tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23479756486290282192024-02-21T04:55:25.986-08:00The March of the Twelve BacksThree golden years of being a child and growing up with Star Wars ... December 1976 to December 1979.Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-78647821090785704002019-06-15T23:58:00.000-07:002020-05-21T18:01:50.238-07:00Star Wars inspired art work for Irwin Allen's "The Return of Captain Nemo"<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">Way back in 1978, when Star Wars was still brand new and our minds were still trying to re-solidify after being melted by the supernova that George Lucas had unleashed on a totally unsuspecting world, everyone and their mother tried to cash in on the Star Wars phenomenon. Enter Irwin Allen, of "Lost in Space", "Time Tunnel", "Land of the Giants" and "Towering Inferno" fame to launch a three-part series starring Captain Nemo.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">The story was that Captain Nemo had been frozen in <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">suspended animation aboard the Nautilus for a long time. The US Navy was conducting war games in that part of the sea and a pair of Navy SEALS on underwater maneuvers find the Nautilus and revive Nemo. About this time, a super bad guy starts going around the world with a super submarine that can fire a laser weapon that can blow up an entire island.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: black;">The US government convinced Nemo to help them defeat the bad guy.</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As a 9-year-old kid, I was hooked and watched every episode on all three consecutive nights. The funny thing is, my parents always got the TV guide (long before the Internet) and the ad for this three-part sci-fi series featured some blatantly ripped off artwork from Star Wars. No one believed me when I told them that the Irwin Allen advertisement for "<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFPazVbHIDU" target="_blank">The Return of Captain Nemo</a></i>" ripped off Star Wars art but now I'm vindicated. A childhood memory that has bothered me forever finally proven true.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It has taken me years to track this ever elusive artwork down but I finally found it in a lost corner of the Internet and now present it to you. More of artists back in the day ripping off SW to get the attention of possible fans for other shows.</span></span></div>
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Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-82561443676835469972015-12-29T11:12:00.000-08:002015-12-29T11:12:30.320-08:00What goes down must first go ... up?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7B981XQyP5qO7zfw73GNFz7L6zJyPruQTfWCU5u2HmK9mO_slsJRum3Nm2LVIEZIDcDGlWsZwHp7kK1rGMcH5BNOvL2DDRaVarLZ-6lYBELHECYb7_EILCM6gGzKfM1X2E6aNunmdDQ/s1600/holdyourfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7B981XQyP5qO7zfw73GNFz7L6zJyPruQTfWCU5u2HmK9mO_slsJRum3Nm2LVIEZIDcDGlWsZwHp7kK1rGMcH5BNOvL2DDRaVarLZ-6lYBELHECYb7_EILCM6gGzKfM1X2E6aNunmdDQ/s400/holdyourfire.jpg" width="400" /></b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.5636px;"><b>Okay ... this scene always intrigued me as a child (1977 "Star Wars" NKA Ep IV: ANH) ... the weapons station onboard the Imperial Stardestroyer in the opening minutes of the film. What a neat concept shot! However, the angles are wrong and the frames of reference are all skewed. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 17.5636px;">Neat as it was, the scene made little sense other than as an establishing shot for a few lines of dialog that followed shortly. The Imperial Stardestroyer gunners were aiming at an object falling away from them so the angles in the scene made little sense presented in the visual way that it was.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcgZkz1D-PifFhN98PAo_nmkQjl19ARvfXYBt0hg0PclDsFMUcl80zSwb0LGraySdoAycd-7qCalsahvMgR8Uzm7GEMRXnZjGVoQl6_FI3-aZHefT5zmc59b81f0XlwjcGQlIap7kFAU/s1600/escapepodlaunch1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcgZkz1D-PifFhN98PAo_nmkQjl19ARvfXYBt0hg0PclDsFMUcl80zSwb0LGraySdoAycd-7qCalsahvMgR8Uzm7GEMRXnZjGVoQl6_FI3-aZHefT5zmc59b81f0XlwjcGQlIap7kFAU/s400/escapepodlaunch1.jpg" width="400" /></b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Here we see the escape pod launching down into space, <br />not up into the hangar of the ISD.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQh6VqoGnuHNCVXdTnkzBKcj6gCorGi7penORf6wS7x9nSdg7m7biBbHmMQzBNM9F8bDi_fMCzk3LKwl7n8FKMC51R0pioGxb65rJTIi13RTZB5cnl4jtLTtX4wQ3ka5tjA08HVkD8Vo/s1600/EscapePodlaunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQh6VqoGnuHNCVXdTnkzBKcj6gCorGi7penORf6wS7x9nSdg7m7biBbHmMQzBNM9F8bDi_fMCzk3LKwl7n8FKMC51R0pioGxb65rJTIi13RTZB5cnl4jtLTtX4wQ3ka5tjA08HVkD8Vo/s400/EscapePodlaunch.jpg" width="400" /></b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Shortly after the launch sequence the pod is seen falling away<br /> from the captured Tantive IV.</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBxVMiJrIDzBTXYEo3YyBh5UOKNEI2WlgpemmuPGht33JfDxrBNfLblFYRVW2W8wQiCkNDXmt2jCbsETOXMn8et2nhFmEdNjpVilGvAUYweDwdlImjb625Rvtj0LmbNEiX9414TbLFIY/s1600/escapepodview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBxVMiJrIDzBTXYEo3YyBh5UOKNEI2WlgpemmuPGht33JfDxrBNfLblFYRVW2W8wQiCkNDXmt2jCbsETOXMn8et2nhFmEdNjpVilGvAUYweDwdlImjb625Rvtj0LmbNEiX9414TbLFIY/s400/escapepodview.jpg" width="400" /></b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Next we see the droids looking out the viewport<br /> of the escape pod </b></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as the ISD falls into the background.</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcghpkgQkro74szhywiJtg9DrdoeIbH77q0DAGFeACs9AiXJ5pw-92f4bgcEgXNKv__2_IamwGnztSoQmtmfuv1-SoGcxqJEGzTKAajCI0OPlb0ovZf4dFDNRyPSBtJg9Z2c0NjJhzWs/s1600/escapepodtatooine.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcghpkgQkro74szhywiJtg9DrdoeIbH77q0DAGFeACs9AiXJ5pw-92f4bgcEgXNKv__2_IamwGnztSoQmtmfuv1-SoGcxqJEGzTKAajCI0OPlb0ovZf4dFDNRyPSBtJg9Z2c0NjJhzWs/s400/escapepodtatooine.jpeg" width="400" /></b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>And finally a shot of the escape pod falling towards Tatooine.</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBxVMiJrIDzBTXYEo3YyBh5UOKNEI2WlgpemmuPGht33JfDxrBNfLblFYRVW2W8wQiCkNDXmt2jCbsETOXMn8et2nhFmEdNjpVilGvAUYweDwdlImjb625Rvtj0LmbNEiX9414TbLFIY/s1600/escapepodview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></b></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.5636px;"><b>We see the escape pod flying from the bottom to the top of the screen and the turbolaser cannon tracks it before the command is given not to engage. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.5636px;"><b>If this was true ... either the crew is upside down in a room (ala localized gravity like the Falcon's gun wells) or that's a viewscreen that's showing what's happening under the bottom of the Stardestroyer (in which case why does the gun track an image on a viewscreen). Even as a kid the scene didn't make much sense to me ... neat as it was but I could never get the angles right in my head for how this turbolaser weapons control room could exist.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.5636px;"><b>Someone mentioned the fact that when you kick a ball it goes up and then back down but this isn't the case in this scene. </b></span></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.5636px;">It's hard to fire an escape pod up and away from a ship when that ship is docked inside the main bay of the Stardestroyer. The escape pod that the droids used was on the bottom of the Tantive IV, small pods ... check out the schematics and cross-sections book for reference. </b><br />
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<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia-cache-ec0.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F66%2F55%2F95%2F665595415e2735fbcc14e21404b50103.jpg&h=YAQHvH-bx" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYfHm71KJpQNHQnOCxwn3JDSxBJqVYh9NRqEwJh_705yi3-ZA4gKQdAWnlOpxtL1WWfzNMPcuUYjoNCXrsVRR2gOK2dKyUQUAxh0uKnGo1uWi3wWXSefJuuBKhyy5mSozscRP4agtginE/s640/blockaderunner.jpg" width="640" /></b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The escape pod that R2 and C3PO use is the port side rear most lower pod, according to the cross sections illustration of the Tantive IV.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I'm sure the Imperial gunners were located on the bottom of the Stardestroyer ... but if they were and the pod fires downwards, that means that they're standing upside down in the room, the turbolaser is mounted on the ceiling and that they're watching the pod fall away.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The only reason that makes sense as to how this room is set up is if what we are seeing is a weapon station, two officers, and a giant viewscreen in front of them showing a remote weapons station elsewhere in the ship ... a turbolaser cannon that is pointed out the bottom of the ISD (presumably for planetary bombardment and for engaging targets that move under the equator of the ISD's line of fire.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>One other thing that bothered me as a kid when I saw this was the dialog concerning the escape pod. The officer watching the escape pod says "There goes ANOTHER one!" and his fellow officer says "Hold your fire. There are no life forms aboard."</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Let's break that down.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Saying that another pod has been launched indicates that there were other pods launched before this one was launched. Telling the officer to hold his weapon's fire because there are no lifeforms aboard indicates that other pods had lifeforms aboard (escaping rebels) and were destroyed after they launched.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This dialog is further complicated when Vader and an Imperial officer are aboard the Tantive IV and are approached by another Imperial officer who tells them that the plans for the Death Star are not aboard the Tantive IV and that an escape pod (indicating a single escape pod) was launched but no life forms were aboard. Here we have a discrepancy between several pods being launched (and destroyed in flight) and only one pod being launched.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The implied destruction of rebels trying to get away in escape pods from the Tantive IV is just one of the instances where "Star Wars" showed the cruelty of the Empire without actually showing the cruelty of the Empire. Other scenes were the slaughter of the Jawas and the murder of Luke's uncle and aunt ... in both instances we see the end result without seeing the action that brought about that result. This could also be said about the interrogation droid in Princess Leia's cell ... we see it approaching her, we know what it is designed for yet the door mercifully closes on the scene before we get to take part in it. Even the destruction of Alderaan with all of its millions (billions?) of inhabitants was done in such a way that we never saw actual suffering. The fate of those killed when the Death Star obliterated Alderran was passed onto us only in a line of dialog said by Ben Kenobi ... and later in the visuals of the debris of the once-planet as the Falcon dropped out of hyperspace where Alderaan used to be.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I think that's one of the things that made "Star Wars" so great ... the bad guys were really bad guys but we weren't shown just how bad that they really were ... just given hints that we had to pick up on and connect the dots for ourselves and in doing so that was masterful storytelling ... the kind of masterful storytelling that got lost in the prequels, especially when Anakin Skywalker slaughtered children at the Jedi Temple.</b></span><br />
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Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-5946015256366488212014-09-01T08:38:00.001-07:002019-06-15T23:47:54.450-07:00The 1977 "Star Wars" Movie Program<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When "Star Wars" first hit the theaters some theaters offered special complimentary movie programs to movie goers. This was a first run item not duplicated or repeated when "Star Wars" was rerun in theaters the following year. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I don't remember ever having one of these but my wife says that she got one when she went to see "Star Wars" and she had it for a long time through her childhood. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Years ago, I found an original program on Ebay and added it to my collection. When it arrived, I showed it to my wife and she remembered the one she had as a child. My first question to her was "How is it that you had something of "Star Wars" that I never had?"</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And now I present the 1977 "Star Wars" complimentary movie program.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For some of you, sharing this program will bring back fond childhood memories ... for others this will be a new experience for you knowing that something like this once existed and now having the chance to view it for the first time.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Giant two page center spread showing the classic publicity shot of starfighter combat - Rebel Alliance X-wings versus Imperial TIE Fighters.</span></b></div>
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<br />Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-32400682595286731312014-04-09T20:20:00.000-07:002014-09-29T19:29:18.448-07:00Kenner "Early Bird" Star Wars figure mail away offer<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I consider myself lucky to have been seven years old when "Star Wars" first hit the theaters in 1977 (seven because SW hit the silver screen about three weeks before I turned 8). It was a glorious time to be a kid and SW brought with it a veritable Renaissance in toys based on the runaway hit movie ... but that was in the long months to come. One of the great things about "Star Wars" was that it was such a surprise hit. "Star Wars" was magic made manifest and while it caught the pop culture of America (and the world) by surprise, it also caught all of the toy companies by surprise.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>One of the greatest toy legends of all time was how Kenner sold four "Star Wars" action figures without really selling the action figures at all. Christmas 1977 would have been a monstrous windfall for toy companies if they had made any "Star Wars" toys and Kenner was doing its best to get a new line of three and three quarter inch action figures to market ... but they didn't make it and they wouldn't make it for the massive cash influx that the 1978 Christmas holiday season promised to bring. Kenner, not having any toys to offer (but knowing that they would be coming in the months to follow) did what I think no other toy company has ever done ... they sold what amounted to an "IOU".</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Some of you may not be old enough to know what an "IOU" is ... basically, Kenner sold an empty folder with a promise to mail four new (and then unavailable in stores) "Star Wars" action figures to the kid who took the chance on Kenner.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Kenner sold an IOU in that they pre-sold four of their new action figures in a special mail-away offer, the first of three very important mail-away offers associated with the original release of "Star Wars" in 1977; the Kenner "Early Bird" kit.</b></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This IOU promised kids four hot new action figures ... Luke Skywalker with an extending / retracting telescoping Lightsaber (strangely colored yellow), Princess Leia with a vinyl cape and a laser pistol, Chewbacca with his Wookie bowcaster (minus the crossbow part) and R2-D2.