Fans reflect on theatre viewing 40 years ago
Fans reflect on the magic of watching Star Wars in theatres that first spring
It was early 1977, and anticipation for a curious coming attraction called Star Wars was building slowly but steadily.
Film studio 20th Century Fox wasn’t quite sure what it had on its hands — this effects-heavy space serial by young George Lucas was so unlike anything Hollywood had seen before. After private screenings in January and February that year, some studio execs and fellow directors saw flaws, and openly questioned whether the film — then still in a rough state — could succeed.
“I loved it because I loved the story and characters. I was probably the only one (in the room), who liked it, and I told George how much I loved it,” recounted Steven Spielberg of a screening for a handful of Lucas friends, as quoted in George Lucas: A Life, (Little, Brown and Company, 2016), last year’s biography by Brian Jay Jones.
May 25 marked the 40th anniversary since Star Wars landed in the pop-culture galaxy, forever altering film history in countless ways — especially given how the movie served as a launch pad for so many Lucas-related cinematic and technological innovations.
Yet prior to May of 1977, even the studio was hedging its bets.
First there was the matter of the release date. Initially slated for weeks later, Star Wars was moved up to May 25 to avoid being gobbled up by the glut of midsummer movies.
Then there was the strategy over location, location, location.
Last year, for comparison’s sake, the eighth Star Wars feature film in the franchise, Rogue One, opened on more than 4,000 screens. On May 25, 1977, though, Star Wars opened on fewer than 40 screens, all carefully selected by Fox.
Filmmaker David Silverman was a 20-year-old animation student at the time.
He vividly remembers the impression the original Star Wars film made on him.
“The first thing that struck me was the music — that opening theme by John Williams. It was so grand. I was into symphonic film scores anyway,” says Silverman, a veteran writer-producer on The Simpsons. “Then there was the Star Destroyer overhead — the length of that shot,” he says. “I’d never seen effects like that before, except maybe in 2001, but that was so austere.
“... Star Wars was a lark. I thought it was like The Wizard of Oz — Luke and Leia were Dorothy, C-3PO was the Tin Man, Harrison Ford was the Scarecrow and Chewbacca was the Lion,” he says. “It took Spielberg and Lucas to help bring the fun to a decade of serious movies like The Conversation.”
Another child of the East Coast who relished Star Wars in 1977 was Tom Angleberger, the bestselling author of the Origami Yoda series.
“I was six and saw it in Blacksburg, Virginia,” Angleberger recalls.
“Star Wars really defined my childhood — and my adulthood, for that matter — but it was a little while before the toys really got cranking and I got my beloved cassette tape of Roscoe Lee Brown narrating the story.”