[cross-posted for purposes of laziness expediency]
Anyone who's read my stuff for more than a couple months knows that the Star Wars franchise played an important part in my growing up. I have an entire Category devoted to it on both APCB and
A descent that the annoyingly Muppet-friendly Jedi helped instigate, now that I think about it.
I didn't see Star Wars opening day (and no, I refuse to call it A New Hope). Honestly, I think I was only dimly aware of it at the time. I remember seeing the preview on TV at some point and being intrigued by the fact that Bigfoot was flying a spaceship, but that was about it. My mother, however, knew something was up. She got me out of school early for a weekday matinée shortly after the movie opened (I don't know if Salt Lake City had one of the initial 30 theaters where it was released). We were two of maybe a dozen people in that theater in downtown Salt Lake City, and when we walked out into the street there was a line stretching for a quarter-mile.
I saw the original movie upwards of 20 times during its first run. I must have drawn a thousand pictures of TIE fighters and R2-D2 on manila paper in those first couple years. I bought Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye with money I stole from the change jar we used for bus fare (see how I repay your generosity, Mom?), and the novel's straight-up space fantasy goofiness is offset by the burgeoning romance between Luke and Leia that hindsight tells us is really freaking creepy. Like every other kid, I had the action figures, ships, playsets, and collectible cards. If George Lucas has anything to answer for (aside from Jar Jar, Hayden Christensen, or Greedo shooting first), it's how he single-handedly turned every sci-fi/fantasy release into a flood of product tie-ins.
The anniversary is being marked all over the internets. CNN has a retrospective, as do the BBC and a zillion other places. The 4th official Star Wars Celebration is going on this weekend in Los Angeles (And I just found out that Patrick Read Johnson's 5-25-77 is getting a sneak preview there as well), and Cinemax is airing all six movies in a row starting tomorrow.
For unofficial commemorating, you can always check out The Turkish Star Wars, Hardware Wars, or the legendary Star Wars Holiday Special. There's also this list of lines from the movie improved with the word "underpants" (my favorite: "You are unwise to lower your underpants").
Granted, the franchise took a decidedly unpleasant turn post-Empire Strikes Back, the last Star Wars movie I enjoyed without serious reservations, but the first two movies, and especially the original, will always be special to me. Star Wars kindled a lifelong love of movies, and - along with Robert E. Howard's Conan and Solomon Kane series, Doctor Who, and Star Trek - revved up my imagination for fantasy and science fiction. Lucas can be blamed for doing just about everything after 1980 wrong with his franchise, but I give him credit for that much.
But Jar Jar can choke to death on his own tongue.