O.C, CA How did you get into Star Wars?

Hey all! anyone here have any interesting "how I became a SW freak story?"

I originally hated Star Wars (I didn't even know what it was, my dad had told me it was "junky"). Right before TPM was released to theaters, I went to this guy's house (I was in love with him and I still am!) He showed me his Star Wars cards. I listened to him, originally intending to just "impress" him, but I ended up becoming a bigger fan than him!

 

I have been a fan my whole life. I remeber the first time I saw A New Hope that Chewbacca scared the crap out of me. ( I was like 3 or 4 years old.) For Empire my mother and I camped out and I've been a fan ever since. I had all the vintage figures and ships that were released until someone broke into our huse and stole them when I was in junior high. Now I have a pretty good collection going again and would like to start rebuilding my vinitage collection soon.

 

origin story you want...eh? yes..hmmm...clear your mind...tell you, i will: hey its pretty easy. i read the star wars paperback before the movie came out. stood in line for 7 hours to see it and presto chango i was hooked. still am too!

 

Great stories Bant, SRB, & Zhi-Don (that sucks about your original collection, SRB. Hope you find those items again - sure that you will).

I was also hooked back in '77. My parents had gotten the Time magazine SW-cover issue, and after reading the article (and looking at the cool photos) the whole family waited two or three hours in line at The City in Orange to catch an evening screening.

I loved it so much, I went a week later with a school buddy. He liked it so much, we hid in the restroom to see it again for free. The only time a film was so good that I've done that!

I knew I was a SW 'freak' even then, because I dreamed of having a house modelled on the Millenium Falcon.

 

Well, I only remember seeing Jedi in the theaters, but I'm pretty sure we went to see ESB as well. I was very young at the time of Jedi, 9 years old actually, so it was next to impossible for me to go see it without my parents. I did watch ANH everyday for 3 months (it was during the summer) one year. I'd get up everyday and watch it, then go out and play with my friends. I had quite a few figures. Mostly just main characters. I remember wanting General Madine and my sister said "You don't want a guy who was only in the movie for like a minute". I did, but my parents agreed with her. And now he's worth 10x every other figure. Anyway, my mom made me keep most of my figures "Your kids might want to play with them." Thank God for that I kinda lost touch for a while, until the Tales of the Jedi comics came out. Now I'm back in the game stronger than ever

 

i was raised off of star wars. actually it was star wars and star trek. i had catpain jean-luc picard for a dad and luke skywalker for a brother. my brother is 10 yrs my senior and was born the year SW cam out in 1977. he went to see all the movies in the theatre whether he remembered it or not. he got all the toys and memorized the movies in their entirety. when i was born i didn't escape the sci-fi up bringing my sister experienced. i can still remember sitting on the couch watching SW with my brother when i was really young and listening to him say every line on que.

it's a little embarassing really. i can never truly say i had a normal childhood. but i'd never trade mine for anyone elses, that's for sure!

 

I was eight yrs old when ANH came out. My dad died two days before it was released. He would have LOVED it! My older brother and I found a common bond in the movie and my mom would drop us off at the theater during the summer time and we would watch it from morning til night. It was my mom's babysitter. We would pack a lunch and sit there all day sometimes. I've seen ANH in the theater 25 times, the most I've ever seen a movie in a theater. ANH helped my brother and I escape all the pain we felt with my dad.

I was a huge Mark Hamill fan too. My brother and I can recite the lines too and it drives my kids crazy when I do it, but it doesn't stop me. I have passed on my love to my kids although I don't think it's as intense for them. My six yr old daughter has seen AOTC 7 times, I've seen in 12.

 

Hi, gang. I was also "hooked" when I saw ANH back in 1977. I was only 7 years old way back then, and my parents took my brother and I to the drive-in to see it. I'll never forget the experience! I have all the original action figures from the original trilogy, and they're in near-mint condition. Even as a kid, I treated those figures as gold. I never dared took them outside to play with. It's so much fun to see SW so big again with the new trilogy! I'm so bummed we have one more episode to go before it's all over!

