Originally published at: Star Wars premiered 45 years ago today. Here's the original trailer. | Boing Boing
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I saw it at the Point Loma Theatre in San Diego a week or so after it came out. The theater was one of the last “palace”-types in the area.
I loved it. My grandfather was totally unimpressed. “It’s just a b-grade western, with laser guns. A ‘oater’ like we snuck into as kids.” Sure thing, gramps.
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This trailer looks really, really impressive. It’s hard to believe this is the one that Mark Hamill remembers being heckled.
“At the end of the trailer, it said, ‘A billion light years in the making. And it’s coming to your galaxy this summer.’ Big explosion. And somebody in the balcony yelled out, ‘Yeah, and it’s coming to the late show about two weeks after that,‘” said Hamill. “Nobody enjoys a well-placed, snarky remark more than I do. So we both laughed, but after we laughed, we kind of went, ‘Uh oh.’”
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As someone who saw star wars in the womb, I must point out that 47 is a-couple-too-many years.
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That was a great theater, and then Book Star took it over, what it is now I haven’t the foggiest.
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Carrie Fisher got the first line!!
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Googles says it’s a bookstore and fitness place.
Different kind of palace, same underlying sentiment.
Also saw Flash Gordon there, and a few others.
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I was dragged to a midnight showing of the premiere in Chicago and had to sit in a front row with my head craned back.
But as that century ship loomed across the screen and the Williams score came up, I thought, “This is the movie I’ve been waiting all my life to see.” I was twenty-three at the time and had been an SF fan my entire reading life.
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It’s not 2024 now?
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Forty-five years, that can’t be right, didn’t Star Wars premier in 1977? Oh, right. Crap.
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[pop culture thing] premiered [elapsed time] ago - how is this a post by Pesco and not Devin Nealy? What is happening?!?
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Saw it here in 1977
ETA This street view image was taken in June 2015, mere weeks before this theater was demolished.
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Wow, that trailer would have been way better with the real music!
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Seeing that trailer at SpaceCon '76 blew my 13 yo mind
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I would have first seen SW on a reissue sometime in the early ‘80s. As I always did then, I fell asleep. Didn’t learn the story until I read the novelization. (Hmmmm…apparently my playground characterization of C-3PO was considerably offbrand.)
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Ha! I bought a 16mm version of that exact trailer at the Chicago Comicon that year. Much worse quality though. What I found most fascinating when watching my copy at the time was that the contrast was so low that the rotoscoping around the Tie Fighters was visible as they whipped by the Millennium Falcon.
Glad this better quality copy exists but I’ll still hold onto that bootleg version for olde Tymes sake.
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I bought the original Star Wars comics that year and they were really nothing like the film. Missing lots of backgrounds, looked like storyboards.
When I was at the Chicago Comicon in 1977 I recall standing in line to get my copy signed by Howie Chaykin (I think) and of course I had to bring up that the comic was nothing like the film. Apparently I was not the only one to make that observation to him and he was quite weary of hearing it as he apparently only had storyboards and still photos to work with.
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Saw it at the Fairlane Towncenter Mall in Dearborn. The mall had just opened the year before. It was classic futuristic mall stuff. Three levels with lots of stairs and ramps. A monorail connected the mall to a hotel and there was even an ice rink on the second floor of the mall. My wife used to figure skate there as a child. You can see the monorail on the middle level in the photo.
My god that was a long time ago. The mall is still standing but it’s a weird mix of stores, condos/apartments, and Ford took over the old Sears store for research and development. We spent a lot of time at that place. Many drunk midnight movies in high high school. We used to walk on the rail like a tightrope after the movies when we were completely hammered. It’s amazing we survived.
I was listening to the radio
I heard a song reminded me of long ago
Back then I thought that things were never gonna change
It used to be that I never had to feel the pain
I know that things will never be the same now
I want to go back
And do it all over again
But I can’t go back I know
I want to go back
'Cause I’m feeling so much older
But I can’t go back I know
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Thing is, he’s not wrong, but it’s (ahem) light years beyond those oaters.
Here is where I saw it in 1977.
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I felt the absence of John Williams in my SOUL watching this trailer. It is like an elaborate dish that it is completely missing the salt.
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