[Bryn-gwlad] A Long Time Ago...

[James Crouchet]

I took a date to see a different movie at that time. We were standing in
a long line with the odds of us getting in to see our movie being pretty
low when an usher from the theater started working the line from the
back forward. He was offering us the chance to see a movie for $1 in a
some new cinemas they had just added on the other side of the mall. It
was an odd sounding movie I had not heard of called Star-Wars (note the
audible pause between the two words). We weren't getting into our movie
anyway and for a buck it sounded like an amusing way to kill a couple
hours. We really expected a bad B movie and when we walked through the
theater lobby and saw the crews were literally still on ladders
painting, it did not raise our expectations.

We noticed the seats were big and there were only about a 20 people in
the theater. Then the giant screen lit up, the THX sound system came
alive and we could not believe what we saw and heard.

Later, we read the reviews and saw that the critics panned it. The
criticism all seemed to center around the fact that they spent $20M
making a *Science Fiction* movie which could have made several GOOD
movies. One critic actually admitted he had not seen the movie (and
would not condescend to do so). Eventually, as the box office proved the
movie to be a winner, the critics started to get on board. However, a
lot of resistance and disdain remained for a long time to come. At the
Oscars that year Star Wars won a number of awards -- some of which newly
minted just for Star Wars but the movie that changed our culture,
changed our ideas of what a movie is and made Science Fiction part of
the mainstream did not win the one award it should have, _Picture of the
Year_. No, that honor went to the movie I did not go see that night, an
oddball romantic comedy called...

Name that movie -- WITHOUT looking it up -- and win a Castleton coin
(first person).

Christian Doré

Elisabeth B. Zakes wrote:
> I remember that day. I stood in line for about 10 minutes for the opening
> show in Austin, walked into a huge theatre that had -two- screens (the
> Cinema at Capital Plaza, for those of you who remember it), and the
> audience
> booed and hissed when Darth Vader first walked onto the screen and
> cheered
> for the good guys at the end. It was a very energetic audience!
>
> Aethelyan Moondragon
>
> On 5/25/07, Eule <eule at ecpi.com> wrote:
>>
>>  A bit off topic, but 30 years ago today, an event took place which
>> greatly changed our culture and the way we looked at the future...and
>> likely
>> forever changed the lives of many folks in the SCA.
>>
>> Happy Anniversary Star Wars!
>>
>> Eule/Steve
>> *Unus sed Leo*
>>
>>
>>
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