As a sci-fi fan,
it would be remiss of me in the final few hours of 2017 not to somehow honor
the 40th anniversary of the premier of Star
Wars. There is little I can add to the recognition, but I do have one story
that perhaps illustrates the power of the phenomenon to those too young to
remember a world before George Lucas’ blockbuster movie.
When the film
debuted in May 1977, I was not immediately taken with the hype. Star Trek was my main sci-fi interest
and I regarded Star Wars as an
over-produced, genre-destroying, corporate monster. I waited over a year before
finally giving in to peer-pressure and got my dad to take me during one of our
weekly divorced-dad weekends in June 1978.
Now, I hasten to
add that Star Wars had been playing
at our local multiplex, Cine 1-2-3-4-5-6 (yes, that was its name) at Northway
Mall in Albany, NY, since May 1977, so it was playing for a full year before I
saw it — and the theater was still packed. Let that sink in for a moment. Star Wars played at theaters
continuously for over a year. It’s impossible to imagine any film doing the
same thing today.
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| The old Cine 1-2-3-4-5-6, here upgraded to Cine 10. Demolished in May 2007 (cinematreasures.org). |
I was looking
for any reason not to like the movie. When an imperial officer used the word
“sensors” early in the film, I leaned over to my dad and said that was used in Star Trek. My dad shushed me and told me to give it a
chance. By the time Luke Skywalker fired up his lightsaber for the first time,
I was hooked. As though bound by quantum entanglement, I remain so today.
The backstory of
an awkward young man with limited prospects who hates his life rang true with a
lot of kids, and still does. Luke Skywalker’s coming-of-age is what gives the
film its heart and helps it rise above what Alec Guinness described as the
“banality” of the dialog in the script. My father, despite being an ex-marine
himself, got a bit motion sick during the Death Star run. Nevertheless, having
grown up with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials, he recognized the
similarities which Lucas used in creating the film’s overall structure. By
building on the work of the previous generation, George Lucas created a film
that attracted young and old alike.Hey,
I’m a Believer!
I walked into
the theater a skeptic and walked out into the hot June night a hard-core,
rock-solid, Stars Wars fan. I quickly
joined the fan club, got the Kenner figures, got the models, got the
soundtrack, and got the books. The only books at the time, however, were the
novelization of the film (1976) and Splinter
of the Mind’s Eye (1978), both by Alan Dean Foster, who also wrote Star Trek Log
One, which I cover in another article (see link).
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| Book covers to Star Wars and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (original copies, author’s collection). |
I still have
those books. The gold cover of the movie novelization is wrinkled from when my
brother and I fought over reading it in 1978 (see left). Some pictures later
fell out, which I saved and put back. The binding fell apart in the 1990s and
it is now held together by electrician’s tape. The dog-eared pages are yellowed
and stained. I took them with me wherever I moved throughout middle school,
high school, and college. I probably haven’t read them in 20 to 25 years, but I
could no more get rid of them than I could sever a limb or a memory.
With the books
came the music. I played the 8-track of John Williams’ soundtrack almost daily.
I also got the single with the disco version by Meco. That single was huge and
turned up on TV, radio, and in ads. It even helped inspire me during my runs
that summer of 1978 (as referenced in my short story “I Now Know Why Salmon Swim Upstream”).While I
still have Meco’s singles for The Empire
Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,
which I bought at the time of the films’ releases, I long ago lost the 45 for
the first film — which brings me to the most interesting part of my tale.
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| Meco's 45s for the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (author's collection). |
Gold
. . . Everywhere, the Glint of Gold . . .
One day during
that summer of 1980, while cleaning the apartment of a young couple by the last
name of Fenton, I was vacuuming the hallway leading into the bedroom when I
caught a flash of gold out of my eye. I looked up and saw a gold record. An
actual, honest-to-goodness, gold record awarded for at least one million sales.
The light reflected off it like a disco ball. I looked closer and saw it was
for Meco’s Star Wars theme single.
I think I almost
passed out right there.
I called to my
mother and asked her about it. My mother, who never saw the movie, responded
nonchalantly that the husband, Mike Fenton, who worked as a casting agent in
New York City, was a friend of Meco who gave it him. For a moment, amid all the
family dysfunction and the grind of a lost summer, I was connected to a
phenomenon — if in only in the most tangential of ways. I glimpsed behind the curtain and beheld the
face of Oz.
On a cosmic
scale, considering the present age of the universe of some 13.8 billion years, 40
years is so small a percentage that barely a measurable amount of time has passed
between 1978 and 2018. So, in some way, it is still June 1978, and I am still at
that theater in Albany, NY. Indeed, every time I watch Star Wars I am transported, albeit briefly, back to that one moment
in time and space. My father is still alive, I am still young, I am still sitting
on the edge of my seat, and I am still waiting for the movie to begin.
It seems like it was only yesterday.
My
dad, Joe Urso, and I, circa August 1978, Lake George, NY.
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