Prez wrote on May 28, 2022, 03:31:

...I'm old enough to have seen star wars ep4 in the cinema though...

I was 7 years old when I watched A New Hope in the theater. I could not think of a more perfect age to be exposed to Star Wars for the first time. It led to me becoming a lifelong fan of Star Wars. Which is why the level of suckage of everything made after Return of the Jedi hurt so bad. Star Wars has always been way more than just a movie series to me.

My earliest memory of Star Wars was from the early 80s. I think 1980, to be exact when theaters would show Star Wars for years after its initial release. Our family took my mom to the San Francisco airport so she could fly out to see her mom. My siblings and I couldn't go because it was too expensive and we didn't have passports, so my dad stayed behind to look after us. After my mom's flight took off, we were very sad, so to cheer us up, my dad treated us to Burger King. I don't remember what my siblings got, but I remember I got a BK Kid's Club lunch box. It came with a hamburger, french fries, and a coloring page with coloring markers (I think red, green, and blue half-size; or maybe it was full size, and I remember it wrong). I remember while coloring the page, I briefly looked up to see off in the distance a marquee with big capital letters in red screaming "STAR WARS!" I asked my dad if we could see it, and he said sure (an easy request since my dad was a big fan). So we all went to see Star Wars. I remember my dad handed me my ticket stub, and I walked up a ramp that exited in the middle of the auditorium. My dad directed us to seats near the top and in the middle, perfect viewing distance. I don't remember if there were trailers, but I distinctly remember "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..." and then the bombastic Star Wars theme song playing! I also vividly remember the scene where Luke's X-Wing descends into the Death Star trench from the cockpit's point of view. I also remember the award ceremony and thinking, "3PO and R2 look super shiny!" 🙂