Still remember seeing it after all these years

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2008)

Of all the movies I've ever seen at the theater, I remember this one the most. Not the actual movie really. I remember coming OUT of the theater. Why? Because we had just seen THE final frontier! We had seen space ships! We had seen other worlds! And not in black and white '50s style sci-fi. This was full color with incredible computer generated graphics. There were real live BELIEVABLE aliens up on the screen! We were flying at light speed across galaxies and star systems! And then the movie was over, the house lights came up, and we had to WALK on CONCRETE to our FOSSIL FUELED vehicles and DRIVE on ASPHALT to get home. How B-O-R-I-N-G. How mundane. I had just seen the future, and then when I left the theater it was all jerked away from me. I'll never forget that feeling. The disappointment of "reality". I've never experienced it with any other movie since, not even any of the other Star Wars episodes. I guess I was just the right age at the right time.
At the time I hated Han Solo. Now that I'm "all grown up" I love Harrison Ford and it's Luke and Leiah that make me cringe. But this really was a special movie. The gateway to a whole new wave of movie making. (for better or worse)