Star Wars - Where the legacy began
When I was 13, my friends and I learned of a movie that was coming out. This movie was also coming out as a novel. The title of this book and movie was Star Wars! News of this nature for a group of boys with wild imaginations of other worlds, starships, droids and the sort was phenomenal! We could hardly contain ourselves with the excitement of such a story being presented in both novel and movie form. Of course we all went out and bought the novel (copyright protected). Each of us wanted our own Star Wars book for themselves. Being young and not having a whole lot of money, my copy was paperback. I read it page by page so many times from beginning to end that the spine split in half!
Reading the book Star Wars, in my mind, I could picture the images just as author George Lucas (who owns the rights to the film) presented them in the movie without ever seeing it! The huge rebel ship cruising towards Tatooine with laser blasts coming from its cannons only to be stunned by the even larger Imperial starship following close behind with it cannons blazing. The beauty of the two suns of the desert planet Tatooine. The young and restless farm boy Luke Skywalker as he dreams of someday getting away from Tatooine and joining the rebel forces. The two droids, C3P0 and R2D2 and all of the other Star Wars characters; Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, just to name a few. I could picture them all in my head as vividly in color as if they were real and right in front of me.
I remember when Star Wars hit the theaters. My friends and I walked the 2 miles from home to the closest one, a small, one screen cinema in the college town of Millersville, PA. The place was packed! It seemed like everyone was waiting to see Star Wars. Everyone in the theatre cheered when the words “lucasfilm” appeared on the big screen. As we all watched Star Wars and waited with anticipation of every scene, it took my breath away! It was, in my opinion, the best original movie ever put to film. This movie was years ahead of it’s time and even though they’ve come a long way with digital imaging and special effects, this movie was the one that started it all. Star Wars had such an impact on my friends and me. We left the show with our imaginations running wild. Our little Barlow pocket knives were now our lightsaber and blasters. Every car was a Tie Fighter or an X-Wing fighter. Every stranger was a Storm Trooper to be hidden from or blasted. I remember the night I watched Star Wars on the big screen like it was yesterday. It’s a memory that still lives with me today and I still get the same feeling when I pop in the DVD. I can watch it countless times and never get tired of it.
For more information on Star Wars, check out the site on the web at http://www.starwars.com