 

I discovered my inner yoda when the special edition came out. The weird thing is that I knew who everyone was though i had never seen the whole movie(anh) before. Then in 8th grade, a year before TPM came out, some boy in my class brought the trilogy on vhs to school and several of us would stay in the class and watch them when we were supposed to be outside eating lunch and playing. I was hooked permanently. We were 3 boys and 3 girls and we sorta formed a Jedi Council and challenged each other to memorize as much sw information as possible. So i know that 2-1B droid assistant is FX-7.

Anyways, i don't have a lot of stuff. My parents hate sw and think its a total waste of time, though i've kinda changed my mom's mind. She like AOTC but thought it was kinda disgusting how Anakin and Padme were kissing since they were brother and sister.... LOL! I'm still workin on her.

 

I was born a couple months after ROTJ.... BUt we had the Trilogy on VHS since I was very very young, adn they were my favorite moives ever, although I used to not like ESB very much until i got into HS.

I once asked my mom when the first time was I saw a SW movie, and she said she honestly couldn't remember, because I started watching them very young. I remember watching them as a kindergardner. But she did say that she and I watched ANH in the hospital (it was on TV) the day I came home from the hospital. I probably wasn't paying much attention, but technically, I saw ANH for the first time when i was 2 or 3 days old hehe

Until the SEs came out I had no real SW merchandise, besides the Max Rebo Band Vintage figs. But then, while at the Pomona Auto Show yrs ago, I saw a holo card han Solo in Carbonite and bought it for $10.... And then I just couldn't stop! I started reading SW books when I was very young, too.

ANd then I discovered the Internet. Well, rather i discovered that you can spend an ENTIRE afternoon/evening surfing the web looking for sw stuff. That's when I got on my sw trivia kick. I know a LOT of sw trivia.

So, to make my long story short, I I have ALWAYS been into star wars, since I first saw the movies, which was so long ago I can't remember

 

My pa. We would watch all the movies in a row sometimes on Saturdays when I was a kid. Been hooked ever since.

 

My cousin was obsessed with Star Wars growing up, and although he is almost 15 years older than me, he still versed me in the language and mythology that is Star Wars. I didn't really start getting into it until about 8th grade, right after TPM came out. My love of Star Wars really blossomed when the newest Special Edition Original Trilogy movies came out in a box set. I'd stay up every Friday and/or Saturday night watching one of the movies.

And now my love of Star Wars has raised to another level as I find myself wanting to go to a Fan Force meeting.

 

I was a USC film student back in 1967, and had just finished my previous semester's movie, '3XR-2.957'. I had moved onto a new script, and was having a great deal of trouble. My stoner roomate always kept blabbing about this stupid "Cosmic Force" that surrounded him, or something like that. It was getting on my nerves, and I couldn't concentrate. If it wasn't done in 3 days, I wouldn't graduate.

It was the story of a young Space Farmer, involved with a struggle with a difficult galactic crop. I worked on ideas for titles in my head..."Space Wheat", "Space Oats", "Space Corn"...nothing seemed to work. Until she came along.

I was visiting by myself, as I often did, the student theater, and saw her. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had come there to be alone and I mustered the courage to talk to her. Her name was Marion, and It turned out she had actually seen some of my previous works, '142-08', '618-67'. She really loved the titles. We talked about my difficulty with "Space Oats" for a long time, and I finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't the answer. Marion taught me how to write from my heart. She left to attend a big protest that night. She was leading a "student rebellion", but before she departed, she told me just to write what I know.

With newfound inspiration, my new script poured out of me. I coined the line, "just like bullseyeing Womprats", and other gems. "Star Wars" was born. I owed it all to Marion. We read the script together one night in my dorm room, and she was amazed. I told her how I felt about her, how she was my inspiration, and how I appreciated all I learned from her. I was so into Marion, I decided to make my move on her.

