again. I sat through Star Wars six times one day, and CE3K three times another day. The Esquire Theater on Oak Street in downtown Chicago. Ah ’77 and The Esquire…
Same place bro and I saw ST: TMP on 12.07.79.
peace & bananas | deg
Doh! I thought I had commented on this earlier, but it appears the net goblins have claimed it! Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this movie! As a kid, it used to be a Saturday afternoon (after Saturday morning cartoons and chores were complete!) ritual to watch at least one of the original trilogy movies. Classic through and through!