</b><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WHAT YOU DO:</b><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MAIL IN ... the postage paid Early Bird Certificate</b><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RECEIVE ... between FEBRUARY 1 - JUNE 1, 1978, before they're available in stores, poseable Action Figures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and Artoo-Deetoo (see back of package for full details).</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The kit included some stickers, a mail-in certificate for the first four action figures, a "Star Wars" club membership card and a colorful fold-up display stand (featuring the original 12 Back artwork) to display your figures. The Early Bird Certificate kit was the first of the 12 Backs and a hint of what was to come from Kenner in the next 18 months.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Kids went nuts and the Early Bird Certificate kits flew out of the stores.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Here is a television commercial from that time period for the </b></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://youtu.be/0CmGs9ixpNU" target="_blank">Kenner Early Bird Kit</a>.</b><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the figures finally arrived (shipped in a cardboard box, packed in a white package tray), here is how they came ...</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Included in the mail-in offer you received the four action figures you were owed by Kenner, a plastic bag filled with twist-in foot pegs to secure your four figures to the fold-out display (plus enough plastic pegs to secure another 8 figures later on as you purchased them), the first of the small Kenner "Star Wars" toy catalogs (these things were gold to a kid back then), and yet another mail-in offer ... this time for the "Star Wars" Action Figure Collector Stand.</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ-N0rr_vYOfL0OQuw7m30ilTEjHBKREMcJufokkdGm5tnXNr7WUdzE9-eDr1LHestrCUK0N5ctnXNCrAj6Rh0ODQg-r9TBRIohRkcN9CdPLo7vh_qujRU1ICje3QNj51usJ3MJqqyts/s1600/Early_Bird_DT_Luke_AFA90_Back.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ-N0rr_vYOfL0OQuw7m30ilTEjHBKREMcJufokkdGm5tnXNr7WUdzE9-eDr1LHestrCUK0N5ctnXNCrAj6Rh0ODQg-r9TBRIohRkcN9CdPLo7vh_qujRU1ICje3QNj51usJ3MJqqyts/s1600/Early_Bird_DT_Luke_AFA90_Back.JPG" height="508" width="640" /></a></div>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />"Stars of STAR WARS look-alike action figures available soon!"</b><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth is that I never had one of these ...</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally, while I remember seeing these kits in the store (and picking them up and looking them over in great detail) I never had an Early Bird Certificate kit because I just didn't "get it" as a kid. Here was a toy company, selling me an empty package and promising to mail me four figures at sometime in the future. When you're a kid and you want something really bad four to six to eight weeks isn't just a month or two, it's a frigging eternity. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time I got interested in the kits locally and by the time that my interest had been piqued by the television commercials the December 31, 1977 expiration date had passed and the kits were pretty much useless after that. I remember finding three of these kits still on the shelf at the "toy cave" at Howard's department store sometime in January 1978 but my dad didn't let me get one because he looked it over said that the kit had an expiration date on it and I wouldn't be able to get the figures by mail if I bought the kit.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Man, I wanted those action figures! Some kids at school started to get their action figures by mail and brought them to school and we played with them during recess. These figures were my new want and I kept checking the toy department of the local department stores looking for these figures.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One day I found them.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There they were.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Each figure, individually sealed in a clear plastic blister on a picture card.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The 12 Backs had arrived. The first "Star Wars" figures, a set of twelve figures on card backs.</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Strangely enough, my first four action figures that I bought that day were Luke, Leia, R2-D2 and Chewbacca, all purchased at Wilson's department store in the University Mall area in Hattiesburg, MS in January of 1978.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These were the first of my 12 Backs and they would start a collection craze and an action figure hunt that would last for the better part of the next 12 months.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-71556266638230725372014-03-14T19:16:00.000-07:002014-04-11T23:14:43.159-07:00Article - My first "Star Wars" magazine - TIME, May 30, 1977<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a 7 year old, "Star Wars" was still something that wasn't really known to me. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There was no Internet, no smart phones, no personal computers (they were coming). I really hadn't heard or seen any hype about the movie, even by May of 1977 when the movie was actually released. You'll think that strange, reading this today, but back then information traveled at the speed of print and by word of mouth. The only phone you had was the one on the wall in your house (and you probably leased that unit from the telephone company).</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I remember going on vacation to Chattanooga, TN to visit my grandmother's brother and while I was there I saw my first "Star Wars" television commercial and I knew this was something that was going to be amazing. The next day we went to the local mall and while my father got a haircut I saw a current issue of TIME with an article on "Star Wars". As far as I can tell, this was the first magazine to have an article on "Star Wars" and it was my first view of some of the pictures from the movie.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My seven year old mind was blown.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While my father and my grandmother's brother had their hair cut at the barbershop I flipped through the magazine, mesmerized. I remember leaving the barbershop and seeing "Star Wars" playing at the big cinemaplex across the street. I begged my father to take me to see "Star Wars" because there was a huge line to buy tickets to see the movie and I really wanted to see this movie, now more than ever. My father said that we would wait and see it when it came to Hattiesburg, MS where we lived. I asked him how long that would be and he told me a few weeks.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" didn't reach Hattiesburg, MS until late October or early November. So much for my dad's estimate of "a few weeks."</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-83479425666964991592014-03-08T17:40:00.000-08:002014-09-01T08:56:56.775-07:00Estes "Star Wars" Flying Model Rockets<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With the success of "Star Wars" it was only natural that Estes would want to get in on the huge cash pie. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Enter the Estes flying models in the "Star Wars" flavor. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'd long been a fan of model rocketry and the Estes catalogs held the same kind of fascination with me that the Dinky diecast toy catalogs held ... they were filled with things that as a child I thought were neat beyond belief but which I didn't seem to ever be a part of. Estes catalogs featuring that impressive camo German V2 rocket and the "Star Trek" versions of the "USS Enterprise" and the "Klingon Battlecruiser" drew my child-like fascination. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oh, I saw a few model rocketry shows in my childhood but my attempts to build model rockets always met with failure. I was much better with models of rockets rather than model rocketry and it remains that way even today. While interesting, model rocketry just isn't a hobby that I think I would get very much enjoyment out of ... </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I digress.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the late 1970's Estes produced several flying rocket models under the "Star Wars" license; the Proton Torpedo, the X-Wing Fighter, the TIE Fighter, and IIRC, a flying R2D2 rocket (yeah, where was that in the movie?). I always wanted the X-Wing and the TIE Fighter because the X-Wing looked really cool (better than the MPC kit IMHO) and since MPC never made a model of the basic Imperial TIE Fighter I wanted the flying model rocket just to put together as a static, non-flying model. Never did that, either, but it was a wish, a hope and a dream of mine back in that special time that was 1977 to 1979.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Estes Proton Torpedo ruined me as a child and as a "Star Wars" fan because it looked so plausible ... then whoever it was that finally designed and drew the canon proton torpedo made it look like a snow cone sitting on top of a fire extinguisher and ... well, I like the simplicity of the Estes Proton Torpedo better. I mean, what happens to the casing after the torpedo is fired?</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Discussion for another time, I guess. Given that, here's three 1978 period advertisements for the Estes products ... the X-Wing Fighter, the TIE Fighter and the Proton Torpedo. I really, really wanted the X-wing and TIE simply because MPC didn't make a TIE Fighter model (not a regular TIE Fighter) and the X-wing looked better than the MPC model did (at least to me).</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-21022626566401582992014-01-26T08:53:00.001-08:002014-07-18T00:57:43.856-07:00 Advertisement - Warren's "Creepy" magazine, June 1978, showing more "Star Wars" merchandise.<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">New Star Wars products on Page 67!</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Advertising from Warren's "Creepy" magazine, June 1978, showing more, new "Star Wars" merchandise including the first four plastic models by MPC, a cheapo Darth Vader costume, an Estes flying model rocket of Luke Skywalker's "Proton Torpedo" and the first three movie related toy vehicles designed for the (then) new action figure line.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you look close at the windshield of the Landspeeder you'll see the arm of the Luke Skywalker action figure. The rest of the image of the toy was cut off and manipulated. I had all of the MPC model kits except Darth Vader's TIE fighter ... not sure why I never had that but I just never did. Likewise for the Vader costume and the Estes rocket because neat as it was I really wasn't into model rocketry when I was young. </span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My first action figure vehicle was the X-wing fighter which I received for my birthday in June of '78. I was 9 years old. Later that Summer I got the TIE fighter while on vacation visiting my uncle and aunt in Chattanooga, TN. The Landspeeder was the hardest vehicle to find and I didn't get it until the late Fall of 1978 when I found it at a local Western Auto store, of all places ... it was the only one they had and, as far as I know, the only one they ever got in.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As for the MPC plastic models, the X-Wing Fighter was a real step-bitch to put together, ditto for the R2D2 model with its opening panels and extending leg. The C3PO model went together fairly easily. None of the models survived into my early teenage years ... thankfully MPC later not only reintroduced these models but added a whole lot more to the lineup.</span></span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-78526836056455784642014-01-25T18:04:00.000-08:002014-01-26T09:06:32.308-08:00Kenner "Star Wars" Laser Pistol and Laser Rifle Toys<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(reproduced from my Angst and Speed blog)</span></span></b><br />
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There came a
time in my childhood when two of the most awesome guns were made
available by Kenner; the Star Wars (Han Solo) Laser Pistol and the Star
Wars 3 Position Laser Rifle. This gave the "good guys" a gun to use and
the "bad guys" a gun to use as well. For Christmas of 1978 I received
the Star Wars 3 Position Laser Rifle while my friend three houses down
got the Star Wars Laser Pistol. After that, the hours were spent
running around the neighborhood draining pairs of C and D sized
batteries to our hearts' content and our parents' dismay (disposable batteries were kind of expensive during the Jimmy Carter era).<br />
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The weapons
were somewhat faithful reproductions of their on screen counterparts but
the sounds that these toys produced were nowhere near what the sounds
in the movie were. In fact, both toy guns were activated by a two stage
trigger system ... a small nipple type button in the hand grip
activated something inside the gun so that when the trigger was pulled
the toy gun made a noise reminiscent of either a buzzsaw at a lumber
mill or a hamster being put in a blender. We both found that even at
the age of 8 years old we could make more accurate Star Wars blaster
sounds using our mouths than Kenner could using electronics and back
then electronics was the big thing in toys ... an electronic toy was
cutting edge and these toy guns weren't the cheapest toys on the
market. They weren't the most expensive, but they weren't the cheapest
either.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pictured above ... Han Solo's German Mauser based heavy blaster pistol. The trigger always felt like it would break off if you pulled it too hard. You unscrewed the two twist knobs on the side and inserted two "C" sized batteries in the toy. The batteries had amazingly short lives, IIRC. Oh, yeah, both weapons had "secret buttons" which really weren't that secret in hindsight.</span></span></b></div>
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I think one of
the things that endeared me most to the weapons of Star Wars was the
fact that all of the weapons were built out of real world counterparts
... familiar counterparts ... mostly taken from World War II which fit
right in with my pre-Star Wars love affair of all things World War I and
World War II. Years of being weaned on "Sgt. Rock" and "The Unknown
Soldier" and "The Losers" and other combat comics and of playing with
Marx "green army men" had made me more than aware of the many, many
weapons used in the major wars. As such, it was easy to see where Han
Solo's blaster was made out of a early 20th century German Mauser (one
of my favorite pistols of all time). The standard Stormtrooper weapons
included the standard issue blaster rifle (created from a Sterling 9mm
submachinegun) and two heavy blasters created out of a German MG34
machinegun and a British Lewis machinegun. Scopes and doo-dads were
added liberally to these classic weapons but their cores, their guts,
were unmistakeable which I guess made them all the more believable when
they were being used because I had seen so many combat movies where the
cores of those fantastic weapons had been used.<br />
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The 3 Position
Laser Rifle was probably the neater (and more expensive) of the two
blaster offerings but it was also the more prone to break. Loading
batteries into this toy weapon required that you twist / pop the rear
loop off at the rear of the weapon, take a cover off and insert two "D"
sized batteries (batteries not included). When you pulled the secret
nipple trigger below the trigger guard and then pulled the trigger the 3
Position Laser Rifle did something that the Laser Pistol did not ... it
spun a yellow with black stripes "barber pole" inside the barrel ...
