Happy 30th, Star Wars!

I saw “Star Wars” at the mighty, opulent, and sadly demolished Creve Coeur Cine' in St. Louis, MO. My dad (R.I.P.) took me when I was 4 ½ years old. I remember the theatre being packed. I remember the audience cracking up when R2 got shot by the Jawas and that moan he made before he plopped onto the ground. I remember the audience going “Wooooo” during Darth Vader’s Force choke of the dude who was questioning his strategy. I remember the audience going nuts when the Death Star blowing up. I remember the audience bursting into hysterics when Chewie “talked” during the award ceremony. Lastly, I remember thunderous applause when “Directed By George Lucas” flashed on the screen.

We went back to see it again at the Creve Coeur and later to the Airway Drive-In when it expanded into wide release. Hard to believe that was 30 years ago. Wow!

On May 25, 1977 I was 22 years old. My brother Tom was 14. We often went to the movies together, and I was planning to go into New York City from New Jersey to see “Star Wars” because it looked like a good sci-fi movie, and I’d enjoyed George Lucas' “American Graffiti” very much. For some reason Tom did not want to make the trip to New York on that Wednesday afternoon. We argued about it for a while, then I just gave up and went by myself. I was convinced he was going to miss out on a good thing. Little did either of us know just how good …

There was no big line outside the Loew’s Astor Plaza in Times Square, but once I got inside the lobby was filling up fast. All patrons were given a “May the Force Be With You” button at the box office. We had to wait in the lobby till the previous show’s audience got out. When they started coming out, someone in the waiting group shouted out “IS IT A WAR, MAN?” Everyone laughed. When I got inside the actual theater the end credits were still scrolling up, but I noticed an unusual thing: most of the audience were still in their seats, watching the credits and APPLAUDING things like the special photographic effects artists and the Dolby System logo. I said to myself, “Hey, this must be good.” The floor was littered with discarded “May the Force Be With You” buttons, an inconsistency I still haven’t figured out.

Then the movie began. Two hours of sheer entertainment that I would return to again and again, almost every weekend in that summer of ‘77. The jump to hyperspace got the biggest reaction that first night. The audience went crazy. I stayed to see the beginning a second time up to the scene in Ben Kenobi’s house – that was as long as I could stay without missing the last train home. You could still do that then – there weren’t 45-minute breaks between shows. I got home and put the souvenir program on the kitchen table for my brother to see when he woke up on the 26th. I think I also said something to him on the order of “You JERK!” when I saw him that morning. And I still have my button. I should’ve worn it to work today.

Saw it at Hicksville twin south with mom and dad as i was 12…Waited on line for what seemed like hours….

I saw “Star Wars” at the May 24th press screening at the Loew’s Astor Plaza. One memento I have from that night: a “May The Force Be With You” T-shirt, which is a little tight thirty years later! What a screening. Enough to require a repeat visit that weekend but at the Loew’s Orpheum uptown where we sensibly got our tickets a few hours before showtime. A few days later, I met Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, who appeared on a local TV show I was producing in New York. So I can truly say I was a fan very early on!

I moved to NYC in 76. Movies were still events and theatres were usually pretty nice. I remember walking by the Loew’s Astor Plaza (which was built by Walter Reade, as the Read Theatre, but was bought by Loews just before opening) I saw big colorful theatre displays for something called LOGAN’S RUN, advertised as being in 70mm. Went to see that. Pretty decent afternoon. At that time I’d watch just about everything. The following Spring I see the LAP has big, colorful displays for something called STAR WARS, also in 70mm. Figured it was another sci-fi thing, so on the afternoon it opened, I went down to check it out. Got a nice seat, popcorn, (Loew’s popcorn was usually popped offsite and brought in big yellow bags, but it was big and fluffy) So the curtains open on that big screen, with 6 channel stereo sound. When that big airship roared overhead in cool detail and and sound (like it really did fly overhead) the whole audience burst into cheers and it became clear this was not just another movie. I am not a sci-fi fan, but the big screen, full sound, entertaining plot and wildly enthusiastic audience swept me along, and I was caught up in it. After the exhilerating ending, I walked out with the crowd in a good mood, feeling like i had seen something special that I would tell friends about. At the escalator, we were handed blue buttons, about 2" at most. I was expecting the nifty STAR WARS logo, but the thing just said “May the Force be With You.” What the heck is this? I threw it out.

