Have you seen the Star Wars opening scene?
Of course you have. I think everyone has. But did you stand in line with
everyone else in 1977 to catch the phenomena sweeping the world? I did, though
I have no idea with who, my sister most likely, or my neighbor, David Miller,
if not her. I wasn’t yet meeting up with and hanging out with school friends,
or keeping up with them throughout the summer. We were now scattered across
town, some of my new friends living as far away as Schumacher and South
Porcupine; not like those from Pinecrest, most of whom lived within two or
three blocks of one another. So that summer was a somewhat lonely affair. No
longer part of the public school system, my old friends and I were no longer
hanging out; they'd moved on, and so had I. I don’t blame them; they had new
friends met at R. Ross Beattie Secondary. It wasn’t that bleak: there was
swimming lessons and public swims at the pool where I’d begun to take note of
new friends from St. Theresa if I hadn’t already.
So you can imagine how important this
movie was to me, how I might have been swept up by it, as thoroughly seduced by
it as Eric Foreman was in “That 70’s Show.” Its simplistic vision was thrilling
and drew me in, with its heroes, its villains, its clash of good and evil. The
loudness of its Wagnerian theme, the epic scope. I saw it more than once.
Everyone under 20 did, most likely. But do I remember actually doing it? No. I
remember sitting through multiple viewings of “The Empire Strikes Back” at the
Palace years later, probably because I went on my very first “date” ever with
Lori Ann Miller to see it a second time, sunk down in its red velvet seats,
heads close, whispering, me wanting to show off by explaining every nuance of
every scene. But I don’t actually remember standing in line and seeing “A New
Hope.” You’d think I would, but I don’t.
I do remember being able to quote every
phrase from it in the St. Theresa school grounds when school resumed, the boys
I knew in a circle, all of us discussing it, all of us equally swept up by the
film over the summer.
What I especially remember is their
hanging on my every word while I quoted the film. But of course, that’s not entirely
true. We hung on each others’ words, reliving the film in its retelling.
To this day, every time I hear the 20th
Century Fox intro theme, I think of Star Wars.