and made a sound reminiscent of a failing starter on a AMC Pacer. <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The rear loop,
for whatever reason it was included, was both prone to breaking through
hard play and even more prone to simply fall off and disappear. I'm not sure why the rear loop was part of the design as it wouldn't hold the rifle on anything like a belt loop or a shoulder srap. The rear loop
wasn't required for the laser rifle to work but it was something that
when it went missing you felt like your toy was incomplete. The trigger was also way more substantial than the trigger found on the laser pistol.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What really set
the Laser Rifle apart from the Laser Pistol was the three position
folding stock hence the name of the weapon being 3 Position Laser
Rifle. The stock was affixed to the weapon at two swivel points located
at the back and to each side of the hand grip. On the front, a simple
clip "snapped" the folding stock in tight against the barrel. This clip
also did not survive strenuous childhood rough housing and when it
broke it would leave you with a folding stock that simply had to either
be deployed full or held tight against the barrel.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The three
positions, seen above on the box, were folded (standard), shoulder pad
down up front (guard) and fully extended (turning the rifle into a real
rifle). While we never saw any of the three positions of the stock
being used in the movie that didn't stop us from taking it as canon and
running with it.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmWGyBMPPgbW6XSsk96nCTAiMqS41gJC5als9TojojyKNgjfjZyFIp7Q4e-s6SmQEkVxlPihVvDquEkRBMxZ2w1c0raUo5kCf90TUKvdxD3AqQEUZfHM9PhIhL1bsyfhJreyK-ctTKKk/s1600/laserrifle1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmWGyBMPPgbW6XSsk96nCTAiMqS41gJC5als9TojojyKNgjfjZyFIp7Q4e-s6SmQEkVxlPihVvDquEkRBMxZ2w1c0raUo5kCf90TUKvdxD3AqQEUZfHM9PhIhL1bsyfhJreyK-ctTKKk/s640/laserrifle1.jpg" height="377" width="640" /></a>Although my
original 3 Position Laser Rifle never made it with me out of childhood I
was lucky enough to find a replacement on Ebay a few years ago. The
toy did include the rare (and often lost) rear D-ring type clip but the
front clip for the stock was broken. The toy blaster did not work even
with new batteries and a quick inspection of the screws used to secure
the casing showed that the tiny screws were heavily rusted and
corroded. If I go into this toy to see if I can fix it, it's going to
require new screws as I have doubts if the heads of the current screws
may even make it through a very careful disassembly. I also plan on
using a simple pair of magnets under the barrel to "grab" the stock and
secure it in the folded position.<br />
<br />
I said that I
never owned the Laser Pistol ... now I do, from the same Ebay seller and
in similar condition (though this toy still had some obscure, cheap-ass
"C" size batteries in it that were rusting to pieces). Other than the
non-functioning electronics and the broken stock retaining clip on the
laser rifle, both toy weapons seem quite well preserved for 36 year old
artifacts from my childhood. Both are dusty as hell and will require
hours of careful cleaning to be fully presentable but the plastic is
still non-discolored and uncracked.<br />
<br />
I think I'll
mount them on pegs on the wall of my study where, like my other iconic
toys from the 1970's, I'm sure they'll incite conversation from those
who remember these toys. As I hold these toy weapons in my hands, I'm
taken back to cold winter days where imagination ran free and so did we
through the yards of our neighbors yelling and laughing and not having a
care in the world other than how much fun we could have.</span></span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-91674655035160959312014-01-25T15:13:00.001-08:002014-07-18T00:42:27.165-07:00Advertisement - First Marvel "Star Wars" Comics Action Figure Ad - Issue #14, August 1978<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is the first in-issue advertisement for Star Wars action figures from Issue #14, August 1978. Note the price of a Marvel comic book back then ... 35 cents!<br /></span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrRIWMFD8ILiTU9Ez-Pzst8qX0teHcwDZjiZoZkerbdmF-J5YCo4-vO66xccWx8Ezcc441KWyPy5mEy03x8Cw-lDmiwS4SNUMxKhU5mLUdodEbM-0JhcRFPmLjuTDECoP_ScLaFMxKWg/s1600/Star+Wars+%2523014+-+00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrRIWMFD8ILiTU9Ez-Pzst8qX0teHcwDZjiZoZkerbdmF-J5YCo4-vO66xccWx8Ezcc441KWyPy5mEy03x8Cw-lDmiwS4SNUMxKhU5mLUdodEbM-0JhcRFPmLjuTDECoP_ScLaFMxKWg/s1600/Star+Wars+%2523014+-+00.jpg" height="640" width="421" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The color is good but wrong, also note the price ... $2.79 each plus fifty cents shipping and fondling. The original three vehicles (Landspeeder, X-Wing fighter and TIE fighter). Again, just the first nine figures. Missing in action are the three rarer figures; the Sand People, the Death Squad Commander and the Jawa. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've said before that, at least for me, the Sand People, Death Squad Commander and Jawa were the hardest figures to find. Maybe I wasn't the only one that this happened to. All told, it took me nearly a year after the Early Bird Kit to finish out my original twelve back figure collection.</span></b><br />
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<br />Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-42763945362834467672014-01-23T19:34:00.002-08:002014-07-18T00:49:14.083-07:00Advertisement - first Star Wars merchandise listing - Warren Publishing - "Creepy" and "Eerie" Magazine - October 1977<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8T9a7qzv5D-2UMDrYf7D62evYXnWGMrdSTGhiWLA-3y8CGlEgP3gWxW4r2RS0BRlwh0cjZbWa7nabLqU9YxHHqG4No0d_uwE9ySpa8HTd5unnt9BpqPn1gKGD7GgFOOzJ5W7xE92v7SU/s1600/creepy92.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8T9a7qzv5D-2UMDrYf7D62evYXnWGMrdSTGhiWLA-3y8CGlEgP3gWxW4r2RS0BRlwh0cjZbWa7nabLqU9YxHHqG4No0d_uwE9ySpa8HTd5unnt9BpqPn1gKGD7GgFOOzJ5W7xE92v7SU/s1600/creepy92.jpg" height="400" width="298" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQWY1qGGjchOC5bsvT_nFvQQnMGholG4Sc_51t4FBpmCHgC5ElcE_A0RhwXWJMfWC-Of7hImR-mWf9gfhTWmqcJuopLc5WE-aU4FUArAExpXiTJpqhHVkBLdcsMnKde6KJTYV9bRQWgU/s1600/eerie87.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQWY1qGGjchOC5bsvT_nFvQQnMGholG4Sc_51t4FBpmCHgC5ElcE_A0RhwXWJMfWC-Of7hImR-mWf9gfhTWmqcJuopLc5WE-aU4FUArAExpXiTJpqhHVkBLdcsMnKde6KJTYV9bRQWgU/s1600/eerie87.jpg" height="400" width="290" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Growing up in the 1970's, Warren Publishing's "<i>Famous Monsters</i>" was big among kids my age but for me it was Warren's other horror offerings, "<i>CREEPY</i>" and "<i>EERIE</i>" magazines which were a mixture of fantasy, horror and science fiction. Many famous artists contributed to these magazines, artists like Richard Corben, Pepe Moreno, and Frank Frazetta.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After "Star Wars" debuted in May of 1977, the story aspect of these two magazines began to be less horror and more science fiction. Also, after "Star Wars" merchandise started to roll out the ad sections at the back of these magazines became clearing houses for all the good stuff. </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Here is the first Star Wars merchandise advertisement in Warren Publishing's "<i>Creepy</i>" series magazine, Issue 92, and "<i>Eerie</i>" series magazine, Issue 87, both circa October 1977. Figures and toys were still several months away but these early merchandising items were the first few snowflakes of the marketing and merchandise avalanche that was soon to follow.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Here we have the original four masks, a few films, the original double LP (vinyl) soundtrack, the novelization of the movie, a movie poster and four T-shirts.</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> <b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The movies were available in two formats; black and white (with subtitles) for $9.95 or color with sound for $29.95 (which back then was quite a bit of money).</span></b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For what it is worth, in the Summer of 1978, the local Hattiesburg public library had a special showing of the color 8mm movie with sound. They touted that they were showing "Star Wars" but it was only about 10 minutes long ... butchered for the Super 8 genre but hey, it was "Star Wars" ... again, and I loved sitting on that tile floor in the dark in the old public library and watching 10 minutes of pure magic. </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-24574974037294377162014-01-22T19:19:00.000-08:002014-07-18T00:01:41.678-07:00Advertisement - early Star Wars Action Figure ad - "Creepy" Magazine, May 1978<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Back during the late 1970's we didn't have the Internet, toy companies didn't have websites and the only way to find out about new toys or cool stuff was this mass media object called a "magazine." It was like a soft book, it had pages inside of it, most of them black and white. There were sections for the editors to talk to you ("news") and sections for you to respond ("mail" or "feedback") which, I guess, was like an early type of message forum. Nevertheless, way back in the 1970's the way that we, as kids, found out about new toys was often in the back of magazines like "<i>Starlog</i>", "<i>Fantastic Films</i>" and of course, Warren Publishing's "<i>Creepy</i>" and "<i>Eerie</i>" magazines which were a treasure trove of new toys. I usually found out about new Star Wars toys first in "<i>Creepy</i>" and "<i>Eerie</i>" because those were two magazines that I read each month. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>I never bought the magazines, I just read them and that's because my mother would go grocery shopping at Jitney Jungle near Cloverleaf Mall and Jitney Jungle had a well stocked magazine section that had everything from romance novels to best sellers and of course, magazines. While my mother shopped for groceries, I would sit on the lower magazine rack (it was angled slightly upward, like a pew at a church) and I would take each magazine and read it from cover to cover. I was a quick reader but my mom usually took about 45 minutes to an hour to shop and compare prices, etc. This gave me plenty of time to "catch up" from what I had read and learned from last month's issues. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Among the magazines were such (then) contemporary favorites like <i>"Cracked", "Mad", "Starlog", "Fangoria", "Fantastic Films", "Creepy", "Eerie"</i> and later, <i>"The Rook."</i> While the glossy sci-fi magazines had some sections at the back to advertise products and toys you could buy the Warren Publishing titles were like a set of horror, fantasy and science fiction stories stapled to a toy catalog. Once the last story was told, page after page of toys, games, puzzles, models, novels, movies, posters, clothing ... just about anything and everything ... was listed for sale and since "Star Wars" merchandise had such a high demand (and a high profit margin), the "Star Wars" section soon grew from a single page to several pages during the late 1970's. Sometimes full color spreads of "Star Wars" merchandise would grace the back cover or inside covers of these magazines, such was the attention that these items were demanding and getting.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>May 1978. New "Star Wars" products! See page 73.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>"Star Wars" and its merchandise was so hot that magazines advertised the fact that you could purchase this stuff out of this magazine ... with the intent being that even if you didn't like the magazine you might just buy it so you could fill out the order form and purchase some of the "Star Wars" merchandise. Selling "Star Wars" merchandise from a magazine, with the magazine offering itself as a conduit to this amazing swag and booty, was itself a selling point. All just part of the magic of the era. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Already
assembled!!!! I don't ever remember any action figures that ever
needed any assembly. Very early ad from the back of Warren Publishing's
"<i>Creepy</i>" magazine, Issue 97, May 1978 (a full year after "Star
Wars" hit the theaters) advertising nine of the original twelve Kenner
action figures. Not shown is the "Death Squad Commander", "Sand People"
and "Jawa" which would be (at least for me) the hardest three figures
of the original twelve to find. </b></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>This was the
tip of the iceberg, the snowball that started rolling downhill from the top of the mountain and started the avalanche that covered everything below. Soon
every major cult magazine would be advertising "Star Wars" related
merchandise in the hopes of getting their share of the giant cash pie that George Lucas had baked and served up hot and fresh.</b></span> </b></span> </b></span></div>
Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-59945813146197077342013-06-15T13:38:00.001-07:002014-07-17T23:40:23.095-07:00Ghosts of Hattiesburg: Theaters that once showed "Star Wars" and that are now gone but not forgotten ...<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Every
single theater, drive-in or cinema that I ever saw "Star Wars", its sequels or its prequels