I just felt a great roar of anguish! A disturbance in the force? No, the sound of millions of diehard STAR WARS fans howling about how much that discarded button is worth!

Star Wars had aleady been out for two and a half months by the time I first saw it. The theatre was the relatively humble UA 41st Ave. Playhouse in Capitola, CA. The little triplex still exists as the 41st Ave. Cinema. The reason I waited so long to see it was that right after 8th Grade graduation, my parents and I drove up the Coast to Oregon for a couple of weeks. Right after that, I went to summer camp for five weeks. While there, I met a few kids who had seen this movie called Star Wars. From their hyper descriptions, all I could gather was that there were spaceships, lasers, and a princess. I was intregued, mildly. But then, my best friend Jeff (one of my very best friends to this day) wrote me a letter and described it as like being “solid 2001, but way more neat stuff.” I knew I could trust my friend’s assessment, and by the time I got home from camp, he was ready to see it again. So, he, my parents, my cousin Grant, and my adopted grandma Margaret all went to see it. I was blown away. I remember walking out of that matinee showing gesturing wildly about all the ships diving and swooping. I saw it a couple of other times before 9th Grade began, and saw it on video the following Christmas. What? Saw it on video? In 1977? Well, my oldest cousin (also named Gary) was a projectionist for UA in the L.A. area, and he and some buddies hooked up one of those gigantic video recorders to the projection system, and produced a tape which he allowed my cousin Grant and I to watch as many times as we wanted to over the Christmas holiday on their TV. The images were slightly squished vertically, and the sound was inferior, but we didn’t care. This was our own personal Star Wars tape for several days. We watched it five times before I had to leave to go back home to Northern California. All my school friends thought I’d gotten the best present.

When Star Wars was re-released many years later, before the final Trilogy came out, I considered going to see it with as many of the people I had seen it with originally. This was impossible, however. Dad and my adopted grandma had passed away, Mom was not available, Jeff was living in Southern California. But my cousin Grant was going to UC Berkeley, and so he and I went to the Coronet in San Francisco and saw it. The old magic was still there, although we both agreed that by more recent standards it moved a little slow for an action-packed movie. One more memory—in the audience was then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, sitting with a gorgeous woman who was wearing a feminine version of the same (likely Armani) suit the Mayor was wearing. There were a couple of security guys nearby, watching over the Mayor. The Coronet was packed, and cheers and laughter welled-up in the audience much as they had in ‘77.

At thirteen, I finally got to see STAR WARS on May 25th, a nice Wednesday afternoon, after having read about it six months prior in the November ‘76 issue (#2) of Starlog Magazine. My best friend Greg, who lived near the Park theater in St. Louis Park Minnesota, and I had been anxiously awaiting its release. We walked the four or five miles from his house to the now closed Art Morderne theater just outside of Minneapolis. After about an hour, we came within sight of the theater and were surprised to discover a line wrapped around it! We quickly got into line, with still about a half hour to go before showtime, and watched it double while everyone in it began to comment on how many people there were! Once inside we realized that about the only place to sit together was about four rows from the very front and way over by the wall, it was so packed. It was one of those old theaters with just one screen and about a 1000 seats. Both of us were like; “What the hell is going on?”

I am not sure why, but I had this preconceived notion that what we were about to see would be in the same vein as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe it’s because that’s what I wanted to see; a serious science fiction film, real heavy like. The preproduction artwork, by Ralph McQuarrie, in Starlog had, what I thought was an austere quality, an emptiness. I laugh at the memory of how, early on I reacted snobbishly at the bickering between the two stupid robots in the desert, despite already having audibly produced a wow at the sight of that never ending giant triangular ship. Well, pretty quickly I gave up on the 2001 idea and let this new, flashy, gritty, noisy, exciting story have its way with my 13 year old brain.

THAT WAS THE COOLEST MOVIE EVER! or something like that, I said. The audience had reacted en masse to many scenes; uproarious laughter at the stunning of R2, stunned murmuring as the Millenium Falcon’s entry to hyperspace, cheers at the exploding Death Star.

