A Life-Changing Force As ‘Phantom Menace’ Nears, Fans Remember Lasting Impact Of The Original ‘Star Wars’

If you were looking for a movie to see in Spokane on June 29, 1977, you had a number of choices.

“Rocky” and “Exorcist II: The Heretic” were playing at the Lincoln Heights. “A Bridge Too Far” was playing at the State. “For the Love of Benji” was playing at the Garland.

“Welcome to L.A.” and “Wizards” were playing at the Magic Lantern. The city’s various drive-ins boasted the regular lineup of horror: “Tentacles” and “Squirm” at the Y, “Rabid” at the East Sprague.

Oh, and there were a couple of new movies opening at the UA Cinemas (now the discount Eastside Cinemas). One was the Jacqueline Bisset wet T-shirt thriller “The Deep.” The other was a little science-fiction offering called … I have the title written down here somewhere … oh, yeah, “Star Wars.”

Ever heard of it?

It’s clear that many of you have. As we count down to the May 19 release date of the fourth entry in the “Star Wars” series - “The Phantom Menace” - we’ve received dozens of responses to our call for “Star Wars” memories. Space limitations prevent us from printing them all, but the following give a pretty good representation of the lot. Thanks to everyone for participating.

`The edge of my seat’

Bellingham resident Brian Morgans grew up in Spokane. He was just 5 years old when his family took a vacation in Oregon, and that was when his father took him to see the film in Portland.

“I had been talking about it for weeks,” he recalls. “My mom waited out in the car with my younger brother, who fell asleep almost instantly when my dad and I left for the theater. It turned out to be an event she regrets missing. I sat on the edge of my seat, glued to the screen, only occasionally turning to my Dad to tell him how great this all was. Once we returned home to Spokane, my friends and I lived `Star Wars.’ ”

One way Brian lived it was through example. “During this time, I never developed any `real’ role models. They were all `Star Wars’ characters. I grew up knowing that the way of the Jedi was one filled with patience, virtue, courage, valor and standing up for what you believe in. `Star Wars’ also opened my imagination to great depths, enabling me to envision things within my mind. This proved to be useful in my engineering career.”

`I was dumbfounded’

Lisa Johnson of Spokane was just an infant when the third installment of the original trilogy opened in 1983. Her only knowledge of the series came through watching “bits and pieces” of the films with her father.

“I remember watching Princess Leia and asking Dad, `Is she really a princess?’ I was dumbfounded at the notion of being a princess without wearing a big, poofy dress and crown.”

It was a classmate named Christina Elliott who gave her a proper introduction to the series.

“When our math teacher would rattle on about some useless subject, Christina would pull out a book with the title of `Star Wars.’ Also an avid reader, I inquired about the series. I’ll never forget the shocked look on her face. `You mean you’ve never seen “Star Wars”?’ she gasped. `Well, we’re going to have to fix that.’ Her remark led to a slumber party watching all three movies in one night.”

The effect was electrifying. “I had never seen anything more awesome. The music, the characters, the battle of good vs. evil, the lightsabers! All sent chills down my spine. I immediately became a `Star Wars’ junkie.”

Lisa, Christina, and a third friend, Lisa Carpine, all are looking forward to “The Phantom Menace.” “But no matter how the movie turns out, I’ll always remember `Star Wars’ as the opportunity to be fun and silly with my best friends. And I still think Luke is better than Han.”

`A raging inferno of wonder’

Michael T. Nelson of Spokane was 15 on July 7, 1977, the day he first saw “Star Wars.” He’d heard the movie was good. But as he explains, “That knowledge did not prepare me for the experience to come.”

As he says, this was 1977. “`The Towering Inferno’ was probably the most grandiose special effects movie I had seen. … My only other fantasy source, outside the `Star Trek’ reruns, were old `Frankenstein’ and `Dracula’ movies.”

But on that day, he recalls, “The lights dimmed, the projector started; John Williams’ magnificent music score exploded into the dark while huge golden letters crept up the screen: `A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …’ Thus, with dropped jaw and mooning eyes, I was whirled into the universe of blazing space battles, swashbuckling heroes, a villain whose rasping mechanical voice froze me to my seat, and the courageous derring-do of the mysterious Jedi.

“`Star Wars’ had ignited a raging inferno of wonder within my imagination - a profound delight fueled by a glowing sense of amazement.”

`A lasting family memory’

Northeastern Wisconsin is pretty far from Spokane, and that’s where Sharon Brewezynski was living with her three children in May of 1977.

