Star Wars XXX

That's Star Wars at 30 years, not Star Wars porn for those of you with dirty minds. Since everyone else in the known universe is posting about the deep cultural significance Star Wars had on western society, I'll keep my reminisce short and personal.

I didn't see Star Wars on opening day. Or on opening weekend. Or opening week. Or opening month. One glimpse of a TV commercial, and my parents declared the film a "Weird-O," unfit for human eyes. At that time I for some reason believed my parents knew what they were talking about, so I loudly announced to anyone within hearing distance that I wouldn't be seeing that film. But then my friends started to come back from trips to Houston cinemas bearing tales of intergalactic derring-do. The television was awash in Star Wars reports and commercials. Magazine racks and book racks and comic spinner racks were filled with wall-to-wall Star Wars. And the toys were cool, displacing the previously-hip Micronauts without breaking a sweat. I began to suspect that maybe my parents had made the wrong call on this one. So I got the Marvel comic adaptations--the huge tabloids, as well as the individual issues--and read them religiously. I was sold. I begged and pleaded my parents to take me. No dice. I felt, literally, that I was the last person in the world to see this movie. Then, one wondrous Saturday, a family friend was taking her kids to Houston to see it, and asked if I wanted to go along.

I remember sitting in the darkened theater wiggling in my seat I was so uncontrollably excited. When the famed music started and the opening crawl crept up the screen, I felt my life complete. For the next six years, Star Wars dominated my life, until the relative let-down of Return of the Jedi. But those were a magical six years, and if nothing else, Star Wars turned me into a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy. So yeah, Lucas gets a lion's share of the blame for what I have become.

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