Well, Greg’s 16 year old brother showed up to take us home, but instead we all went back into the theater, this time in much better seats. Then his parent’s found us after our little impromptu encore and yanked us all out as soon as the lights came back up, since it was now about eight or nine. Too buzzed to care that they were pissed at us, we planned our next trip back.

Over the next 60 weeks I think I probably saw STAR WARS 25 times at that theater, and that was before they got the 70mm reel later that December. One time during the following summer of ‘78, I sat through it three times in a row. I practically went through puberty while it ran there.

Tonight, 30 years later I drove by the place, the theater auditorium gone, but the spot were we waited in line was there, the front of the marquee, now a jewelry store, basically as it was and intact. I tried to imagine the line snaking around the side filled with people in 70’s attire. I followed that imaginary line to the back of the now smaller building and was pleasantly surprised to see six window-like squares in a row near the top of the exterior wall. I once sat directly under those windows while overhead projected some of the coolest light I’ve ever seen.

My father, my brothers and I saw it early in its run at the Edens Theatre in Northbrook, IL – I didn’t realize it at the time, but what a juxtaposition of views of the future there was between that building and that film…

senorsock, I must say I am extremely jealous. From what I’ve heard the Edens was one heck of place and what a movie to see there.

In June 1977 I visited my cousins who had moved from Los Angeles to the Frisco Bay Area a year earlier. They wanted to see Star Wars. Although I had already seen it in Los Angeles in 70mm a few dozen times I wanted to see it again so I took them to a theatre in San Jose that was showing it. As expected the Star Wars phenomenon hit the Frisco area with a lot of force. As we waited in line for the second showing we watched as the first group was let out of the theatre. Every person leaving the theatre laughed and smiled as they talked about what they had just seen.

I too was little when “Star Wars” came out. I originally saw it on ON-TV (scramble signal) on a black and white TV with a radio (stereo)simulcast (to hear the audio). I did later saw it on the Disney Channel in 1990 (when it was a premium channel) on a recorded VHS tape. “The Empire Strikes Back” I saw on VHS the first time and “Return Of The Jedi” the first time at Classic Cinemas Lake Theatre in Oak Park, IL. In 1997, I saw the Special Edition of “Star Wars” at the Marcus Cinema in Addison, IL. I do own the original unaltered versions on RCA SelectaVision CED discs and the Special Editions on VHS.

As far as the prequel trilogy, “The Phanthom Menance” and “Revenge Of The Sith” I saw at the Cinemark Melrose Park, IL and “Attack Of The Clones” at the Crown Village Crossing 18 in Skokie, IL. I own the first two on VHS and “Sith” on DVD.

I did not realize that “Star Wars” was in limited release the first time it came out.

I was 6 on May 25,1977 and my parents went to see “Star Wars” at the Chinese in Hollywood on their wedding anniversary,leaving me and my sisters with a sitter that day. Flash forward to 1979 and the re-release that had the “Empire Strikes Back” trailer. It was at the original Boulder Theatre in Boulder City,NV. I lived in Henderson at the time. I was awestruck. it was awesome! When the “Star Wars” title card came on and the theme was blasting out through the speakers,i was hooked as was the audience. It was truly one of the greatest experinces of my life. Too bad it wasn’t a 70mm print.

Here is my Star Wars history:

I was 7 years old when it came out….

1&2: Roxy Theatre (twice), Tacoma WA (now the Pantages)
http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=9998

3: UA Cinema 150 (RIP), Seattle WA (70mm)
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/2593.html

4: Narrows Theatre, Tacoma WA
View link

5: Lakewood Theatre, Lakewood WA (1982 Reissue)
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/11164.html

1. Cinedome Cinema 150 (formerly UA) 70MM (1991 Children’s Hospital charity showing)
   http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/2593.html

The Special Edition (UGH!):

1. Act III Crossroads 8, Bellevue WA – Dolby Digital THX

2. Act III Supermall Stadium 17, Auburn WA – Dolby Digital THX

3. American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre, Santa Monica, CA – Dolby Digital (2007 showing)
   http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=2993
   (I was hoping this would be the original version, but it wasn’t. They had made no indication on their website or Calendar as to which version it was).

May 25th! A “holiday” for “Star Wars” fans. A classic day.

I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since this wonder of a movie came out. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in an age where I experienced it for the first time in a theatre. I was about 9 years-old when it came out. I can’t recall if I saw it before my birthday, which is in June, or not.