“It had been just a month since their father had died when I heard about a new movie, `Star Wars.’ Now, going to a movie entailed a trip to Green Bay, a round trip of 100 miles or so, but I thought this would be just the thing to get their minds off recent sad events.

“Little did I know that my good idea would be met by a chorus of Debbie (12), David (11) and Jamie (7) saying, `No, no, no, we don’t want to go to any old movie.’ So, being the Mom, I took them anyway.

“They actually complained right up to those great opening credits.” Their whines, though, “turned to silence, awe, excitement and, needless to say, a lasting family memory of a time of grief suspended for one magical afternoon in a darkened movie theater. And isn’t that, after all, the promise of a good movie?”

`He lived and breathed `Star Wars”

In the Zweifel family, only 5-year-old Matthew was a true “Star Wars” fan.

“He lived and breathed `Star Wars’ from the first day he heard about it,” says Matthew’s parents, Judy and Jerry. “He collected `Star Wars’ figures, read and had us read everything about `Star Wars’ he could find.”

By the time the family got around to seeing the film, it had already played in Spokane for more than a year. They drove out to the Deer Park Drive-In.

“Throughout the movie, Matthew would brief his two older sisters and his parents on what was happening. By the time the movie came to an end, everyone except Matt had fallen asleep.”

Matthew died in a car accident when he was just 16.

“Later we all learned to enjoy `Star Wars’ because of Matt’s enthusiasm. Even though other things became important in his life, the `Star Wars’ phenomena was always fun for him, and he often talked about the next series that was to be made some day. Seeing `Star Wars’ for the first time is a memory our family will always cherish.”

`Watch and see’

Michael Banks now lives in Half Moon Bay, Calif. But he was 8 years old and living in Spokane when he attended “Star Wars” with his parents.

“We had arrived early and found that the show was sold out. So we bought our tickets for the next showing and waited in a line of about 20 people as the sun started going down. It was dark by the time they started letting people in, and the line was stretched out of sight around the corner of the building.”

Once inside, Michael was conscious only that he was going to see a movie with his mom and dad. “I don’t recall at all what the movie would be about. But when the lights went down and the previews were over, those magic, yellow-outlined words, `Star Wars,’ flashed onto the screen and were burned eternally into my memory. … I was hypnotized. I recall being completely amazed by those robots! Were they real, and if so, how did they build them? I also remember not understanding some parts and having to turn to my mother and ask what this or that meant. She always replied with a whispered, `Watch and see.”’

On the way home, they stopped at a grocery store and Michael, after pleading, was allowed to pick one, “and only one,” of the “Star Wars” action figures that were for sale. He picked a miniature R2D2.

“I still have that little blue robot, tucked safely away in the basement of my parents’ house. He’s a bit beat up, but would I want a new one? Not on your life. That little droid and I have been through a lot together.”

`We had to wait hours’

Sherri L. Hyams was 33 when she and her husband took their three children to see “Star Wars” at a Southern California drive-in theater.

While duly amazed at the special effects, says Hyams, the movie experience had another profound effect on the family.

“They had a new thing where you plugged the speaker into your car and you could listen to the movie through your car radio. It was great, until the movie was over and almost all of the cars had dead batteries. We had to wait hours until it was our turn to have our battery charged (a jump start).”

That meant hours “in a cold car in the middle of the night with three kids. And we had to pay them $6 to charge it.”

The Hyams family never again went to a drive-in.

`As the tension mounted’

Sandra Joe was in her early 30s during the summer of 1977. She remembers that she, her husband and two children (ages 2 and 5) saw “Star Wars” six times, “I kid you not.”

“What I remember most is that I only saw the film all the way through once, the last time. As the tension mounted, and Luke Skywalker was about to make his one in a million shot, my daughter would get increasingly upset. Nothing to do but for me to get up and leave. Why didn’t I ever hand her to my husband?”

`The place was packed’

John Dalmas is a veteran science-fiction novelist. But in 1977, he had just moved to Los Angeles in a vain attempt to forge a screenwriting career. One of the highlights of that experience was attending the premiere performance of “Star Wars” at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

“The place was packed. When the words formed on the screen - `A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’ - I had chill bumps all over. At that moment I knew this was going to be special. Then a deep, muffled rumbling began, more felt than heard, and the nose of the Imperial flagship appeared as if from behind us, seemingly endless as it crossed the screen.”

