You saw “Star Wars” how many times?
8 comments January 30th, 2008
Watching “Cars” with my daughter again (it’s her current obsession, following months of nonstop “Finding Nemo”), I got to thinking about how these kids today, with their DVDs and DVRs and Netflix and Blu-Rays, they don’t know what it was like to be a kid way back in the long ago days of the 1970s, like I was. We couldn’t just watch a movie any time we wanted, then watch it again (and again and again). No, back then (and, according to the legends I’ve heard, in the years before the 197os) movies were seen in the theaters and then — if you were patient and lucky — they might show up on TV.
And, this being the early days of cable, those movies would be hacked up, censored and slapped between some commercials. Even the theaters were different. No megaplexes then, kids. My hometown had one theater with two screens. If there were more than two movies playing at the same time, you were going to miss something. You just had to hope it wasn’t something you were dying to see. Or, if something was showing that you were dying to see, that it stayed in town for as long as possible.
Which brings me to “Star Wars.”
Hitting my town like it hit the rest of the world, “Star Wars” changed snagged a spot on one of those two screens and, believe it or not, stayed there almost an entire year. During the holidays, the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a Christmas-themed ad with the “Star Wars” characters because the movie was still packing houses, seven months after it hit theaters. Ten years old at the time, I loved “Star Wars” like no other movie — like no other thing– I’d yet encountered. And, because I was living in the pre-VCR age and didn’t know when — if ever — it would show up on TV, I saw it as many times as I could. I dragged mom, dad, grandparents, friends and mere acquaintances along for showing after showing, trying to commit every frame of the film to memory before it left town. After all, once it did, I might never see it again.
I’m pretty sure my final total was 10 viewings, not counting any re-releases or TV/video viewings. Three years later, I saw “Empire Strikes Back” four or five times, but by the time “Return of the Jedi” rolled around in 1983, VCRs were pretty common and though my family didn’t have one yet, I could see my dad (a movie fan himself) getting the itch to buy one. I knew my days of seeing the same movie 10 times in the theater were over.
Now on video, well, that was another story. Check this space tomorrow to read it.
In the meantime, now that I’ve confessed my “Star Wars” obsession, it’s your turn. What movie have you seen the most times in a theater (video and TV don’t count — we’ll cover them later.) Maybe it’s “Jaws” or “Titanic” or maybe even “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Whatever it is, don’t be shy. We’ve all got cinematic skeletons in our closets.