in, has been swallowed by the relentless march of time and is no more. Just as Disney has purchased "Star Wars" from Lucas and is planning on rebooting the franchise so too will the new movies to come be played in theaters that the old movies never saw. I thought some would find this interesting, those who like to see urban decay and "what ever became of ..." type pics. Here are some pictures of how the movie houses of my youth are today ...</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Cloverleaf Cinema Twin</u></span> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Cloverleaf Cinema Twin, where I first saw "Star Wars" in the fall of 1977, had died the slow death of a theater stuck in a mall that had long ago lost most of its businesses and in turn become a rented out office space and business lease facility. Opened in 1972 as a first run theater by United Artists, the Cloverleaf Cinema Twin was later (crudely) converted to a triple screen by taking space for the third screen from the existing two screens (making the third screen in between the other two). </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>By the late 90's, after losing business to the Turtle Creek 9 for years, the Cloverleaf Cinema Triplex gave one last go at it and became a discount movie house charging only a dollar a show. The Triplex finally shut its doors and turned the projectors off for the last time in 2004 ... just a few years after having shown both the reworked "Special Editions" of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back", both movies which, in their original format, had played on the same screens way back in 1977 and 1980. What was interesting is that when the local radio and news announcers told us of the demise of the Cloverleaf Cinema Triplex invariably each and every one of them mentioned that it had been place where they had first seen "Star Wars" back in 1977.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJLK0wbgbdbuaCpVH1ONeXI38OWY2ACP0v1-y5q11xmnN7IqQyPZulvtalbB9o6I_YET_mG-0Rs-hkOLmo7o2WL9efqkV3scMHvqwhDWqz-4hYExjL770Vt3EUE0Ngpj1dm798OOCbt0/s1600/2013-06-14+10.23.34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJLK0wbgbdbuaCpVH1ONeXI38OWY2ACP0v1-y5q11xmnN7IqQyPZulvtalbB9o6I_YET_mG-0Rs-hkOLmo7o2WL9efqkV3scMHvqwhDWqz-4hYExjL770Vt3EUE0Ngpj1dm798OOCbt0/s640/2013-06-14+10.23.34.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here is the entrance to the old Cloverleaf Cinema in the old Cloverleaf Mall. You can see one of the stage door / emergency exits there to the right. I couldn't get into the mall there to take a pic of the inside as it looked like most of that entrance had been remodeled and may now be an entrance to a business office complex.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Gulf States Hardy Court Cinema Twin</b></span> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Gulf States Hardy Court Cinema Twin in the Hardy Court shopping area on Hardy Street was where "Return of the Jedi" first appeared in 1983. My friends and I piled into his mom's big Dodge passenger van and we all went to see it. That was probably the largest group of kids I'd ever gone to see a movie with, there were six of us, if I remember correctly ... ages 12 to 15. This is the theater where I also saw "Blade Runner", "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", John Carpenter's "The Thing" and Toho's version of "Star Wars" that we all know and love as "Message from Space." </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>In college, I had friends who worked at this theater. Sometime in the late 1990's or early 2000's the theater closed its doors and is now a laser tag arena. I've played laser tag there a few times with my children, it's kind of creepy and eerie to have a birthday party in the old projection room and be able to look out on the twin screen area knowing that in the past there were rows of seats down there and now there's just futuristic laser tag obstacles splashed with fluorescent paint to fluoresce under the batteries of black lights.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWI7Z0y2pp0cVI56PukmY8GNloAkQU8Z2dR_sL2ygcJ2Me8XSy1ffFKAkVuAGA1LljyQ2hbzWchoaPZ9eIr5jCrofJqe7yzxO-iRgnND0Jn6EQRhFL4BybvjuC5JCvEKN1QlSBupxpfV0/s1600/2013-06-14+10.16.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWI7Z0y2pp0cVI56PukmY8GNloAkQU8Z2dR_sL2ygcJ2Me8XSy1ffFKAkVuAGA1LljyQ2hbzWchoaPZ9eIr5jCrofJqe7yzxO-iRgnND0Jn6EQRhFL4BybvjuC5JCvEKN1QlSBupxpfV0/s640/2013-06-14+10.16.01.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The sign has changed some over the years for Hardy Court but the ad marquee is the same one that used to advertise what movies were playing at the Hardy Court twin cinema oh so long ago.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcR958oTQJfFrHZ6TOnehSZqk3dvBCV6w-6jDpCJwMV1NUDlrp7OgOfMPagxO3Zz6TsJ0moHf6ITsRyZ_7armx8qfAfHlD90C_MKxhv43x032zVUlGepq6pZG5nqbBWJGojDHv-MzKxr4/s1600/2013-06-14+10.16.29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcR958oTQJfFrHZ6TOnehSZqk3dvBCV6w-6jDpCJwMV1NUDlrp7OgOfMPagxO3Zz6TsJ0moHf6ITsRyZ_7armx8qfAfHlD90C_MKxhv43x032zVUlGepq6pZG5nqbBWJGojDHv-MzKxr4/s640/2013-06-14+10.16.29.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's the entrance to the old Hardy Court Cinema Twin. You can still see the exterior poster displays where movie posters were displayed showing what was (then) currently playing. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Broadacres Cinema</b></span> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Broadacres Cinema, opened in 1975, was originally a twin screen facility. Two more screens were added in 1980 and two more in the years to come giving it six screens and almost 1200 seats. This is where I saw "Star Wars" when it returned in the summer of 1979 along with the first trailer / preview for the upcoming sequel "The Empire Strikes Back." </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Almost two decades later, this is where I would see the Special Edition of "The Return of the Jedi". Owned by O'Neil Theaters, the Broadacres cinema closed its doors in 2006 when it could not compete with the newly opened "The Grand" (the cinema building is still there but it's slowly being turned into a storage facility).</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJX0QlQVEd_QL89pymkDLeAwd5LOo2Z6JAntQ1fRsQiq4VEgOVn6RRsMdTqI4QKcpaM0rJLe4E7kXroq-s_yGmRMRPoH6GZtMxzy7L7mwNDsyud4wIOiDGoY1AYPCkgRt8Jwk4-Hs4fVc/s1600/2013-06-14+10.01.16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJX0QlQVEd_QL89pymkDLeAwd5LOo2Z6JAntQ1fRsQiq4VEgOVn6RRsMdTqI4QKcpaM0rJLe4E7kXroq-s_yGmRMRPoH6GZtMxzy7L7mwNDsyud4wIOiDGoY1AYPCkgRt8Jwk4-Hs4fVc/s640/2013-06-14+10.01.16.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's what the Broadacres Cinema looks today ... cracked pavement on the parking lot with grass and weeds growing through the cracks, buckled pavement and even some big car swallowing pot holes. Work crews are converting this old cinema into ... something. A sign said that it was going to be a storage facility but that didn't make a lot of sense. I guess time will tell what it eventually becomes.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGgEo7UUBQjuPamuvL1D_HEjFaEN9T9yqKeEHsr6_j9PIGn5s4S4zoxTqDxgqLZVdqet5HmIj_i_m5wt5QmFYcYfTWKDtz1NvR1gMQlERwxUkPdQi7bITY9SIZBLRGLwGzdKJfXNb1LQ/s1600/2013-06-14+10.01.43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGgEo7UUBQjuPamuvL1D_HEjFaEN9T9yqKeEHsr6_j9PIGn5s4S4zoxTqDxgqLZVdqet5HmIj_i_m5wt5QmFYcYfTWKDtz1NvR1gMQlERwxUkPdQi7bITY9SIZBLRGLwGzdKJfXNb1LQ/s640/2013-06-14+10.01.43.jpg" height="640" width="480" /> </a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's another example of how badly this site has been allowed to deteriorate ... this is one of the parking lot lights, grown over now with weeds. These lights haven't been lit in almost a decade now ... </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8j6vSqSfC5oxwZoNAXyXi1mAyjQxe9fLpdKZgb767hPeO1JaOIqkC9u5F8v9UsIxpi56gH3qajmYEiCaXE3-ORgtFN6cip6mjgr86tHl4GGsRK_qy_tvENJXxCBRL1XF_FqV4LC-f3k/s1600/2013-06-14+10.03.05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8j6vSqSfC5oxwZoNAXyXi1mAyjQxe9fLpdKZgb767hPeO1JaOIqkC9u5F8v9UsIxpi56gH3qajmYEiCaXE3-ORgtFN6cip6mjgr86tHl4GGsRK_qy_tvENJXxCBRL1XF_FqV4LC-f3k/s640/2013-06-14+10.03.05.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's the back of the cinema, it was considerably grown over a year or so ago. Some of those are exit doors from the cinema screens. I guess they cleared up the landscape when they started to recondition the building.</b></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBU_y_UEeSjMWYnX2yYejjpfEZoNg9OpOXilpPGkd3FuH4L2KjHmG3X3msW0aAfQEPisw-ZoBpaFtbiFHw-00d_CHCfofgaHuzDH_Lawdi0AkTZN3Q7XqJUA8vsJN1sU6_zW65HWTxImM/s1600/broadacres+cinema.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBU_y_UEeSjMWYnX2yYejjpfEZoNg9OpOXilpPGkd3FuH4L2KjHmG3X3msW0aAfQEPisw-ZoBpaFtbiFHw-00d_CHCfofgaHuzDH_Lawdi0AkTZN3Q7XqJUA8vsJN1sU6_zW65HWTxImM/s640/broadacres+cinema.jpg" height="387" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>This will give you some sense of how hard it is and was to get to the Broadacres Cinema. that's the cinema lower left corner with the big parking lot. It was way off the beaten path. The big building a little to the right is the old Woolco department store. In t his area there used to be a gas station, convenience store, Kroger grocery store, Woolco, Broadacres Cinema and a bank. For a while in the 1970's this area was the main shopping area for residents who lived in North Forrest and the surrounding areas, even when south Hattiesburg seemed to grow in dominance for a while.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>At one time it was thought that Hattiesburg would expand towards the north so this was prime real estate. When Hattiesburg instead exploded to the west this area was left to wither and dry up. The Woolco went out of business long ago (early 1980's) and is some kind of trucking company now. The bank is now a Greyhound bus station, the Kroger was bulldozed to the ground long ago and is just a slab to those who remember what used to be there. A bingo hall was built several years ago but some criminal activity there closed it down and nothing has been there. They did build a Cracker Barrel restaurant near the old bank and that draws a lot of traffic off of the highway.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>There are a lot of other areas here that are important to my teenage years and young adult years ... the Lost Road, the Inn on the Hill, the old Sharky's Shuck and Jive, Krystals, and the loading dock of the old Woolco building but those are all stories found on ... <i>Tales From The Driver's Seat</i>.</b></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Beverly Drive-In Theater</span> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Beverly Drive-In theater, first opened in 1948, was long a historical land mark in this area. It was at the Beverly where I saw the summer re-release of "Star Wars" in 1978. I remember seeing James Bond's bid for "Star Wars" cash, "Moonraker" when it first came out. The Beverly Drive-In theater had a sister drive-in a few miles away, the Broadway Drive-In theater. It was there that I saw the Italian "Star Wars" known as "Star Crash." </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Beverly Drive-In was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>In November of 2010, the Beverly Drive-In was completely destroyed in a fire. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Broadway Drive In theater was demolished long before the Beverly burned down. The only way to see where the old Broadway Drive In used to be is to have been old enough to have gone there and still be able to go to that general area. A look on Google Earth or Google Maps shows the rough outline of the drive in's parking lot.</b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkPGhJWn945ql4p9Q7vd920Uzrfeh3SfRdcBRmr9uGCERaM7-KaW5S5OcX9MgUqO-rcJyo5MIdXXOSTPCDGjDxh6FtNJTm1_mGzW_3mZy_F18efY8CpQ4CwqzXdseKOAwNO0qi7421t8/s1600/beverly+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkPGhJWn945ql4p9Q7vd920Uzrfeh3SfRdcBRmr9uGCERaM7-KaW5S5OcX9MgUqO-rcJyo5MIdXXOSTPCDGjDxh6FtNJTm1_mGzW_3mZy_F18efY8CpQ4CwqzXdseKOAwNO0qi7421t8/s640/beverly+2.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Beverly in less than prime condition but before it burned to the ground. There was a goofy / miniature golf in front of the drive-in, there where the chainlink fence is. The original owners built their house below the main screen and lived there. I was lucky enough to talk to one of the owners and visit the interior of the house back in 1990 when I did a college project based on the Beverly. </span></span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZ4pKha9voa3JYCPWy5RIhpZaMmL9ewnX7vMZtfn7rtngMIjiDvMTJ-jYGeVqWlE7u5GCN1DPwVfkdrTO_9OT3oLHR8_717vdEcZzPCQmUwmA6N2W7AQoEIOhojkjsoRYXouNz1WpnjY/s1600/beverly+drive+in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZ4pKha9voa3JYCPWy5RIhpZaMmL9ewnX7vMZtfn7rtngMIjiDvMTJ-jYGeVqWlE7u5GCN1DPwVfkdrTO_9OT3oLHR8_717vdEcZzPCQmUwmA6N2W7AQoEIOhojkjsoRYXouNz1WpnjY/s640/beverly+drive+in.jpg" height="387" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here is the Google maps view of the Beverly from a few years ago. </b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8SPi5vZkwPIbDqlDgMAZFpIiOiPETOWXOiG6Jfa4tSmsJ-Z_zEqPpIQkq58mKETRBPVq7FXO_UF3BmvSy0EoKHuVZ1dLyhYVmBT0dYBAM281cqcN2K4YFkW_2INeaAtiuRpj-_KoKlM/s1600/broadway+drive+in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8SPi5vZkwPIbDqlDgMAZFpIiOiPETOWXOiG6Jfa4tSmsJ-Z_zEqPpIQkq58mKETRBPVq7FXO_UF3BmvSy0EoKHuVZ1dLyhYVmBT0dYBAM281cqcN2K4YFkW_2INeaAtiuRpj-_KoKlM/s640/broadway+drive+in.jpg" height="385" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Just for fun, here's an aerial view of where the old Broadway Drive-In theater used to be, it's the scraped raw spot there in the lower middle. They've since built a business on it.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>_____________________</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Avanti Twin Cinema</span> </b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Avanti Twin Cinema was old when I moved to Hattiesburg in 1976. Hard to get to, facing Hardy Street from a narrow sidewalk and with little or no parking I guess it was intended as a walk-to theater for the college crowd at the University of Southern Mississippi across the street. "Jaws" played there first run in 1975 but I saw only one movie there as a child that I remember and that was Dino De Laurentis' "King Kong" (the then modern remake). </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Fast forward to 1992. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>I
was lucky enough to see "Star Wars" one last time at the old (nay, by then <i>ancient</i>)
Avanti twin screen theater across the road from the University of
Southern Mississippi. The theater had been taken
over by the college and turned into a student organization run movie
house that showed old movies like "Jaws" or "Apocalypse Now" for a
meager fee to any active student with an ID. It was my senior year in
college and for one last showing, one showing only, the student body
showed "Star Wars" the 1977 original film. I rode my '84 Honda VF500F
Interceptor up there to the 9:00 showing that night. The theater was
packed and I sat, once again, near the rear so that I could see the
whole screen. I mouthed the script silently, I cheered when others
cheered. I boo'ed when others boo'ed and at the end, when the credits
rolled, I stood with the others and clapped.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>While the theater was
emptying, I sat back down and stayed through the credits. I stayed past
the squiggles on the screen until the screen went white and the
projector shut off. It was only then that I got up, walked down the
aisle, exited from the side door and stood there where I'd parked my
Honda. I felt sad ... like I'd just said goodbye again, this time forever, to a good
friend. Fifteen years after it had first entered my life and my
imagination, "Star Wars" was still a blockbuster movie and I had gotten to see it one last time, in an old theater, in the way that it was meant to be seen.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The
Avanti lasted about a decade and a half after that but was used less
and less frequently by the student body. It was torn down in the name
of progress to build an intersection and the demolition of that theater
