
By the end of May, 1977, lines would be stretching around the block and the cover of Time magazine would be given over to a view of Luke in his beat-up speeder racing across the dunes of Tatooine, but, in mid-April, all we had was the first couple issues of the MARVEL comic adaptation (sold out at the candy store near my house, but my friend had issue #2), and insane rumors from the recent sci-fi conventions that got breathlessly discussed at the comic book store where I and other fifth-graders would congregate. "Have you heard of this movie that's coming out?" I asked my friend Reuel (who lived in Brooklyn); he had, and he told me a couple of stories he'd heard from older kids who claimed to have seen parts of it or seen pictures from it. But one rainy afternoon after school I was trudging toward the 86th Street crosstown bus stop with my bookbag and I passed a plate-glass window and saw this. I stopped dead in my tracks and stood in the rain staring at it for about ten minutes with the Lexington Avenue traffic passing behind me. I had only vaguely heard of "Dolby Sound" (from someone's audiophile dad) and wondered what it had to do with movies. And I thought, A galaxy far, far away... Yeah. I definitely liked the sound of that. An unforgettable moment.
4 comments:
I love this story, Jordan!
I second that!
I can only relate this story: the time that my dad PULLED my younger brother and I out of school in 1983 (I was 9, he was 6) to wait in a snaking line at a stand-alone cimeplex in a mall plaza in Harrisburg, PA to see Return Of The Jedi. (It must have been a Friday, or maybe a Wednesday.)
Can you imagine, in this day and age, being a father, and realizing that the cinematic experience you can give your sons is far superior to anything they might learn in school that day?
I can tell you I learned something that day, and it wasn't just the fact that Boba Fett did not "die" at all, it was the fact that learning things like 9 X 7 = 63 took a FAR backseat to learning if he really WAS luke's father. Magic times.
He pulled us OUT OF SCHOOL. I stil can't fathom that.
Hey, Stan, do you live in NYC, or what?
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