The movie was, he says, “a whole new level of cinema experience. When it was over, and the credits began to scroll up the screen, the whole audience, many of them associated with the film industry, stood and applauded till the name of the last `gofer’ had disappeared. It was and remains my greatest movie experience.”

`The right father’

George Stocks was 14 in 1977. He lived in Redlands, Calif., where he had just moved from Wisconsin. One day, on a “boys day out,” his father took him to Hollywood to “see the stars imbedded in the sidewalk.”

His father bought him a wristwatch, the early kind with red digital numbers that cost $100. And when they heard about a premiere showing of something called “Star Wars,” they decided to stick around. They stood in line four hours for tickets, and then they waited another four hours to get into Mann’s Chinese Theater.

“Finally, everybody was settled in and the movie started. Quickly, I looked at my new digital watch and thought it was a fascinating new technology.” When the movie started, “The audience was awestruck.”

Later, when the house lights went up, George discovered that stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, director George Lucas and others had been sitting in front of him. “It was one of the first public performances of `Star Wars,”’ he recalls. “I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time with the right father who was willing to let me stand for eight hours to see the finest movie ever made.”

`He was entranced’

Sheila Jacobson’s son was just 7 when she took him to see “Star Wars.” “He was entranced, and he sat unmoving on my lap through the whole thing. We couldn’t wait for the second one to come out. He was hooked at 7, and he still is.”

`You can’t sit on my lap’

Eric Bigham, who is now 22, went to see “Star Wars” with his father. “When it was re-released, we went for the second time. Walking through the theater, he looked at me - I’d grown up to be 6-feet-4 with a frame that holds 285 pounds - and said, `You can’t sit on my lap like last time.”’

`It just wasn’t pretty’

April Weisel of Hayden Lake, Idaho, saw “Star Wars” when she was a 12-year-old living in Corvallis, Ore. “I remember driving up and seeing this huge line of people waiting to go in. I had never seen a line that long before at the multiplex and I thought, `This must be a good movie.”’

But while April was “wowed” by the film, she also was confused by it. “Like in the beginning when the storm troopers were attacking. I had never before seen the `bad’ guys wearing white. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be cheering (for).”

And then there was Carrie Fisher’s look: “I also remember really trying to like Princess Leia’s coiled hairdo, but I just couldn’t. It just wasn’t pretty.”

`He wobbled quickly away’

What Jeanne Emerson remembers most about “Star Wars” is the effect the film had on her son Brian, who was 8 in 1977.

“We had walked from our home in Coeur d’Alene’s Fort Sherman neighborhood, through the city park and to the old Wilma Theatre on a warm summer evening. When the movie was over, with wonderful excitement still making our hearts rush, we began our walk back home through the park. This was when our son began his metamorphosis into R2D2.

“For the rest of the walk, and for the remainder of the summer, Brian WAS this cute little robot. He wobbled, he beeped, he took short, quick steps while rocking from side to side. I even remember that on one occasion he completed his imitation of this appealing little character by inverting an aluminum garbage can over his body to add to the effect.

Brian turned 30 earlier this month. “And just the other day I asked him if he remembered his robot summer. With a perfect beep-beep, beepbeep-beep, he nodded and wobbled away.”

`About other galaxies’

Greg Fahlgren and his wife didn’t get around to seeing “Star Wars” until August, when they happened to be visiting Greg’s parents in Post Falls. But they ended up enjoying it so much that they tried taking some high school friends the next Saturday night in Spokane.

Despite arriving at the theater a half hour early, the show was sold out. As was the following one. Since they didn’t want to wait until midnight, they decided to drive out by the observatory to watch a meteor shower that just happened to be taking place.

“It was a beautiful summer night, warm, clear and filled with lots of meteors. While we were watching, a sheriff’s car pulled up and the deputy asked us what we were doing. Someone at the observatory had called about us. We explained that we were watching the meteors, and thankfully a couple appeared in time to verify our story.”

The couple reports that the foursome finally did make it to a second showing of the movie, but what they remember most is how the movie caused them to think about the real universe.

“We all remember looking at the stars that summer night and wondering about other galaxies far, far away.”

Staff illustration by Bridget Sawicki

TRIVIA CHALLENGE Pay attention, all you “Star-Wars” scholars. In honor of the forthcoming May 19 release of “The Phantom Menace,” The Spokesman-Review will run a “Star Wars” trivia context. The 20-question quiz will be printed on Tuesday, May 4. The top three winners will receive, respectively, $50, $25 and $15 Regal Cinemas gift certificates (in case of ties, the three prizes will be chosen by lot.) Winners will be announced May 16.