| THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
I don't remember seeing "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope" when it came out in theaters for the first time in 1977, probably because I was only a few months old. But I know that my parents took me with them to the old Cine Capri theater at 24th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix, and had to leave early because I cried. An inauspicious beginning to a lifelong obsession.
I don't remember seeing "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" when it premiered in 1980 because I was 3 years old. I recall seeing it in a double feature with its sequel some years later ...
But I do remember seeing "Episode VI: Return of the Jedi" when I was 6, in 1983. My much-older brothers took me with their friends — how cool! — but the showing they had planned for was sold out, so they called home and got permission for me to stay up for my first midnight showing of a movie. It was at the old United Artists theater upstairs in Chris-Town Mall in Phoenix (the first-ever air-conditioned mall, I'll have you know). The one with the escalator that's now roped off by the food court that's now boarded up. But, yes, the mall is still open, if renamed Phoenix Spectrum Mall and anchored by a Wal-Mart and Costco.
Anyway, there was/is a custodian's closet with a short little Jawa-size door in the side of the escalator, and my brothers had me convinced it was the passageway to the world of little elves that cleaned up the mall at night. Just like my oldest brother had me convinced that the Jawas really lived in the woodpiles at the Encanto Park golf course.
'PHANTOM' OF THE OPERATION
In 1999, still living at home with Mom and Dad and after dropping out of college but before going back, I saw "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" at the Chris-Town Harkins, outside the mall. The screen was the only one in the Valley to rival the Cine Capri's, which had been closed for many years. One of the theater's auditoriums, you see, had been refurbished and expanded just in time for "Episode I" — my friend and I even got invited in to peek at the theater a few days before the film's premiere by a couple of nice theater workers. It was at this showing that I reconnected with some old friends from as far back as elementary school and as recently as my time at Phoenix College. I took my brother and nephew and sister-in-law ... but it was while my mother was in the hospital after a double or triple bypass. She made me promise to go see it "no matter what." She pulled through.
'CLONE' ALONE
For "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" in 2002 I joined many of the same friends at the Harkins theater at Arizona Mills mall in Tempe. We had lots of fun. Mom and Dad went with me to see it there a few days later, but Mom's health was failing then, I think, looking back. She died about a year later.
The movie was a disappointment, to be frank, but the experience and time with friends will always be remembered fondly. I wasn't disappointed by "Episode I." I had planned to be disappointed, I guess ...
CALLING IN 'SITH'
This year, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" came out. I joined the lineup at the new Cine Capri at Harkins' Scottsdale 101. This time, my wife, who had not been my wife in '02 but with whom I lived then, joined me, as well as my 10-year-old stepson. And most of the same friends from the last two films' premieres. We had fun laughing at the clueless TV reporters (calling Faye Fredericks Lin-Sue Cooney — Ha!) and admiring the work of the costuming enthusiasts among us.
The day was stressful, even though I requested the day off work — "wookiee hooky" as some are calling it. My stepson had an awards ceremony at school that night, and I picked up a friend from work and my nephew, and dropped off my 9-month-old son with my sister-in-law, and didn't want to leave him, because I get like that (more later). And we were under time constraints to get there to check in and have our groups' time in line tallied to determine our ultimate placement. And some names had been omitted in that process, but it all got sorted out eventually.
The film was amazing. It stands as my favorite, followed closely by "Empire." It was an emotional epic and a thrilling adventure. It reopened old wounds of loss of my mother and tugged at my heartstrings with the images of infant Skywalkers, so soon after the birth of my son. But it made me forget the stress of running around all day and get swept off to the galaxy far, far away. It also warned me I should try harder to fight my own demons, which threaten to consume me.
I even won free popcorn in a trivia contest for knowing that Terence Stamp, who played General Zod in "Superman II," was in "Episode I" (as Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum.)
When I dropped off a friend and then my nephew after the movie, I checked on my baby boy. Sleeping there with his aunt, I thought of young Luke, and Leia, adrift in a massive galaxy without hope. Neither his aunt nor I wanted to wake him, so he stayed with her (like Luke stayed with his aunt! only less permanent ...) and I went home. I got to bed around 4 a.m. (!) My wife and older son had arrived earlier and were asleep, and we all looked forward (?) to going to work/school later that day.
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