"Star Wars" at 40

Article: Memories of Seeing Star Wars in 1977 - StarWars.com

Coverage: Star Wars at 40 - StarWars.com



I was there in 1977 at the premier of the original "Star Wars." It first started showing at 25 theaters in the U.S. And, we in St. Louis, Missouri got to be one of the first!

It is still easily my favorite "Star Wars" film. And, yeah, I still call it "Star Wars." Not "Episode IV," not "A New Hope" (which a lame title anyway for such a great movie!). Just "Star Wars."

It was at the (now gone, unfortunately) Creve Coeur Ciné. It seated close to 1000 people, it had 70mm projection and 6-Track Dolby Stereo. When we got there on that Friday night, the 7 p.m. show was sold out. So, we got tickets to the 9:30 show. We had time to kill. And, because this was at a time when we were not eating well, we went across the street to the Schnucks, which had their Station Restaurant. We had ice cream. Then, we came back to the theater, got popcorn, and sat on the floor waiting for the show to start with many others.

We got to go in, get our seats, and took in the next great two hours! After it was over, we were pretty knocked out by it! But, telling you what a different time it was, our question to each other wasn't "what was your favorite special effect?" but "who was your favorite character?" Mine was, of course, R2-D2. Duh! ;-)

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