took place in June of 2006.</b></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6clORzIkV7mLvJshbetdYWTTHQZx0wPfBCbfkWiPr3fuQE-_1qqEuMpUjsijX87Dz2RkufXgxZ-P3ub4lWVhWrVz3THd2Gcaa928Xhs3JJrb6c3zBJJrtO1ey027rPidkuOnvCpTO1-c/s1600/2013-06-14+10.10.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6clORzIkV7mLvJshbetdYWTTHQZx0wPfBCbfkWiPr3fuQE-_1qqEuMpUjsijX87Dz2RkufXgxZ-P3ub4lWVhWrVz3THd2Gcaa928Xhs3JJrb6c3zBJJrtO1ey027rPidkuOnvCpTO1-c/s640/2013-06-14+10.10.50.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Avanti Twin Cinema used to stand where those purple trees are now ... demolished in the name of progress. </b><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>_____________________ </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">United Artists Turtle Creek 9</span> </b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Turtle Creek 9 was a huge cinema plex, larger than anything that Hattiesburg had ever been part of before. Opening in 1994 with the then brand new Turtle Creek Mall the Turtle Creek 9 was where I saw all three of the "Star Wars" prequels as they debuted in 1999, 2002 and 2005. The Turtle Creek 9 was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in the early fall of 2005, repaired, briefly opened for a year or two and was then shut down for good in 2007. Currently it is being used as a church. Yes, a church, in a mall, and the concession stand still works. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The showcase movie poster panels outside the theater, the panels that used to advertise the movies then currently playing now hold posters advertising for the church. Turtle Creek Mall, the mall that killed Cloverleaf Mall and was its replacement is now on its last legs ... you can tell a mall is new when it has a toy store, a book store, a music store and an arcade. You can tell the mall is dying when the arcade, book store and toy store are all just memories and have been replaced by such crowd rousers like the "As seen on TV" store and a premium mattress store. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCBVMJ3SauRRnPdd_iP5ubWstyceDrRL9rYvIZlmapQ_RNNQ5Ecb40meWn5nj5hxqY3t8_1XkXbKiz7g8qnLXpRWrggnfACJPJBUiP1wVWV-iWyzdbRWv3ZiSYY-M2ttdhW7VjmP5jhw/s1600/2013-06-14+12.24.36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCBVMJ3SauRRnPdd_iP5ubWstyceDrRL9rYvIZlmapQ_RNNQ5Ecb40meWn5nj5hxqY3t8_1XkXbKiz7g8qnLXpRWrggnfACJPJBUiP1wVWV-iWyzdbRWv3ZiSYY-M2ttdhW7VjmP5jhw/s640/2013-06-14+12.24.36.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's the exits from two of the cinema screens. I've come down that ramp there late at night on many occasions but sadly no longer ...</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjuNJon3mshNIYHF2k2IufdDvX1FYpaYD17I6W1lNDbpeIjv3xfK5OQ_JYSghc9CHnDyzUfvbzsbb_0aCmx_enjx63SppnZYiaXwcfuw_FO1dq67t51gdMO-2o44YSRvkciZQ67SOqpg/s1600/2013-06-14+12.25.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjuNJon3mshNIYHF2k2IufdDvX1FYpaYD17I6W1lNDbpeIjv3xfK5OQ_JYSghc9CHnDyzUfvbzsbb_0aCmx_enjx63SppnZYiaXwcfuw_FO1dq67t51gdMO-2o44YSRvkciZQ67SOqpg/s640/2013-06-14+12.25.07.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The main mall entrance leading to the Turtle Creek cinemaplex on the right. That's another ex-theater exit door there on the right in the corner.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5in1u3aYpYBLTlinXcHtL-jb48c07zRet56GVXkG-RAmvI8A_K4MH6EwoUxJaUhxWDA7UIsUGvOSCAoVKsuNGN7Qc5MLeMnhtR2qn8ZsgKEBYEPyZQwoV2F7fSKlPMS3ga1n233o22qE/s1600/2013-06-14+12.25.48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5in1u3aYpYBLTlinXcHtL-jb48c07zRet56GVXkG-RAmvI8A_K4MH6EwoUxJaUhxWDA7UIsUGvOSCAoVKsuNGN7Qc5MLeMnhtR2qn8ZsgKEBYEPyZQwoV2F7fSKlPMS3ga1n233o22qE/s640/2013-06-14+12.25.48.jpg" height="480" width="640" /> </a></b></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Here are the "Now Showing" movie poster advertisements outside the old theater ... now used for ads by the church to attract new visitors and members.</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5O-q-tAb_Zd_HV0jg30GEaTVQx3OUBvVgm2Eic18r007WNwcsAaxSRHp2JyCdYBaaTW_cT4910Bc21Iag4zLhEipfnG5X4eCrcWcm-fR7he0ivSPfJrjBTtrP7Wwx1obuCUNS1AeVQI/s1600/2013-06-14+12.25.55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5O-q-tAb_Zd_HV0jg30GEaTVQx3OUBvVgm2Eic18r007WNwcsAaxSRHp2JyCdYBaaTW_cT4910Bc21Iag4zLhEipfnG5X4eCrcWcm-fR7he0ivSPfJrjBTtrP7Wwx1obuCUNS1AeVQI/s640/2013-06-14+12.25.55.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Not sure what the old ticket booth is used for now, if anything, but the marquee there above the church sign shows inspirational message scrolls. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6dENcC2OpXGt1Zf22ZQ2lwxki7vRngo-KkpJArgNOM2QCGFayaaO7jck36GdmKL-tzvojsexLipO8h0ZCmBFoiVlmeHyL-suCnB2zFSFTswqQI27Q6ssX3vHQay7rtbzVLYy7SZacdew/s1600/2013-06-14+12.26.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6dENcC2OpXGt1Zf22ZQ2lwxki7vRngo-KkpJArgNOM2QCGFayaaO7jck36GdmKL-tzvojsexLipO8h0ZCmBFoiVlmeHyL-suCnB2zFSFTswqQI27Q6ssX3vHQay7rtbzVLYy7SZacdew/s640/2013-06-14+12.26.32.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Looking inside the locking flex-gate you can still see the massive concession stand lit. The entrance to the cinema screens was at the top there, where the two green lights are, up a small flight of stairs and with screens to your left and right down hallways. </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhon3170DUn2mp9wLQk-BL2KmI55Z5DgjicjT7jEP47U_8kryMTlqXaWbL4jJWaOFcc_lCt5G7UzbeRZPZm1uIHxmUGKIoG5k3PwNLo0mZpT2qOf6kfnaQQHjOvBNsiIDac9aBGb84oRBY/s1600/2013-06-14+12.26.44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUua-RH_-i3wv1lRp5m94UIKIv-fEZkGMLdeErbC-5leA4ePAQodUCpwXVi3bOYZpjV5RqOu6c8anxmeeQW7pAVA_f7BWKc7x1TvR-zbGLqwaBF9rJzYTm19yo2W2YxwkH8pFFF5YPEh0/s1600/2013-06-14+12.51.04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUua-RH_-i3wv1lRp5m94UIKIv-fEZkGMLdeErbC-5leA4ePAQodUCpwXVi3bOYZpjV5RqOu6c8anxmeeQW7pAVA_f7BWKc7x1TvR-zbGLqwaBF9rJzYTm19yo2W2YxwkH8pFFF5YPEh0/s640/2013-06-14+12.51.04.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's the old theater in its entirety ... main entrance, ticket booth / office and the advertisement posters on the wall. Hard to believe that this is now a non-denominational church ... in a mall.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuZJMl4WmcE71JaxgVQZ8Uc7spPjCM1AgdyXEq82aoZH0nzO7UztkQLtP2g3udSEJ3BTd8d19C9mikhOn7E71BRZBFNY014a5l4fatTkiFxwS8Gbt0MUi7MuF5duPW_WQM5Z2DePNP7k/s1600/2013-06-14+12.56.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuZJMl4WmcE71JaxgVQZ8Uc7spPjCM1AgdyXEq82aoZH0nzO7UztkQLtP2g3udSEJ3BTd8d19C9mikhOn7E71BRZBFNY014a5l4fatTkiFxwS8Gbt0MUi7MuF5duPW_WQM5Z2DePNP7k/s640/2013-06-14+12.56.12.jpg" height="640" width="480" /> </a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Here's the original theater marquee as it stands today. Dick's Sporting Goods is just behind me in another building that's seen its fair share of companies and owners over the years. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggV4f-OFzw9B33pZQ81sYfZc1y70JLvSzT9blK4FSULK5YILZlizcrmmszC3otstiV71NEEngyDA5hWRfK_NFnRGDE3qgm9z1oicf5_Ze9EJpodVRSvsAa345lErZtxHmRaakckTyWyEs/s1600/laser1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggV4f-OFzw9B33pZQ81sYfZc1y70JLvSzT9blK4FSULK5YILZlizcrmmszC3otstiV71NEEngyDA5hWRfK_NFnRGDE3qgm9z1oicf5_Ze9EJpodVRSvsAa345lErZtxHmRaakckTyWyEs/s400/laser1.jpg" height="400" width="371" /> </a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>As luck would have it, I had an old photo of the UA Turtle Creek Cinema marquee back when it was the major theater for the area. I took a picture mainly because someone incorrectly listed a movie as "Laser of Disguise" instead of "Master of Disguise." I'm glad I remembered this picture as it shows you what the old marquee looked like before it became a church. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>_____________________ </b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-47081984441222842102013-05-27T14:32:00.002-07:002014-09-01T07:31:42.154-07:00Seeing "Star Wars" for the first time ...<!--[if !mso]>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9v0yNrOgiAaF2UDvLd0BYv46W5geUqEM84uGQebmO8s2P6Qfc4PW-nWmhbJECR4WOi7PRZmOYkQw7a-V1HYGzASmNJbRxAFo6Pv8FKgv4nHhP1W1QL64s3yrHMSQxumtBG831Y9BzKUk/s1600/swpreposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9v0yNrOgiAaF2UDvLd0BYv46W5geUqEM84uGQebmO8s2P6Qfc4PW-nWmhbJECR4WOi7PRZmOYkQw7a-V1HYGzASmNJbRxAFo6Pv8FKgv4nHhP1W1QL64s3yrHMSQxumtBG831Y9BzKUk/s1600/swpreposter.jpg" height="640" width="410" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A few months before "Star Wars" started being spoken about </span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I had been uprooted from my classroom in Jackson, MS and with my family we had moved to Hattiesburg, MS in the late fall of 1976. I had lost all of my friends, I had been put in a new public school already in session during the year, dumped among kids I didn't know and here I was, a stranger in a strange land.</span></span></b><br />
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Everyone has a favorite movie in their life.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For some people it is "Gone with the Wind." For others it might be "The Wizard of Oz" or "Casablanca" or "The Godfather" or "Jaws".</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For me that movie was "Star Wars".</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was a movie that will always hold a special place in my heart.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It was 1977, the spring of 1977 and I was in second grade, Mrs. Ross' class, at Thames Elementary School in Hattiesburg, MS, when </span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars"
came out of nowhere taking me totally by surprise. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I began to see pictures of "Star Wars" ... early publicity shots,
press release photos, just bits and pieces, teasers … The
entertainment media back then was primitive ... almost stone age in comparison to what we have today. Back then you couldn't get on your home computer
or your smart phone and look up "Star Wars" ... you had to search for
it in periodicals like "People" magazine and "Time"
magazine and "Newsweek" magazine. You had to find these
magazines at stores like a bookstore, a news-stand or a grocery store magazine
rack and then you had to thumb through them by hand to see if they had any info
you wanted. If these magazines had any info then you had to take what
little tidbits they gave you because that was all that you were going to
get. There were no message forums to join and share information, what you
held in your hands was it and that was all you were going to get until you were
lucky enough for something else to come along your way.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" teased me to no end
... here was some new space action movie that looked hella cool and all I could
find out about it was a few pictures that kept getting passed around and
printed in magazines and a few paragraphs giving only the simplest of plots and
outlines. “Star Wars” quickly became a
runaway train, smashing anything in its path and everyone was getting onboard
except me.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On May 25, 1977, "Star Wars" was released in limited theaters and instantly started making waves. Suddenly there was a movie out there that everyone was talking about ... but it wasn't playing where I lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I’m not even sure that it was playing anywhere in Mississippi at that time and if it was then it wasn’t anywhere close.</span></span></b><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
In the summer of 1977 I remember going on family vacation once again to
Gatlinburg, Tennessee, just like we did almost every year at that time and just
like we did every time that we went on vacation to Tennessee we stopped by my
grandmother's brother's house to visit him and his wife. While we were
there, my father wanted a haircut so we found a barber shop and that's when I
got my first real taste of "Star Wars" in the May issue of "<a href="http://fantasticflashbacks.blogspot.com/2009/06/1977-time-star-wars-article.html" target="_blank">Time</a>"
magazine. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxvigtqUUZFAgwpY_kGus0uK6oBaSKh8bkMpTXomb2ziBlVJkhRYpaNmt3cGA4aNL1ucDNy_BMLXcaSiC06QuZ9WoPyOAGeiq_S2pdHM6rdWFH0w1gb9W8EKbnGNQb36JYNNbBRrDsh8/s1600/time77.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpxvigtqUUZFAgwpY_kGus0uK6oBaSKh8bkMpTXomb2ziBlVJkhRYpaNmt3cGA4aNL1ucDNy_BMLXcaSiC06QuZ9WoPyOAGeiq_S2pdHM6rdWFH0w1gb9W8EKbnGNQb36JYNNbBRrDsh8/s320/time77.jpg" height="640" width="483" /></a></span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Already calling "Star Wars" "<i>The Year's Best Movie</i>" and already about seven weeks old
at the time, it was still the freshest bit of “Star Wars” news that I had. In fact, until I read the article in the
magazine I had no idea that the movie was actually out at that time. The
two page color spread of X-wings and TIE fighters fighting it out in space, Han
Solo and Chewbacca and a group of Stormtroopers all amazed me. These were
new pictures, pictures of “Star Wars” that I hadn’t seen before.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My imagination had just been captured.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I had to see this movie! </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I sat there staring at the pictures and
reading the limited text of the article while my dad got his haircut. I
remember the barber was nice enough to let me keep the magazine, because this
was July and that was May’s issue, and my dad gave him an extra dollar for the
magazine just to be nice. After we left,
we passed by a large cinema on the other side of the road and there, in big red
letters, were the words "Star Wars" ... </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was out! </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was playing here!</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The movie that I really, really wanted to
see was here, now, playing in the city where we were at!</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In Chattanooga,
TN! </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And we were on vacation! </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I asked my father if we could see “Star
Wars” and he said that we’d think about it.
Later that day he reverted to typical father to child logic of "<i>Let's
just wait until it starts playing back home to see it</i>" and that was
it. The only problem was that "Star Wars" wasn't initially
taken as a <i>serious</i> movie ... it was in limited, perhaps even cautious,
distribution, at first, and once it caught box office fire more and more
theaters carried it but it was a slow, unstoppable fire that was just starting
to burn. Even Gene Shallot of the "Today" show had only good
things to say about the film and his scathing commentary was normally the kiss
of death to many promising movies. I remember seeing his review of the
film sometime after the summer and the short clips he displayed in his segment
and my appetite was ravenous for "Star Wars" ... but it still wasn't
playing in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
From July to September I was teased with bits and pieces of “Star Wars”
… I thought I could tell some of the story, I thought I could tell the good guy
spaceships from the bad guy spaceships but there was still so much that I
didn’t know about the movie, about the story …</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sometime in September I saw my first
television advertisement for "Star Wars" ... what people today would call a "trailer". "Star Wars" still wasn't playing
nearby but at least I was seeing the advertisements for "Star Wars"
about once a week on the local TV stations, if I was lucky to catch them. If I was in one end of the house and heard the music and special effects of the commercial you had better not be in my way because I was breaking my neck to get from one end of the house to the other just to catch a few seconds of the commercial / trailer. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Eventually "Star
Wars" did reach Hattiesburg,
Mississippi in the late fall of
1977, a good four or five months after it first started playing in major parts
of the country. To sum it up, I first heard about "Star Wars"
while I was in mid second grade. I didn't get to actually see it until I
was early into my third grade year at elementary school. Back then gas
prices and inflation were out of control.
You didn’t load up the car and drive 90 miles away to see a movie. Back then, nobody liked to waste gas or
money, in fact, Bell South advertised their phone service with the tag line of
“Let your fingers do the walking” meaning call stores or theaters to see if
they have what you want before you drive all that way rather than get in the car, drive over there and look and waste gas and be disappointed. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Waiting on "Star Wars" to start
playing at my local cinema was like waiting on Christmas to come around again
... all the while knowing that I was going to make out like a bandit when I
woke up that morning. The anticipation of "Star Wars" was
palpable, there was electricity in the air and "Star Wars" was
generating it all across America.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
And then it was here ... “Star Wars” began playing at the twin screen cinema
located in our local mall, Cloverleaf Mall. And what did my dad say when
I asked him to go see it the first weekend that it opened?</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
"That seems to be a pretty popular movie.
