The bright orange squares represent my set of seats to see the “final” Star Wars movie. I saw it on opening night. This makes the ninth Star Wars movie I have seen on opening night. The first was back in 1977. I was still in Junior High. I had just turned 15 years old. I had my learners permit. I went with my older brother Brett. He was a senior in High School he drove a white mustang with red interior and an 8-track tape player. We saw the the trailer three months before. He had taken me to the movie for my birthday. We saw an animated film, Wizards at the Forum 303 Mall (it is now torn down, plowed over and turned into warehouses). Before the movie started the trailer came on. The first Star Wars trailer was grainy, unfinished and melodramatic, but we were mesmerized. We put it on our calendars. We were some of the first to see it. It was so amazing.
The next film came out two weeks before I graduated from High School (May 1980). I had a car and a serious girlfriend. We went to an Italian food restaurant for dinner then and we went and stood in line to see it at the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth. We emerged from the theater shaken by the twist at the end. We debated and argued if it was true or a lie. By then, I had a collection of memorabelia that is still legendary in our family. It was so amazing.
The third movie came out 2 weeks after I married Cindy (May 1983). We were living in Waco and saw it there. It was the first movie we saw in the theater as a married couple. It brought to a close a significant chapter of my adolescence and helped launch me into drama, film and photography. It was filled with the depictions of men who were real heroes who sacrificed themselves for other. It spoke of honor and values and adventrue. It was so amazing.
The stories lay dormant for 16 years and then exploded on the screen in 1999. We got tickets to the midnight movie in Dallas (the closest place showing it at midnight). By now I had two children. We woke the kids up for their first midnight movie and drove to see Episode #1. We made them lay down in the car after it was over and sleep on the way home. Our rule was if you go to the midnight movie, then you have to go to school the next day. Our oldest was 12 our youngest was 9. It was so amazing.
The next installment (Episode #2) followed in 2002. So many things had changed. The attack on NYC had changed the world-it was darker and more frightening. We had gotten deeply immersed in reading about the movies and my boys had their own amazing collection of Star Wars toys. We went to see the movie just 6 weeks before traveling to NYC to see fireworks for July 4th and attend a Star Wars Museum exhibit in Brooklyn. Our oldest was the same age we were when the first movie came out. It was so amazing.
Episode #3 came out in 2005. Our oldest was 18 and about to start his Sr. year. Our youngest was on the cusp of getting a drivers license. We headed to Dallas again for the midnight showing, mostly for nostalgia reason as Tyler was now showing them. We were frustrated that the originals were so much better than the prequels. We argued and debated the ending, the anger, the motivations. It was so amazing.
The first film, of the final set of three films, premiered near Christmas in 2015. Our sons were scattered to work and college, but we managed to all get together and drive to Austin to meet a former intern who lived in our home and see the opening showing at the IMAX theater there. It was like a family reunion. It was before reserved seats so we had gone to stand in line for 8 hours to get mediocre seats, but It was so amazing.
Christmas 2017 brought us episode 8 and we were back in mesquite, and the movies was in IMAX 3D. We no longer had to wait until midnight, but got to see it at 9:15PM. We had a group of friends who met us at the theater. It was so amazing.
Last night we saw the final installment. It started at 7 PM. We wanted a Dolby Digital Sound theater and the best one we could find was in far north Dallas. Our sons are launched into life. Our lawyer son met us in Dallas our media director son joined the group in Austin. It was so amazing.
I started the journey at 15 and finished it last night at 57. My car was a Dodge 440 (which I called Luke in honor of the movie character) with push button transmission when I started. I have driven 5 cars in the interim— a yellow Mercury Capri, a silver Nissan Sentra, a tan Nissan Stanza, a blue Scion XB and a green Subaru Outback, but none of them are as cool as Luke’s land speeder.
People have asked me about the movie. It does not matter how good or bad it was, what matters is that it has helped tell the story of my life and I’m thankful that a long time ago, not so very far away my brother took me to see a movie an ushered me into a fantastic world of joy and wonder. I miss him.