‘Star Wars’ queues quite the fun scenes — even for sequels
For one night on May 20, 1980, the Northpoint Theater in San Francisco and surrounding neighborhoods became a campground, a barter economy and a revival meeting.
Moods were strong as “The Empire Strikes Back” was set to open the next day.
“The new ‘Star Wars’ movie is great, said a few dozen people in San Francisco yesterday, about three hours before they’d seen it,” wrote The Chronicle’s Steve Rubenstein.
The Bay Area was the chosen home of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, and opening day for his movies has always been a huge event. The opening screenings of “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”
were so big, that The Chronicle wrote stories for each just to cover the lines outside.
When the first film opened in 1977, the Coronet Theatre lines stretched so far around the block, that the queue to buy tickets and queue for ticket holders sometimes connected on the other side.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Coronet Manager Al Levin told The Chronicle. “We’re getting all kinds. Old people, young people, children, Hare Krishna groups. They bring cards to play in line. We have checker players, we have chess players; people with paint and sequins on their faces. Fruit eaters like I’ve never seen before, people loaded on grass and LSD. At least one guy’s been here every day. It’s an audience participation film. They hiss at the villain, they scream and holler at everything else. When school gets out, the kids’ll go crazy.”
(The Chronicle a few years ago published an oral history covering that scene.)
While “Star Wars” was a surprise — up until
opening, even the studio thought it would be a flop — “The Empire Strikes Back” was one of the most eagerly awaited movies in history.
Recently discovered photos of the line show that a full community formed on the sidewalk outside the Northpoint, with cliques and unique fashions styles, with some attempting to establish rules.
One fan near the front of the line for the first showing at 11:15 a.m. placed poster board on the brick wall of the Northpoint with a sort of “Star Wars” lineholder’s Bill of Rights.
“Although friends will be visiting us, we are not letting anyone join us in line, and suggest you don’t either,” one fan wrote on a large sign, taped on the brick wall outside the theater. “Each person you let in line causes someone else to wait 2½ hours. May the force be with you!”
Cosplay isn’t visible yet, but several fans are wearing “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” patches and logos on their jackets. The group is a surprisingly diverse slice of San Francisco, by age, gender and racial demographics.
Rubenstein, who still works at The Chronicle in 2018, interviewed one fan who had a bootleg script, and was passing it on to others.
“The ending has some loose ends,” John Tackett said. “But I’m glad nobody gets killed.”
(Yoda, I’m guessing he surmised, died by natural causes.)
By the time “Return of the Jedi” came out in 1983, the Coronet was the “Star Wars” theater for the city — and it remained a mecca for “Star Wars” sequels and rereleases until it was demolished in 2007.
The first day of “Return of the Jedi” was a particular madhouse, with parents letting their children skip school to wait in line, and a shoving match breaking out over ticket holders who were trying to cut. Two San Francisco Fire Department inspectors were sent to take charge of crowd control.
But as much as the drama would build in the lines — the gas station on the corner near the Coronet reported a 70 percent drop in business — there were few complaints leaving the theater.
“Despite the confusion, and the high price of tickets — $5.50 a piece — the first performance in San Francisco of ‘Jedi’ appeared to be a smashing success,” The Chronicle wrote in 1983. “… As one high school student put it before the performance, ‘Even if it’s not as good as you think it’s going to be, you make it as good as you think it’s going to be.”