I had written about this before, but it was such a different experience back then I feel it wouldn't hurt to write about it back then.

Back then movies didn't have big releases like today. Once and a while you would see a trailer, and for a "big" movie you might se the theater running an ad on TV. Usually the newspaper would be where you would find out about releases, with a black and white ad.

For me, I was riding my bike past a local theater. There was this poster that made me stop in my tracks. It was this guy dressed in white, holding up a laser sword. At is feet was a beautiful woman clad in white, holding a laser pistol. In the background, a menacing black robot face. I must have stared at that poster for fifteen minutes, trying to figure out what this movie was.

Back then, there weren't many science fiction films for kids. Oh, I would catch whatever black and white science fiction movie from the fifties that would play in a theater (before VCRs, there would be theaters that would show old films. Marx Brothers, three Stooges, Sci Fi films, etc). The Planet of the Ape movies were great. That was about it, though.

I begged my parents to let me see this movie. We grew up poor. It was the seventies, and every dime mattered. We wouldn't have meat on the table on some days. Movies were a luxury. They finally broke down and took me and my younger brother to go see the movie.

We got to our seats right after the trailers ended. No sooner did I sit down then I see this ship...this ship, larger than anything I had ever seen on film come across the screen. I can still, years later, feel a sense of wonder when I think about it.

I walked out of that film and the world had changed. I begged to go back the next day. When I couldn't, I got a paper route so I could make money to see the film over and over again.

Movies used to be in theaters for a longer time. You would have first run, second run and third run theaters hat would keep it going for a couple of years. I couldn't even guess how many times I saw Star Wars in the theater.

At school, the way we played changed. As more and more kids saw the film, we would make out own light sabres and have battles in the playground. With black electrical tape and some wood, I made the best replica of Han Solo's blaster that I could. I would tell the other kids with their swords that ancient weapons and hokey religions were no match to a good blaster at your side.

Everyone's t-shirt back then seemed to have some kind of Star Wars iron on.

Then the toys came out. Oh my god, the toys. When the Sears catalog (how we used to find out about the best toys) hit with Star Wars toys, everyone went mad. I saved every cent for the action figures and vehicles.

There were the comics that came out while we waited. The radio program on NPR. The daily comic strip.

The wait for Empire was agonizing.

So, no. There was something more magical about those films when we didn't follow obsessively every aspect of it's production. Where we didn't have any expectations, and were blown away with what we saw. There was a kind of magic back then, that even accounting for the rosy tinted lenses of nostalgia, just can't be captured.