<i>Let's wait a week or two ... let the crowds die down so we don't have
to fight all of those people just to get tickets and get a good seat.</i>"</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
Arrrrrrrrggghhh!</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I felt like Charlie Brown feels when he
goes to kick the football that Lucy is holding and she yanks it away at the
last second and he goes flying onto his back.
If the Force had been strong with me I would have Force choked my father
on the spot … but I didn’t know about the Force or that you could Force choke
someone so ...</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One week turned into two weeks and the
crowds didn’t die down they just got bigger.
Everyone was going to see “Star Wars” not just once but twice, three
times, four times … even more! Long
lines at the cinema were common place when we went to Cloverleaf Mall and I
used to go stand by the cinema, wishing I could see that movie, looking at the
movie poster, seeing all the people standing in line for each and every
show. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two weeks turned into three weeks. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My friends at school were all raving
about “Star Wars” and one friend had even seen it three times now. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That was it! </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That was frigging it!</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When my dad got home that Friday night I
begged him and my mom to take me to see “Star Wars” and for about 20 minutes I
was “that child” but I had finally had enough.
It was a movie. I knew it was
more than that but to my parents it was just a movie. I wanted to see it. I’d been wanting to see it for about half a
year now. I’d been patient. No, I’d been beyond patient. I’d been almost Job-like in my patience but
now my patience was at an end, an absolute end.
I think that was the first time that my dad realized just how serious I
was about seeing this movie … or what it meant to me to go see it.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
And so, about three weeks after “Star Wars” first opened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
at the end of October or the first part of November 1977 I finally did get to
see the movie that I’d waited so long to see. My dad took me, 8 years
old, and my sister, 5 years old, to see it on a cold, gray Saturday matinee. We stood in line for nearly 45 minutes to get
tickets and when we did we had to sit near the back of the theater but that was
fine with me since it was a really large screen and the speakers were at the
rear of the theater.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What waited for me inside that theater
was anything but cold and gray. What
waited for me inside that theater was beyond anything that I had imagined or
could have imagined. What was waiting
inside that theater was a mental reset for a wonder-filled eight year old boy’s
mind. What was waiting inside that
theater was a complete reprogramming of my fertile little imagination.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I remember the first time that I saw
"Star Wars" ... mind blowing is too small, too incomplete of a term
to describe the experience. I'd seen movies before ... mostly Disney
flicks like "Escape to Witch
Mountain" and
"Follow that Dinosaur" and the animated "Robin Hood" ... to
me, movies were just big shows, a movie screen was just a big TV screen.
You got popcorn and a drink, you sat in the dark and you watched the
movie. Movies, to me, up until that point in time, were just big TV shows
without commercials. That was what was
cool about movies … they were just like TV shows that didn’t have any
commercials. Big TV shows.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
"Star Wars" was different ... </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" wasn't a movie, it
wasn't a big TV show on a big screen ... it was an escape from everything that
sucked in the 1970's. “Star Wars”
was a ticket to ride to a galaxy far, far away.
"Star Wars" was an experience; it was a two hour vacation of
the senses, of epic storytelling, of thundering music, of ear shattering
sounds, of eye melting special effects and it transported you to crystal clear
vistas the likes of which you had never before seen. Outer space, vibrant
colored planets, a world that was a desert, a giant metal space station the
size of a small moon and a lush jungle planet from which our heroes would fight
back from. Screaming blaster bolts, hissing light sabers, whining spaceship
engines, booming explosions all carried out to an orchestra background that not
only captured perfectly the sense of the action of the movie but a soundtrack
that moved your very soul.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star Wars”, in short, was pure magic
made real.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhYiRtDUHmzQ9pkefmZKcoBtJt7U3carLGPT1V6QJJKN_h0CFB5iszVIrm2oW8RkG6DomCVhX1id9car81aTUWRdTcbYaydRW6Z-g8uzPbth4jxiXEL9qh_UL7rfQ5ryCiI9C1gr9Fjs/s1600/swlogo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhYiRtDUHmzQ9pkefmZKcoBtJt7U3carLGPT1V6QJJKN_h0CFB5iszVIrm2oW8RkG6DomCVhX1id9car81aTUWRdTcbYaydRW6Z-g8uzPbth4jxiXEL9qh_UL7rfQ5ryCiI9C1gr9Fjs/s400/swlogo1.jpg" height="210" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKdTmF3kvCAvECsXfqQxkzaSHoOmzL8VjXDodXVd5caWV7hCThtQjWUrUyFZ48SCVPXXB7iby46gBet1eJXXeLDk6Ek200dbtjCOvUKUAH3lWmS7d1o4r2AB0gLqqMjbrPeXzzfiqgvE/s1600/swlogotitle.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></a></span></span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
"Star Wars" became a pop culture supernova ... it was the perfect
storm that appeared at the perfect time and America, let alone the world, was
never the same after. "Star Wars" appeared at a time of great
doom and gloom in America.
After years and years of political corruption, Watergate, OPEC, problems in the
Middle East, energy crises, inflation, pollution, and a whole host of other
grim situations America was ready for something that made us feel good,
something that we could root for and cheer for.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was just that.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The nation, and perhaps the world, needed
a "feel-good" movie and "Star Wars" filled that need for
many, many people. It was a simple tale of good and evil, of struggle, of
loss and ultimately of good triumphing over evil in a classic way but
"Star Wars" took it so much farther. "Star Wars"
appeared on the scene and took command of everything ... references to
"Star Wars" soon appeared in everything from church bulletins to
politics and political cartoons.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "Star Wars" was unlike anything anyone had ever seen or experienced
before ... going into "Star Wars" for the first time obliterated any
preconceived notions of science fiction, obliterated any established frames of
reference that you may have thought that you had in regard to movies, to visual
effects, and to soundtracks. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" wasn't a movie, no, it
was an event … a once in a lifetime event. It was like being at ground zero of a pop culture supernova.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobCxjFv0nyUn3oWlKChYfaqEbvuL2sY1eYH8Snc7NUa9YXNfdrX8f90-JmrzaWfhz-uZOC7TvibvEil1iYLqoIq0npKZa5Z2QwR8HisrY6r2buwsBM5hISm93hrL6o2i39QUCQXs_lx4/s1600/pursuit1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobCxjFv0nyUn3oWlKChYfaqEbvuL2sY1eYH8Snc7NUa9YXNfdrX8f90-JmrzaWfhz-uZOC7TvibvEil1iYLqoIq0npKZa5Z2QwR8HisrY6r2buwsBM5hISm93hrL6o2i39QUCQXs_lx4/s400/pursuit1.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">From the opening title logo scrawl to
that first view of Princess Leia's eleven engine ship racing across the screen
getting chased by that huge Imperial Star Destroyer that filled the screen and
seemed to go on and on forever ... the fierce battles in the corridor of her
ship, the secret message being loaded into R2D2, the escape pod, the desert
planet, the hunt for the droids, the death of Luke's uncle and aunt, the cantina,
the Falcon's escape, the destruction of Alderaan, the rescue of the Princess, the
gunfight in the cell block, the garbage compactor, the heroes getting chased
through the Death Star, the death of Obi-Wan, the gun turrets of the Falcon
blasting the pursuit TIE fighters, the Rebel base in the old stone temple on
Yavin, the preparation for the attack on the Death Star, the final battle and
the awards ceremony for the heroes. "Star Wars" was a fairy
tale brought to life, torn from the pages of a child's story book and given
life by hundreds of talented individuals ... like Disney's "Fantasia"
where Mickey Mouse uses magic to animate ordinary items into an orchestra of
motion and action, George Lucas used magic to bring to life a fairy tale like nothing
ever seen before.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIEcTwDtNGZAwivny5PeclAs25bFPj3AD7_UfkV_R0Ih0QJnN0lfgbMWdvsKnLg4ybzrvjkEeUBJriOXWgF8sdHriGAzJBwOEC7eeGR9udpiQATNVNhm38TfkCJpoe6NKkKY-jKVKXa8/s1600/falcon1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIEcTwDtNGZAwivny5PeclAs25bFPj3AD7_UfkV_R0Ih0QJnN0lfgbMWdvsKnLg4ybzrvjkEeUBJriOXWgF8sdHriGAzJBwOEC7eeGR9udpiQATNVNhm38TfkCJpoe6NKkKY-jKVKXa8/s640/falcon1.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></span></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Our first glimpse of what would become an iconic pop-culture starship ... the Millennium Falcon.</span></b></div>
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Like I said, it was a primitive time of
media entertainment ... once a movie was gone it wasn't going to be in stores
on VHS or DVD six weeks after it left the theaters ... it was gone for
good. There were no VHS or DVDs back then, laserdisc was just starting to
be available but it was super </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">expensive. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Yi_I3NBhWAarP6DKJo1Gf3_h57tIJA5H28gbe_mJndJwn8kH6sWoDygab34SicbFePgThYpkSxzpa5cplWf1TE63OJqBm2KV3Qri5d97K9w43hWSaxsOS2CMk_4taEwohv4d9zVPhzA/s1600/falconblastoff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Yi_I3NBhWAarP6DKJo1Gf3_h57tIJA5H28gbe_mJndJwn8kH6sWoDygab34SicbFePgThYpkSxzpa5cplWf1TE63OJqBm2KV3Qri5d97K9w43hWSaxsOS2CMk_4taEwohv4d9zVPhzA/s640/falconblastoff.jpg" height="274" width="640" /></a><br />
<b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(One of my favorite scenes in the 1977 movie. </span></b><b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I still prefer the unedited lift-off sequence to the CGI version. One thing George Lucas should have learned long ago is <i>"just because you CAN change something doesn't mean that you SHOULD.")</i></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kids today are so spoiled ... seeing a
movie in a theater has, even for me, become a rarely used option these days
especially with people being obnoxious and rude, cell phones, outrageous prices
and the advent of high quality, easily affordable home theater setups.
I'd rather just wait until the movie is released to direct sales and rent a
copy from Redbox or Netflix and watch it at home than I would see it on the big
screen and pay $40 to do so. For me, now that watching a movie is an
option at home, it makes it more fun to do so. I can hit the subtitles, I
can pause the movie if I need to go to the bathroom or get something else to
eat or drink, I can rewind and watch a scene over again, I can even stop the
movie, walk away, go to bed and come back later and pick right back up where I
left off. You can't do that if you go see a movie in a theater ... and I
guess for a while there that was part of the magic as well. For a while,
"Star Wars" was only available in the theater and you had to
experience it that way if you were going to experience it at all.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you don't believe that seeing "Star Wars", the first movie,
was an experience, imagine the feeling of sitting there in that theater back in
1977 when the first Rebel fighter begins its attack run on the Death Star
trench ... the screen tilts crazily, green laser bolts flash from surface
anti-spacecraft guns trying to destroy you, speed blurs everything, space
careens around you as you, put into the pilot's seat of the lead fighter for
the point of view, scream down out of space, drop into the trench and level off
in a dizzying array of aerobatic skill ... you were there for that and it was
magic.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star Wars” was different because it was
made different. In fact, several
technologies had to be invented in order for “Star Wars” to even exist. “Star Wars” wasn’t just the same old tricks
with a new coat of paint, no, “Star Wars” was a whole new breed of film.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTK1mJxk5TT8xMazuH4cWkE276m28CvwvUykVBmwSGGEYmb0MI02kuJR5AnrG2IpLfXEH0O5bTLIfzWAQ04LqbJQVmhaoY0SKgM4u7R7hmAuu3fOaK1gidVk5ynY7d3Nq_j6idDntS3tY/s1600/imperialvictory.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none;"></span></a></span></span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was space opera ...
not the dark, gritty, no-nonsense, moral-imposing approach to stories like
Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the special effects laden
tree hugging cult classic "Silent Running" (even though "Star
Wars" shared the same kind of colossal special effects as those two
movies) , "Star Wars" instead was just good, clean fun. It was
something that you could sit back in the theater seat, grab some popcorn and a
Coke, throw your mind into neutral and just lose yourself in it.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star
Wars” was a first … unlike “Star Trek” and “2001” and “Silent Running” or
“Logan’s Run” or “Planet of the Apes”, all of which were science fiction that
had to be interpreted or which told a moralistic play and drove home a lesson …
“Star Wars” could simply be enjoyed and that, probably above all else, is what
made it the success that it was.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star Wars” entertained.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It didn’t preach.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It didn’t warn.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It didn’t threaten.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It didn’t try to influence your social or
political behavior or change you as a person.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">... and it didn't require you to think a whole lot in order to "get it". </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star Wars” was just space opera for
space opera’s sake. It was fun … for
fun’s sake. When you went to see “Star
Wars” you didn’t feel like you had just been shoved down on the front row pew
of the church of science fiction and that the preacher was about to make you
really uncomfortable for the next two hours of your life … no, when you went to
see “Star Wars” you felt like the only thing missing was a seat belt on your
theater chair.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" was a movie that
was like nothing ever seen before or I'd dare say ever since. Something
like "Star Wars" was a once in a lifetime chance to experience and
those who did not experience it like I did are poorer for the loss.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Star Wars" smashed the box office like the Death Star smashed the planet Alderaan.<br />Another shot of the crowds waiting to see, to experience "Star Wars."</span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Star Wars" wasn't a movie ... it was an amusement ride, a visual and audio roller coaster ride that lasted almost two hours. </span></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/movie-guide/cms/binary/6676991.jpg" target="_blank">Long lines</a> formed to see "Star
Wars" and it soon broke all box office records, becoming the highest
grossing motion picture of all time edging out even “The Godfather” and “Jaws”.
