Star Wars The Original Trilogy – A Look Back
It’s the height of summer as I write this. One of those glorious, sunny days where things are slow, life is good and the world seems full of endless possibilities. It makes me think back to those long summer days and hot summer nights of my childhood when (I’m dating myself here) the Original Trilogy of Star Wars first hit theatres. For anyone old enough to remember those days, we can’t help but look back and smile. And for the huge majority of Star Wars fans who came along later, here’s a taste of a long time ago and what it felt like when the human race was first introduced to that galaxy far, far away…
Star Wars
Drive-in movies were still a thing when I was a kid and it was here that I first discovered wonder. I’m pretty sure it was called the Alta Vista Drive-In, but it’s long gone nowadays and I couldn’t even find an internet reference to it. So we’ll go with that name, but what I remember for sure was the tall, blue walls that surrounded the parking lot (so that no passers-by could see a free movie) and the massive blue screen upon which those movies were projected. No, not a “blue screen” in the special effects sense – just a giant screen that was painted blue on the sides and back.
I was four years old, so just going to a drive-in movie was an adventure for me. I’d heard of this new thing called “Star Wars” from some of my friends, and I understood that it was kind of cool, but other than robots and spaceships I didn’t really know much about it. So I went along happily enough to see this movie.
And then the opening title flashed onto the screen with the accompanying fanfare. The opening crawl was read aloud by my mum to us (my brother was seven) and then… that star destroyer passing overhead. I had never seen anything like it. I vaguely remember gasps of shock in the car around me (one might have been mine) but from that moment on I was completely lost in that galaxy far, far away. I don’t remember much more of the actual experience, but my mum says that my brother and I didn’t blink for the next two hours.
And so, my love of Star Wars was born. It’s actually one of the oldest memories I have.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
I include the modern title of that first movie just for clarity’s sake, but remember back in 1977 it was just called Star Wars. It existed in splendid isolation and took the world by storm. My family went back in the summer of 1978 to watch Star Wars again, this time at the Aladdin Drive-In, and because I was only five I figured that this was just how the world worked. Every summer, Star Wars came to the theatres and we went to see it.
But really, think about that. Think about any ultra-blockbuster movie you’re seen in your life. Has it ever, ever come back to theatres for a full run the following year? Schindler’s List didn’t do that. Titanic didn’t do that. Avengers: Endgame didn’t do that. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter didn’t even do that. That’s one of the cool things about being old enough to remember the Original Trilogy when they first launched – they were like nothing the movie world has ever seen, before or since.
The Empire Strikes Back
I spent the golden years of childhood reveling in Star Wars on the playground and with my friends. We had action figures, we had trading cards, we had the Star Wars Holiday Special… Okay, that last one didn’t make much of an impact. But the rest of it was formative to my youth.
So imagine my excitement when I heard that there was going to be another Star Wars movie! By now I was seven and still not tracking the ways of the world too much, so I wasn’t really aware when The Empire Strikes Back hit theatres. I was aware of the excitement, but this was long before the internet so if none of my friends had seen the movie yet, I really didn’t know much about it.
My family went camping that summer, and one evening they loaded us all into the car and said we were going to, you guessed it, a drive-in movie. With bubbling excitement I rode to the theatre, but was puzzled when I saw the billboard proclaiming the show of the night as “Star Wars 2: The Bounty Hunt“. My dad reckoned this this little country drive-in didn’t have enough letters in the box to spell out The Empire Strikes Back and were improvising. Whatever – I was just stoked to see more of my favorite galaxy from a long time ago.
As we all know now, The Empire Strikes Back is tonally very different from its predecessor. It’s darker, scarier, grittier, more adult. And today in the 2020s it’s often lauded as the very best Star Wars movie, but back in 1980, audiences were a little more in shock. There was plenty of swashbuckling pew-pew, the droids were still charmingly funny and the special effects were out of this world… But that tree on Dagobah was creepy as hell, that carbon freezing was enough to scare you behind the car seat, and Darth Vader was… Luke’s father?
We were stunned. Just stunned. What had we just seen? We loved it, but were terrified and sad. And at the end… that’s it? What about Han? What an emotional roller coaster ride. My dad says that I fell asleep in the car on the way back to the campsite, but he remembers having a long discussion with my ten-year-old brother about the nature of good and evil.
So we’d gone into that movie as boys and come out as men. Scared, confused little men. But there was no going back.
Return of the Jedi
It’s hard to imagine now, 45 years after Empire, what it was like for us to go three years without knowing a) what happened to Han Solo and b) whether Darth Vader was actually Luke’s father. We had no idea what was going to happen and our imaginations were pushing into overdrive.
And then, it was announced: the third and final Star Wars movie was coming. Revenge of the Jedi. No, wait, Return of the Jedi. We saw the trailers. We read the hype. We knew NOTHING going in because back then there were no spoilers – trailers gave nothing away and the pop culture media actually knew what a gag order meant. My family and I decided to mix it up for this movie, actually going to a sit-down theatre. We went one night shortly after Jedi opened but the line-ups were too long and we had to go home with nothing. This was back in the days before multiplexes showed the same film on seven different screens. In 1983, only one theatre in town got the rights to the film (in this case, in my home town, it was the Somerset Theatre) and it only had one screen. So you walked physically to the theatre, you lined up and you hoped.
Undeterred by the first failed attempt, my family made the trek a few days later and this time got in. I still remember it like it was yesterday. The theatre was packed 45 minutes before show time and there was a palpable excitement in the air. Somebody was playing the Imperial March on a ghetto blaster down front. And then lights when down, a cheer went up, and we all settled in for the adventure.
We all know now the story of Return of the Jedi, and in the 2020s it isn’t usually ranked as one of the best movies in the saga. But let me tell you, on first viewing 1983, when we finally got answers to our questions, it was the ride of a lifetime. When Darth Vader first appeared from his shuttle the crowd both booed and cheered, and that was just the start. Not five minutes went by for the rest of the film without a gale of laughter or a roaring cheer from the audience. It was everything we hoped for and more, and when the credits finally rolled the audience of perhaps a thousand people leaped to their feet as one in a raucous, full-throated standing ovation.
I understand that we all come to Star Wars with our perspectives, and that’s cool. But Jedi gets a lot of flack these days and I will stand by my assertion that, in its moment in movie history, it was exactly what we wanted. It was the perfect conclusion to the Original Trilogy, in theme, tone, plot and character. We loved the muppet monsters in Jabba’s palace. We loved the bizarre twist that Leia was Luke’s sister. And yes, we loved the Ewoks, too.
The OT is the OG
Movies change and audiences evolve, and there’s lots to appreciate in the later generations of Star Wars. But there’s reason the Original Trilogy continues to be held in such high regard. It was the purest adventure, the perfect hero’s journey. It may be have been a product of its time, but it remains timeless.
Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning, best-selling author and ghostwriter of science fiction and space fantasy series. His newest novel, Light in the Abyss, is now available here.
