Untitled

- george and me -

Right from the start it was something special. We queued round the block for an hour at the Bromley Odeon to see a film which was, apparently, sensational. When we finally made it to the front, the man produced a "house full" sign. To a ten year old, it would be the stuff of nightmares and years in therapy.

But our luck was in - there were a handfull of odd seats left. My Mum, Dad, older brother and I went in and were separated - I sat in the row in front of my brother. The trailer for Close Encounters Of The Third Kind looked pretty good. But hey, get on with the film, already...

I was gone. Solid gone. This was no movie, it was a new universe, full of great people, places and cool spaceships. I loved everything - the opening attack and escape, the desert planet, Mos Eisley spaceport with its Cantina, the space battles (especially) and the ultra-cool Death Star. But it was after the tie-fighter attack that I really got into it. I thought that that was it, the good guys had escaped and it was merely the best film I had ever seen. But the main bit was to come, with the X-wing fighters attacking that huge Death Star.

The shot of the fighter swooping into the trench will stay with me forever as the most incredible thing I'd seen - the adreneline rush of speed and giddy perspective just about tipped a gangly 10 year old over the edge. Skywalker was my hero, I wanted him to blow up the Death Star, get the girl (before the enlightened days of avoiding incest) and I wanted R2D2 safely back with C3PO. It all happened (except the incest), the fanfare blared, they all got medals and we all went home.

The bizzare thing looking back was how much I believed in this other universe as a real place, and simultaneously how much I knew it was made up - I devoured any book or article about how it was all done. I saw it five times at the cinema, was egged on by my brother to buy the blue and red sets of bubblegum cards (I can till taste the gum) and did our room up to look like the Death Star. I was a sad junkie.

For me, movies started that day, and it took several years to get all the Battlestar Galacticas and Flash Gordans out of my system. Since then I may have seen other movies which I would place even above Star Wars as passing the endurance test - Gregory's Girl was the next benchmark. But none have changed my little world as radically as Star Wars did. It did that for a whole generation of filmakers too, from Independence Day's Roland Emmerich to Boyz 'n The Hood's John Singleton. And it's astonishing to think of it having a massive comeback in 1997 - how could a film made in 1957 have affected me and my generation in 1977?

The sequels were great, the franchise the best ever. But none of them topped the first one, the story of a farm boy, with a little help from The Force, overthrowing all evil in the universe. Come March 21st, on opening night of the Special Edition, I want a seat in the middle of the front row, a massive screen and digital sound so loud it makes my ears bleed. And if I get split up from the others in my group, I really don't care. This is between me, and George Lucas. Cheers, George.

- home - news - recent additions - site index -