It was a Thursday, this date way back in 1977. I was 19-years old, my family operated the Redlands Fox Theater, and I worked there too, most often as a Projectionist.
About this time of the day, around 4:00pm (pacific time), I was on my way driving west on the I-10 freeway in my 1973 Dodge Challenger (I still wish I had that car!), making the almost two-hour drive on my way to Grauman's Chinese Movie Theater in Hollywood to see, in 70mm widescreen (the high definition of that era), this new movie that had just premiered the day before, (movies premiered on Wednesdays back then) this new movie was called, "Star Wars."
Years before it became Episode IV, it was just, 'Star Wars'. I was drawn to the special effects and commercials I had seen about the movie on TV and in magazines for several months. There weren't the hour's long waiting lines........yet, those really started that first weekend and news stories were all over it about the lines after the weekend. My date for the night and I were close to the entrance, and we waited about an hour in line for the box office to open again for tickets to the next showing, our showing.
Things I remember from seeing it for the first time?
The theater and it was a huge auditorium too! It was all oohs and awws when the imperial star destroyer seems to keep going and going in the first scenes. People cheered like crazy when the Millenium Falcon goes into hyperspace the first time. A lot of laughs at the antics of C3PO and R2D2. No boos about Darth Vader, as I heard about later on in news reports. And, people cheered and applauded at the end, so much so you couldn't really hear the music. It was, and still is, quite the movie!
Like the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), no one in the movie industry thought it would be a success. But a success it surely was!! My stepfather later regretted not buying any 20th Century Fox stock before it came out as had been all the talk. He went with the general consensus, WRONGLY, that Star Wars would be a flop and the stock would tank.
Oh, what could have been! Many people made a LOT of money after it became a hit, and 20th Century Fox was flying high.
Of course, then it was The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and The Return Of The Jedi in 1983.
It took a long time before we showed Star Wars at our Redlands Theater. Movies were rented for a percentage of the ticket and concession sales, and the percentage for playing Star Wars was really high!
We eventually did, though, so I was able to see it quite a few times. I bought into the available Star Wars toys back then and still have all but the Princess in the small Kenner figures. I got them as a Christmas present the following Christmas. They're all on my desk to look at, a little worse for the wear of being packaged up for many years. Oh, why didn't I keep the original packaging??? I had the 8MM movie shorts you could get with certain scenes, even with sound! Of the original movie.
When they came out to buy for home use, we had all the available movies, had them all in DVD and now all in Blue-Ray. And now, they're all on Disney+ in better quality than they ever could have been in 1977 and the 1980s. Still watch them, enjoy them, and the "expanded universe" I think is so much bigger than anyone could have ever imagined; even as George Lucas wrote the original storylines, I don't think he could have imagined he'd become a billionaire from his creation!
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