"</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Star Wars" became a hero of a film, setting new records, winning new
awards, storming our lives and "Star Wars" seemed to be here to
stay. Week after week the words “Star Wars” were displayed on the marquee
of the local theater. Every day, in the
movie advertisement section of the local newspaper was a large ad for “Star
Wars”. Other movies came and went but in
Hattiesburg at
the twin screen cinema located in Cloverleaf Mall, week after week the title
"Star Wars" stayed on the billboard marquee. It made me happy,
as a child, to see that "Star Wars" was still playing week after week
at the same cinema. It seemed like something that I could count on, like
an anchor in my life.</span></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia7uDB9Pineh8OCcjrkK0xZfLLRh3PRz7i6JvFD3coO50Kdo1sV-s7MCMdQ9Y2BNY7Dh2ydRzU_O-BJPhn8ttKHRmJMcjOBskSXYTI5ZMLK8HcY9X_wLp5-mGe2aqQN1OechtbLqehigo/s1600/falconlaunch.jpg">
</a>Six months "Star Wars" played
in the same theater on the same screen.</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After six months I soon started to think
that "Star Wars" would never leave ... that "Star Wars"
would always be a part of my life, that anytime I wanted to go see "Star
Wars" that I would be able to do so now or next week or three months from
then. After a year, "Star Wars" was still playing in the same
cinema, day after day, week after week, and it seemed like it would never go
away.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oh, while "Star Wars" had
played at that little twin screen cinema in the Cloverleaf Mall I must have
gone and seen it about twenty-five times, probably on average twice a month and
sometimes when I went to see it I just didn't leave ... I camped out in the
theater all afternoon. I went and saw “Star Wars” by myself because “Star
Wars” became a personal experience, a personal journey and I didn’t care to
share that with others. </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I remember that I would watch one viewing
of "Star Wars", stay through the credits, use the bathroom, get some
more popcorn, another drink, and I would just sit back down and wait until the
next showing began and then I would watch it from start to finish again.
In those days, you could get away with that, especially if you were a little
kid. Not so much today but when you could it was glorious to be a kid.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I would do chores for "Star
Wars" money ... I'd cut the grass or do housework or help wash my parents'
cars and when I got my allowance I would get my parents to carry me to the
mall, drop me off, and pick me up after the show or shows if I was staying all
afternoon. Times were different back then, I wouldn't let my children go
to see a show by their selves at 8 years old and just leave them all afternoon
but back then you could, at least in Hattiesburg, Mississippi you could.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And then ... one day "Star
Wars" left Hattiesburg,
Mississippi.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
I'm not sure when it happened because it seemed like "Star Wars" had
been playing forever but when I saw that the cinema marquee no longer showed
"Star Wars" as playing there I felt incredibly sad as a child, like a
good friend had moved off and that I would never see them again. </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
And like that, "Star Wars" was gone, replaced with something else ...
I don't remember what movie finally replaced "Star Wars" because what
ever had replaced it had turned that cinema from a shrine of experience back
into just an ordinary, boring cinema ... just a big TV screen showing a big
television show with no commercials. When "Star Wars" left Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
it took with it something magic, something special, that was never again to be
seen or experienced in the way that it had been.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And then it was back!</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Star Wars” was re-released for the
summer of 1978 and the magic was there again.
This time, “Star Wars” played at the Beverly Drive-In Theater. There was a new movie poster and my father,
my sister and I went to see “Star Wars” again for my birthday. The screen was bigger but the speakers that
you had to hang from the window of your car, the summer heat with no air
conditioning and sitting there in a car all made “Star Wars” not exactly what
it had been just six months previously but it was still “Star Wars” and I loved
it. I was nine years old and “Star Wars”
was back for a visit on the big screen.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the summer of 1979, “Star Wars”
visited again … this time at the Broadacres four screen theater set way back in
a war torn parking lot that was hard to get to and located behind the Woolco
store. That was the time when previews
for next summer’s sequel to “Star Wars”, titled “The Empire Strikes Back” were
also being shown. Immediately there was
a feeling that the sequel wasn’t as stunning as the original … even the
preview, presented to amaze and tease, did really neither. The characters looked different, the
locations were different, the action was hard to follow in the preview and
ultimately it felt like someone had just taken bits and pieces of “Star Wars”
and thrown them together in new ways. We
were used to the desert world of Tattooine … now we had an ice planet with big
ice monsters, we had an asteroid field (was that the remains of Alderaan?) and
some city in the clouds.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After seeing the preview for “The Empire
Strikes Back” and then watching “Star Wars” again in an enclosed cinema
building I felt like I really was saying goodbye to a childhood friend … to my
best friend. I felt that the new kid on
the block, coming this time next year, may have been moving into the same house
with the same address as my old friend that I was saying goodbye to but this
new kid, this sequel, wasn’t going to be the same as the friend that I had
spent the last three years with. The new
movie didn’t excite, it didn’t grab me and whisk me off to places I’d never
been before and so when “Star Wars” left again, for the last time, in that
summer of 1979 a part of me left with it too.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The theater, which had once again become
a kind shrine of sci-fi experience, once again became just a building where
they showed movies.</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I was ten years old. I’d now seen “Star Wars” over twenty-five
times in three different locations. “Star
Wars” and I had been best friends for the better part of three years now. That’s a long time to a child. Those were magical years, golden years that I
wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.</span></span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-81748030099648539052013-05-25T22:02:00.000-07:002014-08-31T00:05:59.746-07:0036 Years Ago Today: 5-25-1977 to 5-25-2013<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ7l2ccrJCqzPTbGhShY7HKmSEy95qdrZRnsCr-TwJzR46zd4Z4ladrm5rc1tk6ZEuLiSjwENc-q3Kg6RAFJiXzhEJoF0zWVX5KaESLiUUGkgFU14DNhpmTbbV8fycuh9ZzQep0UJ2wj8/s1600/childhood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ7l2ccrJCqzPTbGhShY7HKmSEy95qdrZRnsCr-TwJzR46zd4Z4ladrm5rc1tk6ZEuLiSjwENc-q3Kg6RAFJiXzhEJoF0zWVX5KaESLiUUGkgFU14DNhpmTbbV8fycuh9ZzQep0UJ2wj8/s400/childhood.jpg" height="75" width="400" /></a></span></b></div>
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<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Welcome to my new "Star Wars" blog ... launched thirty-six years to the day (May 25, 1977) after the original release of "Star Wars" the movie in theaters. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That's "Star Wars" ... </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not "<i>Episode IV: A New Hope"</i> ... just "Star Wars" from a time when there was one movie and only one movie. </span></b><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back before the dark times ... before the sequels and prequels ... a time before the magic was lost.</b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Star Wars" - just ... "Star Wars"</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can still remember what seeing this poster in the marquee display at the Cloverleaf Mall twin cinema used to do to me, walking past it, seeing "STAR WARS" in those slide on black letters on the display out front ... it was enough to make a eight year old boy's heart race and imagination soar.</span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Years passed.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Decades.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>And yet, my love for this one movie never died. It suffered, it faltered, sometimes it even went a little cold but it never died. Over the many years since 1977 I've often thought back to that time in my life ... those wonderful years of 1977 to 1979 and having those memories I thought it might be nice, maybe even important, to share those memories with others who were there, with others who might have forgotten or who might want to remember again the magic that George Lucas brought to the silver screen a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So ...</b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I decided to
start a "Star Wars" blog, filled with memories of my childhood and what
it was like to be a seven year old kid when "Star Wars" hit the big
screen in 1977. I decided to do this because if I didn't separate the
"Star Wars" memories from the rest of the things I wanted to talk about
then the "Star Wars" memories would rapidly drown the "Angst and Speed"
blog.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The three years of time that stretched from
December 1976 to December 1979 will always be a golden age of childhood for me ... a
special time of magic and wonder and excitement and awe. This new blog of mine is called "<span style="color: red;"><i>The March of the Twelve Backs</i></span>"
and the title is taken from the name of the card stock that the
original twelve Kenner Star Wars action figures </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">used back then</span></b>. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The original "12 Back" card circa 1978 showing the super ultra-rare telescopic Lightsaber (very few figures arrived with these) and the first three vehicles designed for those new three and three quarter inch sized action figures. The artwork was </b></span></div>
</div>
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The action figures were in such demand, hell, anything with the "Star Wars" name on it let alone toys, were in such high demand that Kenner didn't even have pictures of the final figures to show ... so they did some beautiful full color artwork of the characters that would be represented by the action figures and put this artwork on the card backs of the original 12 action figures along with a description of what each figure was and the equipment that came with it. Hence, the term "Twelve Backs." I know, given thirty-six years later that there are hundreds of Star Wars figures out there from all six movies and all the other Star Wars related shows and specials and games and novels but back when "Star Wars" hit the big screen there were only twelve action figures. Period. And three toy vehicles. Period.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Star Wars affected people around the
world like a cultural supernova. There was magic and awe in the air, people lined up around the block to get to see "Star Wars" and they saw it multiple times. "Star Wars" was magic, pure and simple, and it was a real kind of magic. I'm a huge fan of the original 1977 "Star Wars" movie ... the first release ... before George Lucas
re-released it and stuck the tagline of "Episode IV: A New Hope" into
the prelude scrawl across the stars. For me, there
was only one "Star Wars" and that was the original, 1977, unedited
release. Everything after that pretty much blew sweaty Bantha
genitalia.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There was a
very palpable magic in "Star Wars" ... Lucas was hailed as a visionary
at the time but as the decades would slowly prove George Lucas was much less a visionary than he was a
revisonary ... often with terrible results. Lucas said that when he
made "Star Wars" he set about to "<i>Give a fairytale to a generation that
didn't have any fairytales.</i>" </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Of course, my generation had fairytales. We had the classics like Aesops and others. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What Lucas really meant was that he was going to give a fairytale to a
generation that had no fairytales because the generation that he was talking about didn't believe in
classic, traditional fairytales. No. That generation was the generation that spawned all of the bleeding heart liberals and tree hugging, environmental whackos and with tthat in mind Lucas set about to turn "Star Wars"
into the biggest, whine-fest of a liberal fairytale that the world had
seen. What started out as a simple tale of good versus evil with good
triumphing over evil must have really messed up Lucas' mind and laid his
hippy spirit low ... After "Star Wars" became the cultural phenomenon that it did there was speculation and talk of how evil Darth Vader was. Vader's rapid rise to one of, if not the, most iconic villains in movie history probably threw Lucas
into overdrive to correct that perception.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How is "Star Wars" a liberal fairytale?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Easy.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Taken as a whole, the six movies put together tell the story
of Darth Vader, aka Anakin Skywalker, and how it just wasn't his fault
that he turned out to be evil. You see, in a liberal mindset, devoid of logic and thinking and filled with emotion, there really isn't
any such thing as good and evil ... instead there's just different shades of gray.
No one is evil, no one is responsible for what they do or did, rather they're
all victims of bad childhoods, not getting a pony for their 8th
birthday, growing up in a single parent family, unfair child labor, competing in violent pod races ... to a liberal anyone who does something bad is never at fault
... instead, it's their circumstances which are to blame for their behavior. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Liberals are
the kind of people who, when one person takes a gun and shoots another person then the
person who used the gun and pulled the trigger isn't to blame ... no,
they are just the victim of all the bad things that happened to them in
life and we must explore those circumstances, compassionately, in order to arrive at the real truth of the situation. Oh, and it's the gun's fault for shooting the other person.
