Your first time...

Hey, I was waxing poetic about my first time seeing the film, figured it might make a good thread.

So, both young and old, tell us of your first time you saw the movie on the screen, big or small, and what it meant then and what it means now.

Share it brother/sister...

 

I was seven. I'd been watching Robotech, Star Trek reruns, (bad Japanese and Chinese dubbed and non-dubbed movies,)Shaw Brothers movies, and then...I saw the commercial for Star Wars: A New Hope... it was Star Wars.

Before this movie, I'd only seen movies from the back seat of a car...and I usually fell asleep during the second movie of the double features.

Why all this background...exposition???

I walked into the Theatre...during the day...it was huge...and that was the entrance.

I got popcorn, and a soda...it was a huge coke for a seven year old...I usually drank Pepsi or RC, and hated both.

Then we entered the theater...and the previews had already started...the screen was huge, the movie was fantastic...and when it was over, I got to see it again. Twice, through.

I'd liked Sci-fi and fantasy stuff before that...but Star Wars...changed me into a fanatic.

 

Walked into the theater, 2nd person in line of the VERY First showing EVER (Opening Day) of Star Wars..not A New Hope, Not Episode Whatever..but STAR WARS. All I had seen was a 2 inch square black and white pic of Chewie ("A 200-year old wookiee") and that was literally all I knew about the film. Just something deep inside said that I had to see it. Hadn't seen a single trailer, write-up, article, or other info.. Nada.. and then the opening crawl and THAT ship going over head...then THAT OTHER ship going overhead.

I can still remember the feeling of awe, and that somehow I would never be the same again. Then the magic words for me, "Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon." Man, did I identify with this guy. And when they finally showed the Falcon.. well I thought it was the most beautiful ship I had ever seen in my life (still do..even though the Black Pearl runs a close second..must be something about those types of ships..scruffy and needing some TLC)

I walked out of the theater, over to the booth and bought another set of tickets and went in.. At the time I was with the California Shakespearean Company and our troupe was asked the next day if we could put togeather costumes and do "promotionals" for them. I put on those striped trousers and never looked back. Through the film and conventions that year I met friends who have become family. Everytime I hear those opening bars of music and see that crawl start..it takes me back to that very first time. I saw it over 100 times that first summer...and well over 1,000 since then.

Hey Sid, thanks for bringing back the memories and putting a smile on my face!

 

There really wasn't a "first time" for me. Well, consciously, at least.

My favorite movie as a kid was Return of the Jedi. Not because of the Force, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker... I thought it was a live action Care Bear movie. Then when the Ewok movies came out, I only watched RotJ as if it was another Ewok movie. I remember seeing all of the OT, but I never knew what it was.

It wasn't until the Special Edition came out that I understood what "Star Wars" was. I sat between my parents and just kept saying "I've seen this before!", or "Hey, THAT'S where that's from!" I got hooked there.

Then when TPM came out, I became obsessed. And the rest is history.

 

Ironically, I don't really remember actually seeing ANH for the first time. I was around 3 years old, and my parents took me to see it down at the Winchester Centuries a few weeks after it opened. I do remember being out at dinner before the movie... pizza, I think?... and getting in the car to go over to the theater. But seeing the movie is a blank! My mom says that she and my dad took turns with some of their friends for standing in line, and that before SW, she'd never heard of anyone standing in line for a movie, let alone for one that had been out for a couple of weeks already. And like
Master--Kenobi, she says that she was just blown away by the opening sequence with the ships flying overhead...

For all that I don't remember seeing the movie now, I must have carried some of it with me when I was little, because I do remember "playing Star Wars" with other kids when I was really young. So some of it must have stuck! For me, it was all about getting to be Princess Leia.

 

It was the summer of 1977, and I was eight years old and my mom and I were visiting my grandmother in Columbus, Ohio. At the time, I only cared about movies with animals in them--preferably horses, but any animal would do. I was sitting on the steps of my grandmother's house in the humid air of the Midwest, and my mom came out and sat beside me. She presented me with a navy blue shirt with the original Star Wars Hildebrandt poster image on the front. She said the shirt was from this new movie that had come out, and we should go see it. I remember looking dubiously at the shirt, which had this guy with a big muscled bare chest on it (Luke! LOL!) and his blonde hair swept up into what looked like two horns. And there was this utterly uninteresting slinky lady with stupid things on HER head, holding a gun and sort of flowing along the ground beside him. And this sort of mask thing, black, and some robots.

It looked really dumb. No animals ANYWHERE.

But I went anyway.

And fell in love with R2-D2.

The rest is history.

 

The first I?d heard of Star Wars I was not interested. I was into real deep science fiction, the real ?what if? stuff. The first photo I saw was of Darth and Obi about to fight. I thought, ?What the heck is this guy doing in a German WWII helmet? They fly in spaceships and fight with energy swords? Swords against guns?? The reviewer hated it and I tended to agree, it sounded so silly. It had been open for weeks before I saw it, and that was because a friend swore that I would love it if I gave it a chance.

So, my friend, a silly Monty Python spouting nut and I stood in line for hours while he tried his best to publicly embarrass me with his physical humor. It was an awkward time for me, I was trying to keep a low profile and he loved to see me turn red. Meanwhile I complained again and again about the $2 admission, no matinees, it seemed to be way too much for such? fluff, this was a waste of time, it?s not Science Fiction, etc. etc. etc.

Eventually we got in, the opening crawl went by and Alderaan came into view.

Cool. Nice starfield?

Then the blockade runner went past.

Very cool! The ship design was not entirely practical, but it?

Then the Star Destroyer appeared

GASP!

I sat in complete awe waiting for that ship to end, mouth gaping wide, my friend next to me grinning like a madman, ?See, I told you?? he whispered.

WOW!

And the thing kept going and going and going?

As did I to see it again and again and again, a total of eight times that summer.

I quit counting after 25 times, and that was before it hit HBO or Video. I still have pictures somewhere that I snapped of the TV the first time it was on cable.

 

I don't think I snapped photos off the screen...but I did stick my tape recorder against the TV speaker when it was on Showtime and recorded the audio track! Ah, those were the days...

 

Well, I was four when it came out, but I still remember seeing that opening crawl on the center screen of our local Three-Screen Cinema! I don't remember what lead to me being there, probably because my Mom has always liked science fiction and adventure movies (she took us to see Raiders as well) so how could we miss it?

I can recall seeing it later on rerelease and wondering where the Episode IV thing came from, and had I missed it the first time. After that I pretty much ate, thought and breathed Star Wars for next few decades of my life.

It's not quite the same for me any more, I don't jump when the STAR WARS title comes up, but the new ones do have some classic moments... just not many with people talking

I'm still keen to see what comes next....

 

oh man. i was 10, and my mom came home raving about this new movie she'd seen... she took ALL of us down to this theatre in piedmont, where people were lined up all the way around the block! it was really cool, because my grandma was in a wheelchair they bumped us up to the front of the line, and we got really good seats.

when the first blast of music came out of the speakers it gave me the chills... the whole theatre cheered... it was the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life... my jaw was hanging open for the whole movie. the crowd was cheering and booing, i'd never seen so many people so involved with a movie before. i never wanted it to end, i wanted to run away and, well, be there. i was so fired up, i went home straight away and tried to write the book (it hadn't occurred to me yet that someone already had) and wound up getting half of it wrong, as kids do when they are trying to tell a story. i saw it over and over, and told everyone it was the. coolest. thing. EVER.

been a fan ever since.