I found Star Wars in 1983 when Return of the Jedi graced the big screen. From that point on I devoured Star Wars as much as I possibly could. I watched the trilogy whenever it was on television. I learned about Letterbox vs. Pan & Scan because of Star Wars, and obtained my first letterbox VHS tapes of Star Wars for Christmas one year. We didn’t even have a working VCR at the time so we rented one, and after ANH and ESB it started to eat the ROJ tape! I purchased every version that ever came out from VHS through Blu-Ray. I’ve watched Star Wars either as individual movies or as a marathon at least once a year since 1983. I’ve been to every theatrical release that I possibly could, including one special ROJ at the Egyptian theater with a Q&A with Mark Hamill.
I’ve collected most every version of every Star Wars score, and I’m listening to Princess Leia’s Theme as I type this. My Star Wars playlist is 267 tracks and only deviates a little from film scores in that I have some of the disco and electronic covers by Meco and a couple others. I walked down the aisle at my wedding to “The Throne Room” (That’s the medal ceremony scene at the end of ANH). I’ve seen John Williams live at the Hollywood Bowl and a special Star Wars symphony in LA hosted by Anthony Daniels.
As a child my mom would scour Toys R Us to find me the hottest Star Wars action figure and I would continue to do that myself when they re-introduced them in the mid-90s. My friend and I had a route to efficiently hit every Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target every Saturday morning and we did that for a couple of years.
Two years ago at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, CA I was lucky enough to meet both Carrie and Mark thanks to the generosity of someone I barely knew. And I am eternally grateful that I had that experience.
In summary, Star Wars has permeated every single aspect of my life since I was 7 years old, and will continue to do so until I leave this Earth. Carrie Fisher was one leg of the tripod of actors that brought their characters to life which fueled the imagination of a little boy and given him countless hours of entertainment and joy from then until now and beyond. Those characters and the story they told are why Star Wars has so much meaning to me.
Carrie Fisher, you will be missed by millions of fans. Rest in Peace.
No, this is the place, we are all geeks and nerds of versus types here. I have the sads. I first saw the original while on liberty during boot camp and it has been a life long thing.
Ahhhh thanks! My brother just kind of waved his iPhone under my nose while i was washing some dishes, so I didn’t read it too closely…I thought she’d died.
Yeah. That was on the 23rd that she had the initial heart attack. She was in ICU for a while, then they called her stable, and then back to ICU until this morning.
I learned this today and was so sad–Carrie Fisher was a brave, funny, brilliant woman. I recently saw the Star Wars costume exhibit at the Denver Art Museum and seeing some of her most iconic costumes (including the metal bikini) was a truly moving experience, because she’d been such an iconic part of my childhood imagination.
Same! I got to see the exhibit up in Seattle…the only time I’ve ditched my family shamelessly. We were headed to the Space Needle when I saw the banners at the museum next door. My bucket list was calling and I had to answer!