Why Star Wars is an influence in my life
I woke up this morning, one of the first things I saw on
Facebook, that today was the official 40th anniversary of Star
Wars. The first post I saw was the
original movie theater trailer for the movie.
The trailer was just a bunch of random scenes from the movie. I think that the movie’s popularity came from
word of mouth vs. the original trailer.
Many young friends refer to this movie as Star Wars: New
Hope, or New Hope. I still will refer to
this as Star Wars, because it was that when it originally came out, and not until
later on did it become episode 4. I
probably saw the movie the first time just before my summer vacation
started. This was the end of my 4th
grade year. I do not remember going to
the movies very often when I was younger, but I do remember that I saw this
movie at least a half dozen times. This included visits to the drive-in theater. Sadly, every place I might have seen the
movie, is no longer movie/drive-in any more.
This movie was the beginning, I believe, of the influential
science fiction (sci-fic) movies. Two
years later, both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica released as movies. By the 80’s, sci-fic was a much bigger
influence on my generation.
So why would a single movie’s anniversary mean something to
me? It is a movie that came around at an
influential time in my life, and never wants away. I recently read a remastered version of the
original Marvel comic series from 1977 of the Star Wars movie. I remember getting the larger version of the
comic book series, after the movie came out.
I remember also visiting a friend of the family and finding out Marvel
had continued the series. I just started
reading the current version from Marvel Comics of Star Wars and Star Wars:
Darth Vader (2015-Present). The stories
take place between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
I continue to wait mostly patiently for the new movie, as
well as other sources, including cartoons, comics, text and games.
