The beginning of the tidal wave

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2016)

My wife and I saw this in the theater on its first release in 1977, not long after we had finished grad school. We took with us a much older friend of ours (more than a generation older in fact) who wanted to see what all the fuss was about but she was a bit too shy to go by herself. It was all great fun but of course no one in the world could have predicted the entertainment phenomenon this franchise would become. In fact, Star Wars was just a one-and-done intention until its massive popularity fueled the making of TESB. (When the opening credits of the sequel rolled starting with "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back", it was electrifying: everyone looked at each other saying 'What?? this is episode five? what are 1, 2, and 3?" and Lucas's grand plan was off and running. I'm not sure it would have happened though if the sequel hadn't been better than the original.)
But back in 1977, we just enjoyed the straight-up simplicity and verve of the plot -- good versus evil, admittedly cardboard characters, dazzling space battles that were more fun than they had any right to be. In some sense it was fresh and dynamic, but more than anything else it played like a fond homage to the old-old Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon serials all dressed up with great SFX (which in fact our movie companion had grown up with).