Liberals love to blame inanimate objects and give them animate traits
and since liberals really can't punish a handgun they instead try to
punish the company that made the handgun ... rather than punish the
person who actually pulled the trigger and shot the other individual. In the liberal mindset the real crime is that the gun exists in the first place. If the gun had never existed or been manufactured then the person wouldn't have used it to shoot another person.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For some of you reading this, I've just introduced you to the incredibly stupid world of liberalism. </span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've come to
realize that most liberals are simply suffering from advanced mental
retardation. You cannot be a liberal unless you are severely mentally
retarded because what they use for logic makes no real sense at all and
defies everything else that we know is sound and true.</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker is a perfect example of liberal logic. </span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Anakin was
from a single parent home and over the six different movies we come to
find out that Darth Vader, once considered cinema's reigning black armor
clad prince of evil, was not so much a tremendous villain as he was
just a tremendous fuck up. After he is thrust into greatness at Naboo
he consistently fails to live up to expectations after that. In the
second movie he is shown to have severe mommy issues. In the third episode he is refused what he wants, he breaks the
rules of those who have taken him in and ultimately his greed and
desires destroy everything around him. He was supposed to bring balance
to the Force, according to a prophecy, but instead he destroys the Jedi
order ... almost. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In Episode IV Vader is tasked with retrieving the
stolen plans to the Death Star and he fails in that ... it's only when
the plans come blundering back his way does he get a chance to redeem
himself. Often touted as the greatest star pilot ever, Darth Vader, given all of his experience in starfighters and his command of the Dark Side of the Force, can't even protect the massive Death Star from
one single Rebel X-wing piloted by a daydreaming teenager (who we come to later discover is his son), a teenager who is only a fledgling in the powers of the Force and no where near the level of mastery that Vader is. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In Episode V, Vader is
tasked with finding the rebels and when he eventually does they escape! Our heroes leave Vader, literally, empty handed at the end of the movie. Oh, he
caused the rebels a lot of grief in Episode V and even managed to split up the merry band of friends by giving Solo to Boba Fett but in reality Vader really didn't do any
permanent damage to either our band of Rebels or the Rebellion. In Episode VI, he is charged with protecting the
Emperor and the new Death Star. Vader fails again, on both counts. In the end, after getting his ass kicked by his now acknowledged son, Vader wusses out, attones for
his sins, turns sides, kills the Emperor and, well, the rebels win (with the help of lots and lots of tree hugging teddy bears
with sharp sticks).</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Star Wars" (1977) is an amazing film. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Taken as a
whole, the story given to us in Episodes I to VI leaves a lot to be
desired and ultimately disappoints in a huge way. Someone said that when it came to Episode I: A Phantom Menace, that Lucas just went "pants wetting insane" and that's not hard to believe given that Episodes I to III pretty much were Lucas giving the middle finger to everyone who had believed in him since 1977. E</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ach of those five movies (Episodes I to III, Episodes V and VI) took the "Star Wars"
name and franchise and ruined it more and more with each new movie released until
by the end of the entire six part story the original magic that was
"Star Wars" was pretty much dead and buried for all time. Some of the highlights of Lucas' epic failure in even basic story telling include </span></b></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the fact that Vader built C3PO, Luke is Vader's son and Leia is Vader's
daughter ... oh, yeah, and The Force is just like the flu, it's caused
by tiny germs in your body. The flu can bring you down and make you
miss work but if you've got Mitochlorians in your bloodstream, you can
jerk an X-wing out of a swamp and set it down on dry land. Oh, almost forgot ... Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader was immaculately conceived ... no father, his mother just got pregnant with The Force or The Holy Spirit whichever you want to liken that to ala the Jesus story.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><i>This</i> Robot Chicken Star Wars <a href="http://youtu.be/R4wOzbqgfIY" target="_blank">skit</a> had me rolling on the bed laughing because it was so true. </b></span><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The original 1977 "Star Wars" movie was (and still is) the best. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">By far. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Period.</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My <i>new</i> blog, "<span style="color: red;">The March of the Twelve Backs</span>"
will be recounting the memories of the magic and awe that George Lucas brought into the
world in May of 1977 ... the first and last time that he did so. The
blog will be about memories of a time when magic was real and of a time when that magic
was everywhere. If you were a kid way back then and you were lucky
enough to see "Star Wars" in the theater back in 1977 then you know what
I'm talking about and I think you'll like this new blog.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you're one of those people who think that "Empire" is better than "Star Wars" or that the prequels were any good then I doubt you and I have very much to talk about.</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Anyways, welcome to "The March of the 12 Backs"! </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Enjoy! </span></b>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-86074873741647687462013-05-17T05:19:00.000-07:002014-08-30T23:27:47.043-07:00Leading up to the Storm ...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_SnPKoeLTzovRklsTetoG0Dx2eWxL5cGtgGVu1fzt60Q7cLwLnJJkBWY13J1tEZAJGTIOj0Q1H7eWxm19B53IbSFDnWr0m7hq68uVRcBuzYsaQRHRLyD04Irvg-hPNePdjyuVdPfS8A/s1600/swtrailerpic4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ_SnPKoeLTzovRklsTetoG0Dx2eWxL5cGtgGVu1fzt60Q7cLwLnJJkBWY13J1tEZAJGTIOj0Q1H7eWxm19B53IbSFDnWr0m7hq68uVRcBuzYsaQRHRLyD04Irvg-hPNePdjyuVdPfS8A/s1600/swtrailerpic4.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Starting in
the late Summer and early Fall of 1977 I began to see television commercials for
"Star Wars" and I was hooked. "Star Wars" was like nothing that I'd ever seen before ... it wasn't a movie, no, it was liquid magic painted on your eyes with a high tech brush.</span></b></span></b></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></span></b></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The quick images, eye candy, the music and the sounds were often
caught incomplete with me hearing the commercial start in the other
room, dropping everything and running to catch what I could of the
commercial while I could before it ended. </span></b></span></b></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sometimes I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and I got to see the entire commercial from start to finish.</span></b></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Thirty seconds ... that's all it took to blow my seven year old mind right out of my skull.</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Remember, back then there was no Internet, no Youtube,
no DVR, no rewind. TV stations were limited, the Big Three networks and a few other channels, no where near the hundreds of channels that we have today. These early advertisement commercials played at random times during the day and night and if you missed
them, well, you missed them. If you missed them and your friends didn't, well, you'd know about it the next day at school. Yeah, back then sometimes childhood was just bucket loads of
steaming hot disappointment. </span></b></span></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzfhnE2fGuMF0UgzC2V6K_OSdsJduzYD0N9zjA1oROH2eFEjliT4hUEFaNZz06AKiqyVO8n5oqwOZhvpCM8ytLQKlhfbD_zpRZcsTrgnBXKceU7x3sGNTMS061ZgeLlbQ51phBoW2vkE/s1600/swtrailerpic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzfhnE2fGuMF0UgzC2V6K_OSdsJduzYD0N9zjA1oROH2eFEjliT4hUEFaNZz06AKiqyVO8n5oqwOZhvpCM8ytLQKlhfbD_zpRZcsTrgnBXKceU7x3sGNTMS061ZgeLlbQ51phBoW2vkE/s1600/swtrailerpic2.jpg" height="135" width="200" /></a><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kids today are so spoiled ... media and information sharing has come so far in the last four decades that kids today have no idea of how hard it was way back then to find a new picture of this movie, to see a trailer again or to find out any information at all. "Star Wars" opened in a limited number of theaters and slowly added to that as 1977 rolled on. Big cities got "Star Wars" but smaller cities and towns had to wait so even though "Star Wars" opened in May of 1977 it wasn't until October or November of 1977 that "Star Wars" reached Hattiesburg, Mississippi, opening in the Cloverleaf Mall Twin Cinema (now long out of business).</span></b></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></b>Here are two television commercials that aired advertising "Star Wars", the first was an early promo.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://youtu.be/FspMbER8c00" target="_blank">"Star Wars" early promo commercial</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The second commercial was run more often ...</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://youtu.be/trFN69F--8g" target="_blank">"Star Wars" trailer</a></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And a brace of TV spots that I remember the most ...</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://youtu.be/5z1SziDPKQw" target="_blank">"Star Wars" TV spot</a> </span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Memories.</b></span>Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2347975648629028219.post-57647117818967186832013-05-01T20:39:00.000-07:002014-07-17T23:20:17.999-07:00Welcome to the March of the Twelve Backs ...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Welcome to <i>The March of the Twelve Backs</i>,
a new blog that will journey back to a time long ago in a childhood far, far away ...</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It was a time of great turmoil in America and in the world. A time when there was no Internet, no
Twitter, no "Ain't It Cool News", no IMDB, no YouTube or
Facebook. There was a time when information was shared by word of mouth,
over telephone (not cellphone), when a house had one or maybe two telephones,
one television, and no computers. Journey back to a time when monthly
magazines, comic books, and television were the major sources of news, when you
couldn't watch the latest movie trailer online, no, you had to be lucky to
catch it as a commercial on TV and if you walked in on the middle or tail-end
of the commercial then tough because you couldn't rewind and watch it again.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">This was a time that many of us remember
as the late 1970's, specifically for me it was the time of 1976 to 1979, call
it four years, four wonderful, individual years (1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979)
that were not only a truly golden period in my childhood but it was also the
time of the meteoric rise of George Lucas' epic space opera "Star
Wars" and the blistering supernova of science fiction, the awakening of
imagination, that filled that period with palatable, tangible magic.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">For many, there is a certain time in
their youth that is magic. For my father, who was born in 1940, that time
was 1955 to 1957, those three years. His favorite car? 1957
Chevy. He can often look at something and tell me what year it was but if
whatever catches his fancy falls into the time period of 1955, 1956 or 1957 ...
he becomes a living Wikipedia on the subject. For my dad, those three
years are golden and filled with wonderful memories of being young. For
me, it is the time period of 1976 to 1979. To this day (and I was born in
1969 ...) I can look at something, a movie, a book, a toy, and tell if it was
made during that era. Chances are, if it was then I either saw it, read
it or played with it.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">While "Star Wars" was a big
thing (probably one of the biggest things) to come along in the 1970's it
wasn't the only thing to come along. "Star Wars" ignited a
wildfire that, in its wake, left lots of other fires burning ... some large,
some small, some great, some mediocre, but fires nonetheless. "Star
Wars" was like a nuclear bomb, it was a blinding flash, an ear deafening
roar, and it obliterated everything that had ever come before it. In its
wake it left a rising super hot mushroom cloud in the collective pop culture of
the world, a mushroom cloud that sucked in everything around it. Nature
abhors a vacuum and in the wake of "Star Wars" there was a vacuum
that everyone tried to fill either by creating and marketing science fiction
products or by filling their lives with said products. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">There came a time, after May of 1977,
when you could not go anywhere in America without being slapped in
the face with something "Star Wars". It was everywhere, it was
everything. People lost their minds over "Star Wars" (myself
included as a 8 year old boy) and "Star Wars" became a pop culture
phenomenon. It was magic, it was light, it was sound, it was imagination,
it was music, it was ... an escape. Above all else, "Star Wars"
gave us something that no other science fiction movie before it ever had ... an
escape.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Why was there a need to escape?</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">If you didn't live in the 1970's, if you
didn't grow up in the 1970's then you can't possibly understand what a time of
turmoil it was. Fashion was out of control, we were coming out of the
peace, love and happiness (and free sex) of the 1960's and trying to be more
responsible. The Vietnam War had finally ended, Watergate had happened,
clumsy Ford was in office and was soon replaced by Jimmy Carter who was the
second worst president in American history. It was a time of crying
American Indians on television warning us that pollution would kill the world.
It was a time when performance in automobiles meant fuel economy rather than
cubic inches. It was a time when disaster movies and nature gone wild
movies were the big blockbusters. The 1970's sucked, it was a decade long
marathon of decadence, of coming to grips with reality and embracing
nonsense. It was a time of mysticism, new age religions, and new
science. In the 1970's, everything was tried and a lot of it didn't
work. It was a somber time, a mediocre decade. It was a glorious
time and a fantastic decade. Poverty and excess, stupidity and
brilliance, boredom and excitement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amid
all of this was an insane amount of social pressure, building to a boiling
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone was looking for a way
out, an escape from rising gas prices, inflation, bad government, unrest in the
Middle East, the ever increasing tension with Russia …</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” was an escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It hit at the right time in the 1970’s to
be an epic success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Star Wars” was a
fairy tale, pure and simple, and it was delivered with special effects
technology that had to be invented just for the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Star Wars”, as Lucas is quoted as saying,
was a fairy tale for a generation that had no fairy tales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Society changed so much and so fast during
the 1960’s and 1970’s and very little of that change was for the better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Society fragmented along cultural, sexual,
racial and political lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that
regard, the power of fairy tales, the goodness that was basic story telling,
fell by the wayside in favor of over the top political hammering and force-fed
indoctrination at nearly all levels.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” was different.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t preach.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t warn.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t advocate.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t alienate or divide.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t pander to one type of people or
another.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It didn’t glorify wrong and vilify right.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” was a story of good versus
evil, of right versus wrong and it was a story that had been told, in one form
or another, since recorded history and probably for a lot longer before that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Star Wars” was timeless and classic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t take a lot of brain power to watch
“Star Wars” and that was the best part … “Star Wars” was an escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a pure escape that was convenient,
welcome and available to all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” showed us a galaxy of strange
and wonderful things, creatures, planets, spaceships, weapons and robots and it
was a believable galaxy because people worked hard in that galaxy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stuff was dirty and broken, there was good
and bad, ugly and beautiful, heroes and villains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the stuff of fairy tale and also of
every day life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Star Wars” was a
believable escape because it immersed the viewer in the make-believe world and
that world was a gritty world like our own, not the antiseptic, sterilized,
do-goody, everyone gets alone, we don’t need money, all races coexist, gawdy
and bright future that we’d seen in “Star Trek”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t the ominous future that we’d seen
in movies like Kubrick’s “2001" either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> "Star Wars"</span> blew our minds with its simple but elegant story, it stunned our ears with its
masterful orchestral soundtrack, it melted our eyes with its amazing special effects and
it captured the hearts and minds of millions of people instantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">People who didn’t like science fiction liked
“Star Wars”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It reached out, across all
types of people and gave a universal message, a message that most had been told
when they were young … good will overcome evil, even against impossible odds.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” was an escape from years of
oppressive reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an escape
from politics, from hoky religions, from social movements, from disasters … you
could buy a ticket to see “Star Wars” and for an hour and a half, give or take,
you could just turn your mind off and enjoy yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You didn’t have to think hard about “Star
Wars”, it wasn’t that cerebral, it didn’t take a college education or a
doctorate to figure it out and it could be enjoyed by people of all ages.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Star Wars” was magic.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">"Star Wars" was a super nova of science fiction.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">I’m not talking about “Star Wars –
Episode IV: A New Hope”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m talking about “Star Wars”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Just … “Star Wars”, before Lucas took the
next two and a half decades to turn something wonderful into something utterly mediocre, all the while trying to show the world what a great visionary he was when in reality he was little more than a hack revisionist who never seemed to be happy with his work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long before episode I, II,
III, IV, V, and VI there was just “Star Wars” with that familiar logo and the
preface screen crawl that didn’t have “Episode IV: A New Hope” between the logo
and the preface crawl … often confusing the viewer and leading people to wonder “if this is episode four,
when did I miss the other three episodes?”</span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTS5xxenSGZMBFdfU_rf1pNTXHZkshZmmnIoAKPCpDHNP7KbK5nAe1UNPYZ0DaUxKtOCObup3zWQWTt7C0CWC309wXEtGi5h2nj4C_y5a9QBK3KQh7Ko4IP_tgNZX6X-Jfi441IhroKA/s1600/SWposter1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTS5xxenSGZMBFdfU_rf1pNTXHZkshZmmnIoAKPCpDHNP7KbK5nAe1UNPYZ0DaUxKtOCObup3zWQWTt7C0CWC309wXEtGi5h2nj4C_y5a9QBK3KQh7Ko4IP_tgNZX6X-Jfi441IhroKA/s1600/SWposter1.jpg" height="499" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">For a while there was “Star Wars” … pure,
undiluted, unrevisioned … just “Star Wars” and it was amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a time in the late 1970’s there were a
few years that seemed to go on forever to the kids who were just coming of age,
for kids who had been frightened out of their wits by all sorts of doomsday
stories and rampant fear mongering "Star Wars" was like a long awaited release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There came a time when everything that we knew was torn down and made
new again, when toys changed, when the technology of toys changed, when our
imaginations were sparked and ignited and when we dreamed and imagined and life was fun again.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">There came a time, in the late 1970’s,
that you could look back upon in later years and suddenly you could understand
just why it was that your dad liked 1955, 1956 and 1957 so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all of these years, suddenly you really
could understand why …</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">1977 to 1979 were magic years and I was lucky enough to live through those years as a child, caught up in the child-like wonder and awe that comes from being part of something so great, so large, so all-encompassing that even decades later you can't quite wrap your mind around it.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">This blog will focus primarily on "Star Wars." </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It is a personal blog full of personal memories of the movie and the other films that followed in its wake. I'm going to try to keep the time frame of the blog to between December 1976 and December 1979, roughly five months before "Star Wars" appeared and five months before "The Empire Strikes Back" was released. I'm going to talk about specific childhood memories, how "Star Wars" impacted me as a 8 year old when I first saw it in the theater. I'm going to talk about the toys, the books, the music, the models ... and all the wonderful stuff, good and bad, that filled those three years of my life.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">So, come along with me, on a journey back to childhood. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">It's going to be a fun ride! </span></b><br />
<br />
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<br />Christopher T. Shieldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04647913776402607463noreply@blogger.com0