A long time ago ... a kid got swept into the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy, never to emerge again

For one generation that grew up in Modesto, the question long has been, “Where were you in ’62?” But for another, slightly younger group of people, the more relevant query is, “Were you in movie heaven in ’77?”

That’s when Modesto native George Lucas, at the time best known for his hometown-set, coming-of-age comedy, “American Graffiti,” released “Star Wars.” And that’s all it was called then: “Star Wars.” The opening crawl didn’t feature the subtitle “Episode IV: A New Hope.” That was added with the film’s April 1981 theatrical rerelease.

No, to we teenagers who saw it at the Briggsmore Theater on McHenry Avenue that spring ... and summer, fall and winter, it was just a really cool sci-fi movie made by a guy from Modesto. And the only “name” actors in it, Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing, weren’t even much known to the young audience.

But what grabbed us – and never let go – was the opening scene of that huge star destroyer pursuing a rebel blockade runner above the planet Tatooine. We’d never seen anything like it. No one had.

The special effects blew us away, of course. Heck, they reshaped the movie industry. But we loved the story, too. We felt the heat of anger when Darth Vader menaced Princess Leia (we were immediately smitten with her, even two movies before the famous metallic bikini) with the interrogation droid, we shared Luke’s thrill when she gave him a kiss on the cheek “for luck,” and the sting he felt when Han Solo showed an interest in her. (We had no inkling Luke and Leia would turn out to be the twin children of Darth Vader.)

When it was over, we wanted to watch it again, immediately. Perhaps we did, as those were the days you could sit in the theater and simply wait for the movie to start again, if it wasn’t sold out. Certainly we made several repeat visits back to the one theater showing the movie, bringing along friends and family members who we simply could not believe hadn’t seen it yet.

Our rock ’n’ roll record collections – in my circle, that meant Kiss, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Elton John and the like – grew to include what for many of us was our first orchestral album: John Williams’ stirring “Star Wars” score.

Needing more “Star Wars,” I bought the $1.95 paperback novel by Lucas, subtitled “From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” and including several pages of color photos from the movie. I still have it. Still have a Rolling Stone magazine from August ’77 with Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie on the cover, too, because I never throw anything away.

My close friend and Beyer classmate Neil Meininger and I biked to a local movie memorabilia shop – I believe the long-gone place was called Hollywood Collectibles – where for just $5 we bought the “Star Wars” movie poster. I immediately posted the 27-by-41-inch folded “one sheet” on my bedroom wall. It has thumbtack holes and tape marks on the corners, so I’m not sure which I used first.

I finally framed it years ago, and over time, it’s had a special spot in all the places I lived, from off-campus dorm rooms to apartments to the homes my wife and children and I have shared.

I fell hard into the Lucas moneymaking machine; the soundtrack, poster, a few comic books and T-shirts were just the start. Until “Star Wars” and its sequels and prequels, I was ignorant of the existence of anything called an “action figure.” But thanks to Kenner and later Hasbro, I slowly built armies of light- and dark-side characters and vehicles.

Until a recent move, I didn’t even give my two sons much say in how their bedroom was decorated: poster on the walls, spaceships hanging by fishing line from the ceiling, small and 12-inch action figures on shelves on the walls. They’re good boys, though, and I’d like to think they felt Dad’s collection was a neat thing to have.

Now, in our new home, my sweet wife has pretty much turned over the upstairs family room to my arrested-development tastes, so Luke, Darth, Leia, Obi-wan, Boba Fett, R2-D2, C-3PO and dozens of others are hanging out there.

That’s not to say she feels The Force. She couldn’t tell you a TIE fighter from an X-wing.

Just last week, we were in a Kohl’s, and you couldn’t swing a Jawa without hitting a “Star Wars” display of toys, banks, alarm clocks, clothing, bedding and so much more. There were characters from the original trilogy, the three prequels and the upcoming “Episode VII –The Force Awakens.”

After passing probably our fifth or sixth such array of merchandise, she said, “Wow, they have a lot of ‘Star Wars’ stuff.” And then she added, and I kid you not, “Is there a movie coming out?”

There was a strong disturbance in The Force.

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 3:48 PM with the headline "A long time ago ... a kid got swept into the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy, never to emerge again."