Star Wars 1977: A Conduit (Between Generations)

For May 4th, this is a story about how Star Wars bridged the generation gap between my dad and my brother and I.
This non-fiction story won First place in 2022 Easy Reader Writing Contest and is based on a set of photos I found from the actual day in 1977.
-Steve Fulton
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[@socrates0603]

What an awesome personal story! I am glad to know that the movie served to bring your father closer to you and your brother. I also didn’t have much in common with my own father in terms of interests or hobbies. I was a newly arrived immigrant from Korea back in April ‘77, two months before I turned eight years old. I don’t recall how it happened, but a month after arriving in the US, I somehow went to the theater with the neighborhood kids and saw Star Wars. Not knowing much English, I dozed off during the talky scenes and woke up to full attention when the action picked up. What an exciting movie! I knew it was something special because when the credits rolled, everyone in the theater cheered and clapped and gave a standing ovation. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since that moment, and it is in my mind forever linked to my first life experiences in the US of A. I am very happy and proud to have been a part of the generation that saw the opening of this culture rocking movie.

[@lorensims4846]

Awesome story, Dude! We were in our first year of college when my friends and I went to see the biggest movie of the year, "Network." It was all about the new infotainment style, the move to get good ratings for the evening news. "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" But when we came out of the theater, all we could talk about was that preview they showed before the movie started for something they called "Star Wars." We were huge science fiction movie fans, ever since my dad took me to see "2001: A Space Odyssey." I was all about special effects and how they did that. And here was something the like of which we had never seen before! Robots and spaceships, all shooting at each other with ray guns, and people dressed like they were in a completely different kind of movie, though they were clearly integral to what seemed to be a rather grand and adventurous story. It looked amazing! And at the end of the preview they said "Coming next summer…" It was November!! Who the hell runs a preview for something that's not coming out for another eight months??!! Sure, special effects are a LOT of work and they need the time to complete them, but jeez, who does this?? I gobbled up everything I could about this new movie over the next several months, which was really precious little. I had recently started reading comic books, as a diversion from classwork and I found that first issue of Marvel's Star Wars comic. I was skeptical, because I had seen how the Lost in Space and Star Trek conic books bore such little resemblance to the source material. But I just hoped I could find out something about the story. I kept getting the comic books and I had completed the third issue, that ended with Han Solo, Luke and Princess Leia trapped at the end of at prison corridor after ostensibly rescuing her. Columbus had a new law, after several theater owners had complained that they had been badly burned by having to "blind bid" on several recent so-called blockbusters that had turned out to be flops. The new law said the theater owners had to get to actually see the movies they were bidding on before they booked them to show. This meant we got all the new movies about two weeks after everyone else did. My friends and I were scouting the out of town papers to see who would have Star Wars first. We finally cut our classes and took a road trip to the Dayton Mall, who had one of the biggest screens I've ever seen and we ended up having to sit rather close to the screen in the crowded theater. WoW!! Everything we expected and OH! so much more! I saw the movie twenty-two times that first summer, because that's what we were all doing, but mostly so I could watch how they did the special effects. There was a lot of the standard stuff, but Lucas was doing something completely new with his motion-tracking system. My very favorite shot in all of Star Wars Is still that one of the Millennium Falcon high-tailing it out of the Death Star. But for my friends and I, May the 4th means only one thing: "Four Dead in Ohio." That one shook us to the core.

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

78, 79 is, David Prowse doing an appearance at a near by children's event. When I realise that the guy that plays Darth Vader is also the Green Cross Code man (a road safety mascot of UK adverts/public information films), from there on I always looked both ways before I crossed the road (well, he could force choke me if I didn't!).

[@AtariLegend]

What a beautiful story, so many details, so personal. So much nostalgia. Bloody excellent writing, I could listen to your stories all day long. As Yoda would say...very talented, you are! ;)

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Thanks AL!

[@8bitrocketstudios]

Excellent job, you Star Wars heathen!