I must’ve been in the last days of school when my fellow classmates started talking about this movie called “Star Wars.” It had some giant bear-like creature named Chewbacca, a girl with “snail-like” hair and these amazing “light sabers.” I had to see this film.

My parents took me to one of the few venues that showed a 70mm print at the time, the long gone Plitt City Center in Orange, CA. Beautiful twin modern theatre located behind the old City Mall.

I can remember sitting in the front seat of my dad’s company car, a Ford LTD, while he drove. There used to be a very tall bridge that went over Interstate 5, and you could take it to get to the City Mall. As we were crossing the bridge, a news anchor on KNX-AM said that “Star Wars” was breaking all box office records. I pleaded with my dad to drive faster so we could get to the theatre. My mom said, “We might not be able to get in if it’s that popular.” My heart sunk.

We managed to get to the City Center. There was no one around the lobby or box office as I recall. My dad bought three tickets and we went to the snack bar. I didn’t want anything. No popcorn. No candy. I wanted to get into the theatre!

Above the theatre doors, someone had made a sign that said “Star Wars,” but it was a homemade job made of glitter. Still, it was cool. We made our way into the auditorium.

It was packed.

The only seats we could find were in the front row, looking up at the enormous screen.

I don’t recall off-hand if the curtains parted, but when the “Star Wars” logo blasted onto the screen, I jumped out of my seat. The Dolby Stereo sound was loud and very impressive. I had never heard sound that clear, that loud, before. Then the ships roared over head, lasers flying across the screen in those few and very memorable cuts to establish the story. I was hooked and my eyes didn’t look away from that screen for the entire movie.

I had never seen a movie have such an affect on myself or an audience up until that point. Every scene that is now classic, from R2-D2 getting fried by Jawas, to the final explosion of the Death Star, got laughs and cheers. When the audience is taken into the Death Star’s trench for the first time, I can recall grabbing onto the edge of the arm rests. This was like being on a roller coaster ride. And when Luke destroyed the Death Star (and after that shot of the Millenium Falcon flying into help Luke), I swear it was like experiencing your team coming in and winning the game at the last second. 900 or so people in that audience cheered, clapped and hollered in triumphant relief.

For some reason, my parents would always stay for the credits, even on terrible movies. But this one was special. The end credit music by John Williams invited the audience to stay. If I recall, most of the audience did stay for the final credits, and when the lights came up, there was more applause.

I don’t think I stopped talking about the film for a year. I can remember during class, I’d try playing back the amazing beginning of the film in my mind. Weird kid, I know.

When the film was re-released, I’d beg my parents to take me to see it again. “You’ve already seen it.” I didn’t see it again until 1979 at the crummy Orange Mall 6…you know, the type of theatre with about 150 seats, a tiny screen, and mono sound. A friend of mine hadn’t seen it, so I convinced him to come with me. He wasn’t impressed. Even at 11 years-old, I realized why he didn’t like it: the presentation was a HUGE part of that movie.

Even though I didn’t run around in Star Wars pajamas or go to Star Wars conventions, it was and still is a big part of my life. I got into movies because of it….and way before kids that weren’t even born claim that SW was the reason why they wanted to make films!

It’s kind of sad, at least to me, that the movies have been re-worked, and that most of the great theatres I saw the SW trilogy (the good, original one) are now gone.

But those memories of seeing “Star Wars” for the first time in 70mm, in a great big theatre, are forever etched in my mind. And May 25th is special for another reason. My daughter was born on that day.

The links below include articles on the City Center, and a number of retrospective “Star Wars” articles.

