Time Passes....Things Change

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2008)

I was in my early 20's when the First Star Wars movie came out. Unless you were there, experiencing this new type of movie magic (because, up until then, we didn't have any kind of movies like this) it's hard to understand why it became the sensation that it did.
The original promotions for this Star Wars was a full page ad in all the major newspapers with mock-up's of a unidentified young man and a girl (Drawings in black and white on a white background that ran for WEEKS before the movie premiered. There was no indication of who they were or what the movie was about other than the Title. It cause a HUGE reaction of excitement and people were talking about it for weeks before the movie was released. I had to arrive at the theater 3 hours early and wait in line around the entire theater with hundreds of other people just to purchase my ticket and then sit another 2 hours in the theater waiting and wondering what it was going to be about. Up until that time, special effects were in their infancy. This movie reached a new level for the entire viewing audience in the world. We watched a new dawn of entertainment begin.
People have to remember that back then, there were no cell phones, no CORDLESS phones, no computers, gas was 57 cents a gallon and phone calls from a pay phone (which was your ONLY option unless you had access to a land line corded phone) were 10 cents. Video games weren't available in the old stand up versions yet. It would be years before play at home video games were invented. There were no CD's, vinyl records had to do.....cassette tapes were on the forefront....nor had DVDs been invented. 19 inch TV's were considered LARGE. No cable, no satellites. FM radio and color TV's were only a few years old.
Anyone under the age of 30 has no idea of the pure magic this first Stars wars was. And as one of the other users mentioned, George Lucas loved the old time Saturday kids serials and he NEVER, in his wildest imagination had any idea how he would create one of the most incredible franchise's in the world. Both he and Steven Spielberg changed the course of modern history. Had their movies never been made, today's special effects would not exist.
Today's youth have grown up with everything at their beck and call...cell phones, computers, incredible video game graphics, and extraordinary special effects in action movies. A lot of them have little or no respect for anyone who is older than 40. They have no idea how George Lucas and Steven Spielberg affected today's world. My generation saw the future before it existed.
If you look at the technology in the Episode III, it is near perfect; and if you watch the 4th original episode (the first movie), you'll see that even 30 years ago, the way the world was viewed we STILL don't have the actual technology in real life, NOW in 2008 that George Lucas created more than 30 years ago.