Drabble by Kevin Fagan for December 18, 2015

You just left Echo alone there?

I didnt see any of the star wars movies until 2 years ago ,I checked it out at the public library but I could not find the original until my 20 something friend at work explained that the original was now the third or fourth one. Oh. Honestly, I wasnt impressed by it.

The original (#3?) was something when it was first released. There were no DVD or VCRs, the theater was where you watched movies. My town did not have a theater so we had to drive 40 miles to the nearest. Lines all day long. In a time when a movie played for a few weeks and was gone Star Wars was held over for more than a year.I watched the movie a total of 17 times, again driving 40 miles to do so. My best friend and a few other saw it more than a HUNDRED times. It WAS a big deal when it was first released.

If you are just seeing the original (A New Hope) it may not seem all that great. You are missing the context of its greatness.

It would be like someone who is just hearing the Beatles. If they came out now, they would flop horribly. Hell, they wouldn’t be even signed.

The Beatles are great because they inspired music as it is. If they never existed, music would be very different today.

If there had never been a Star Wars, sci-fi and special effects would be very different.

The original was #IV, the words streaming across the screen actually say something like, “Star Wars IV The New Hope.” It was the first movie I ever saw in a theater and I remember wondering what happened to the first three movies in the series, after seeing 1 – 3 I still wonder.

The original Star Wars was my first date with the young girl who is still my wife, now 38+ years.