View link
http://www.fromscripttodvd.com/the_studio_gate.htm

I first saw Star Wars at the Loews Inverrary 3 on Oakland Park Boulevard in Lauderhill (right outside of Ft. Lauderdale), Florida. I was 10 years old. The theater was brand new back then, and even though it was a triplex the individual theaters were very large. Each almost the size of a single screen theater. I thought back then that Star Wars was a great film but I wasn’t as gaga about it as a friend of mine that lived in my apartment complex. Star Wars seemed to dictate every aspect of his life. He didn’t go around dressing like Luke or Darth or any of the other characters but he was a huge fan. I did like it enough to see it more than once, not something I did with movies back then. I usually saw them once and that was it. I think I may have seen it once or twice more at the Inverrary then I saw it at another theater at the Lauderhill Mall, the name of which escapes me. The Loews Inverrary 3 was converted to retail space not that long ago and the surrounding area has become low income and pretty shady. I’d like to say that it felt ‘like yesterday’ when I saw it, but it doesn’t. It was a long-ass time ago during a strange part of my upbringing. My parents' marriage was falling apart and things were getting weird. Nonetheless, a fun time to be a kid, and a great time for pop culture in America, way before the time of the CORPORATE pop culture we have to dredge through now. But back then it was great. Star Wars? Kiss? Peter Frampton on the radio? Mike Douglas & Merv on TV? It was a very cool time.

I saw Star Wars at the Americana theatre in Southfield, MI in June of 1977. The Americana was a 60’s modern, large (1700 or so seats on one floor) theatre that had most of the BIG showings in the area. I saw “Star Wars” during the time I was working as a projectionist downtown at the Summit Cinerama, running a retro-release of “2001 a space odyssey” in 70mm ultra-Cinerama, and there was some cause for comparison, but at the age of 18 (in ‘77) Star Wars just blew me away. I don’t really like sci-fi and would rather go to a vegetarian acoustical feminist concert while getting a root canal than watch anything “Star trek”, but I realized that Star Wars was part Saturday morning (western) serial and part WWI dogfight movie.
John Williams’ brilliant score was of keen interest to me, as I had just reciently discovered the work of Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold (to whom Williams owes a LOT) and the other Hollywood “great era” composers. There had been a 10 year period, probably starting with films like “Easy Rider” and “The Graduate” where Hollywood discovered you can get away without a custom-composed score, just spin contemporary records (at a considerable $$$$ savings) and call it good, and the people will love it. That worked for those films, and other “small” films, but after the 20th Century Fanfare (with Cinemascope tag) died down and the that Sfortzando opening chord followed by the cleanest, most glorious brass started into this 19th century fanfare I was hooked.
A few years later I wound up playing theatre organ in one of the many pizza parlors that had transplanted theatre instruments, and we (I) played Star Wars several times a night. I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the Throne room sequence, its as though Williams was channeling William Walton or Edward Elgar

I saw it at Grauman’s Chinese on the very day those two robot characters and Darth Vader put their prints in the cement of that famous theater. I believe it was sometime in August of 1977. I didn’t plan it that way, I was just passing through LA on my way from the Bay Area to San Diego and swung out to Hollywood to take a look at what was left of the theaters on Hollywood Blvd. It seemed like a perfect time to catch the by that time quite popular film and it was impressive indeed in 70mm and Dolby stereo on the big Chinese screen. I later saw it again in 70mm at the Warfield in San Francisco where it was preceded by the Warner Brothers cartoon, “Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½ Century”, also blown up to 70mm.

Did “Star Wars” really play at SOUTHTOWN? In checking my notes and newspaper ad photocopies for Minneapolis, I show it playing initially at ST. LOUIS PARK and then, later, also at SOUTHDALE, NORTHTOWN, and MANN.

Is it possible that the SOUTHTOWN is being confused with the similar-sounding SOUTHDALE or NORTHTOWN, or being confused with a re-issue or sequel engagement? (Of course, it’s also possible that since my research does not account for the entire 1977-78 timeframe, that it could have played at SOUTHTOWN at some point.)

Just thought I’d add these two “list” thoughts…

Popular 1977 films when STAR WARS was released:

• Airport ‘77
• Annie Hall
• Black Sunday
• The Car
• Day of the Animals
• For The Love of Benji
• The Island of Dr. Moreau
• It’s Alive
• The Other Side of Midnight
• Smokey and the Bandit

Popular 1977 summer films after STAR WARS was released:

• The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training
• The Deep
• Exorcist II: The Heretic
• Orca: The Killer Whale
• Rollercoaster
• The Spy Who Loved Me

I won 2 tickets to a noon press screening at the Coronet in San Francisco from a local radio station (KYA I think) which was 2 days before the actual opening. I remember how loud the sound seemed and thought R2D2 and C3PO resembled Laurel and Hardy. At the conclusion of the film the audience went wild. It felt more like going to a major event than a movie, you could tell it was going tom be really popular. I went back several more times during the initial 7 month run and enjoyed it more each time. My friends and I would get stoned first, then sit in the front row.