As we both leaned in for a kiss, our intimate moment was interrupted by an ear-piercing scream. Marion turned towards a woman standing in the doorway. It was my mother, dropping by unannounced. "Mom!" cried the two of us, simultaneously. Puzzled, we turned to each other, then to the person we both referred to as "Mom". "Hi, kids", she said. Talk about awkward. I had NO IDEA she was MY SISTER.

I graduated that year, and released "Star Wars", which was met with huge success. The rest, as you say, is history.

 

Very funny, MALICE_MIZER! Are u George Lucas in disguise? Even GL can be a nonbody on the 'Net =-)

 

Well, I might have stretched the truth just a LITTLE...

Actually, I was born a year after the theatrical release of 'STAR WARS', but by the time I was old enough to choke on small objects, the saga was on cable TV in pretty regular rotation, and I was HOOKED. I had Star Wars toys, pajamas, posters, toothbrushes...you name it, I owned it, and it had Star Wars on it.

By the time 'Empire' was around, I was able to enjoy the movie in theatres. I'm told I would fall asleep during the Yoda/Luke/Dagobah sequences with every viewing. With 'Jedi', I was in full swing, trying to attack my father with my toy lightsaber for turning to the Dark Side.

Since then, I've probably watched the Trilogy into the hundreds of times. I've been very pleased with the updated Special Editions, and saw all of those in theatres. I'm very proud to have seen both Prequel Episodes so far on their very 1st midnight showings. I'm a pretty big fan, I'm not too interested in dropping huge wads of cash on Star Wars merchandise, but I own all the various video releases of the OT, as well as DVDs of the prequels. I DO have a few action figures. I tend to collect just the very best looking ones. I'm not big on all the Expanded Universe stuff, either, I'm just into the movies.

I cannot wait until the final installment of the Star Wars saga, and as far as I can see, there's really nothing that'll turn me away from being a fan. That is, except for:

STAR WARS EPISODE III: JAR-JAR, SAVIOR OF THE GALAXY

 

my parents brought me to see star wars at the theatre when it came out. i was only 6 years old or so. i remember seeing it, but i also remember sleeping a bit i had 3 3/4" vader, tusken, yoda, luke and x-wing toys, but i pretty much broke and wore them out, so they were tossed out

around '85 or so i had my mom rent empire and rotj for me. from that time till the specials editions came out at theatres i pretty much put star wars aside other than watching it on tv and enjoying it when it was on.

my wife and i stood in the long lines for the special editions and then the anticipation of a new film kept me interested for good. with the release of tpm, i started collecting loose figures. so now as i look back, this stars wars thing has been in my life from ages 6 to 30, and beyond it looks like

 

I enjoyed reading everyones stories. The George Lucas in Love story was cool. I was especially moved by Jane's story because this month is the 3 year anniversary of my fathers death. My earliest memory of star wars is waking up early on christmas to find star wars comics in my stocking and reading them and then my parents taking them away for getting into them before they woke up. Also, my father standing in line for hours to get tickets for Jedi so we could see it as a family. A few years later my parents rented a new hope when we first got a vcr unbeknownst to me and it was going to be our reward for doing chores. I didn't know that we even had chores to do so my brother and I walked a long way to K-mart to look at the G.I.Joe's that I was too poor to afford and when we came home we couldn't watch star wars because we ditched work but we didn't know. I was so angered which led to hatred which led to me suffering by not getting to watch star wars. As the years went by I was an average fan but staunchly anti Star Trek except for Kahn because the fantasy island dude rules. Anyways now that my dad is gone one of my most cherished memories is seeing jedi with my family.

I've therefore decided to raise my daughter on Star Wars. I wanted to name her Lando if she was a boy but my wife said no. the first film she ever watched was phantom menace on the day she came home. She now enjoys "studying" for the trivia contest with daddy by watching the 5 films monthly. She also hates Jar Jar like her dad. At least I hope so.


Jar Jar sucks.

Lando Rules!

 

I'm glad I started this thread. =-)
I'm so over the guy who got me into SW, but I'll never be "over" SW!!!