I was five when “Star Wars” was released-I lived in Middletown, N.Y.,about fifty miles from Manhattan. The closest place showing “Star Wars” to us was The Monticello Twin Cinema in the catskills, about thirty minutes away. This was around July of 1977. A few Drive-Ins showed it later on, and it never really got a wide release in the Middletown area till July of 1978! I remember the Monticello theater showing it every hour on their two screens. Not unusual now, but it was back then. I more remember seeing “The Empire Strikes Back” because I was eight. We went to the Dtive-In-the second feature was that Dom Deluise film-“Fatso”– my Aunt got grossed out and we bolted! I wish I was living in California and older when it first opened at the Chinese Theatre. Must have been awesome!

MC, just thought, why not contact the author of the MSP article I linked to, he could probably search the archives and find the Southtown listing.

MC, please let me know, perhaps this is the first indication of my deteriorating mental status.

Hi Michael,

Well, I will continue to disagree, and probably have to go back to verify that I, and the local (National) paper haven’t lost our minds. But, I acknowledge that may well be possible!

The book and the labs, ‘farrumph’. What was playing at the Southtown in May/ JUNE of 1977? On its
Huge Screen, with the alternating red/maroon/off-maroon curtains, as we (of questionably accurate minds), sat in our red/white Mann rocker seats, behind the white smoking/non-smoking sections, after walking through the huge lobby with its gold wall-paper, its very long marquee with all the blinking lights. ??

Well, it was Star Wars. You are correct, it likely was not an Original Release ie, first day release, which you document, but it was the release I saw. And many others saw it too. Despite your incomplete evidence for the period, you are wrong. Or I have Dementia.

Mr. Coate is right. Star Wars was not at Southtown. The Besse book is full of errors, by the way.

Star Wars I and Star Wars II (The Empire Strikes Back): I remember seeing both of these Star Wars Episode films at the now-defunct Charles Cinema, in what’s now Boston’s old West End neighborhood. It was wonderful.

I saw Star Wars at the Charles Cinema in Boston, when this film first came out. It was a cool film, and it was worth going to.

I had just turned 13 year’s old, my 7th grade class had been keeping up on the filming of Star Wars thru a monthly pamphlet sent to our school, there was a contest to win a trip to see the first showing, as luck would have it our class won and on May 25th 1977 I sat front row center seat at the Southfield Americana, which had a 30'x60' screen in 35mm dolby stereo, after the first scene as the Starship passed over my head and kept getting bigger and bigger, my life was changed, I no longer played with my Evil Kinevil, Star Wars brought me out of childhood to adolescense. When I got home that night I retold the whole movie for my little brother’s who for the first time in their live’s sat quiet as I told of Light saber’s the Princess & Darth Vader. It will always be my favorite movie. The theatre is gone now, but everytime I drive by the location I point out to my kid’s “that’s were I first saw Star Wars”, they alway’s reply “we know dad, we’ve heard it a million time’s”.

I saw the premier of Star Wars – with a High School buddy I had to ‘talk into it’ – on May 25th in Dolby stereo at the Roseville 4 Theater in Roseville, Minnesota. I remember I had got a pair of tickets for free, from a younger kid who had himself won them on a call-in promotion to one of the TwinCities radio stations (maybe KQRS?). Anywho, he was a busboy at the Stillwater restaurant we both worked at (Vittorio’s)and I recall he had to work that night; seems nobody would take his shift nor was anybody else he had offered very much interested in going to see some unknown show. I even forgot I had the tickets, so I had called around to a couple friends before I caught up with and convinced my buddy Dean at the last minute. So to put it in perspective, our expectations were pretty low for this unknown movie, on a mid-weekday night at some suburban theater, miles from our local and accustomed venues… BUT Of COURSE – IT WAS FABULOUS!!! People in spaced-out costumes selling popcorn, spaceship props hanging from the ceilings, the dolby sound like it was living inside our heads, and the visuals and effect like nothing anybody had ever seen on a big screen ever before. We were sensory stunned by the time we left the theater to go home. And the rest is… not just cinematic history, or a fond memory, but a definitive moment in our life experience we both still share and like to revisit; forever a part of our personal life histories too.