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MY MEMORIES OF Star Wars ARE ONLY TRUE FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW

10/12/2019

20 Comments

 
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According to my parents, I first saw Star Wars during a family summer holiday.

Yet, according to my brain, my dad first took me to see Star Wars one night after school, on a warm, early summer, evening, and I distinctly remember being in my school uniform.

Both of these vague dates chime with what I'd believed was Star Wars' release date of June-ish 1977 (it was in fact released in America on May 25th that year, and I'd always thought we'd gotten it a month or so later).

Either way, both sets of memories can't be right; either they've got it wrong, or I've got it wrong. My money had been on them getting it wrong because, frankly, they're old, and Star Wars didn't have the same sort of impact on them as it did me. Plus, I want to believe that what I remember is the truth.

In fact... it isn't. And neither is their version: both are wrong.

Star Wars didn't open in the UK until December 27th 1977 - and even then it was only in two cinemas in central London, and it stayed that way for a month or two. I've learned this troubling, foundation-rattling, truth from a book entitled The Star Wars Phenomenon in Britain, by one Craig Stevens. 

It has upended everything I thought I knew about my life with Star Wars, and has confirmed that much of what I remember about Star Wars is merely the American version of its history.

The film didn't really start rolling out in the UK until early 1978. Some areas didn't get it for another ten months, while it had a staggered release from January onwards. Having dug into my local newspaper archives, I've since learned that it opened in what was then my local cinema on February 5th 1978 - which was the earliest I could've possibly seen it. 

Now I'm questioning everything.
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FEB THE 5th BE WITH YOU
Of course, there's a chance that I did wait months more to see Star Wars, though that seems unlikely. I remember the moment I first became aware of it, from a report on what was probably the Saturday morning TV show TISWAS (though that, like the rest of my memories, can no longer be trusted).

I ran into the kitchen to tell my mum about this new film that was definitely going to be the best film ever, and the person on the telly said it had everything - robots, action, aliens, romance, jokes - and can we please go and see it when it comes out...?!

My mother did her best to humour me, and I doubt I would've had the patience to wait until the following summer. 

I'm pretty certain I did go to see it on a family holiday - we didn't have  home video back then, so Star Wars stayed in cinemas for a good long while. I think I saw it at least half a dozen times before The Empire Strikes Back came out. Though now... who knows? 

I had remembered going to an unfamiliar cinema with my mum and my best friend's family, who'd come on holiday with us, forgetting my glasses, and having to watch the film with blurry vision. It didn't matter because I was already so familiar with the images by that point I could fill in the detail. That's why I'd always doubted my parents' version of events; I didn't need to be able to see Star Wars to see Star Wars. 

I can recall going up to London and seeing the huge, illuminated, poster for the film above the marquee of what Craig Stevens' book tells me was the Dominion in Tottenham Court Road (now a theatre that many remember for its massive Freddie Mercury statue during the endless run of We Will Rock You). I know we never went in, and - again - I think I already had seen the film by that point anyway. Again, my memory here is iffy, because I know that part of London well, but - as a six year-old unfamiliar with London - my mind had placed it somewhere else entirely. 

Given the new information, I must've seen Star Wars relatively soon after it released in my local picture house - within the next ten days after release, at least.

Star Wars Weekly Issue 1 came out three days later, on February 8th, so the book tells me, and I remember getting it, because I was disappointed with the cardboard X-Wing that came as a free gift with the first issue. To my mind, it looked nothing like the one I'd seen in the film (a foreshadowing of the pedantry that would plague my Star Wars fan-mind). That means I must've, most likely, seen it before February 15th 1978, which is when Issue 2 would've been released. 

Of course, none of this is really important to anybody but myself, but given how important Star Wars was to me as a kid - I mean, it absolutely defined my childhood - it's something I need to give context to. 
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THE MEMORY-LOSS STRIKES BACK
​I was a little older by the time The Empire Strikes Back was released, and I've much more reliable memories of going; it was with the same family friends as we'd been on holiday with, and my mate Stuart and I came home and re-enacted the climactic lightsaber duel using action figures and Lego.

Similarly, my memory of Return of the Jedi is pretty vivid, because that time I did see it in Central London; my sister's husband took me to see it at the Odeon Marble Arch (I remember seeing the arch). The queue stretched around the block, and it was the first time I ever felt like I was surrounded by other like-minded obsessives. 

I recall coming home and trying to process it all, staring out of the living room window. My sister said I looked as if I was "in love", but it was more coming to terms with there never being another Star Wars film. The journey was over.

So I thought. 

What's weird is there's only one Star Wars film I have no real vivid memory of seeing for the first time; Attack of the Clones.

The Phantom Menace I saw early in the morning of release, having promised TV's Steve "Horsenburger" Horsely I'd see it first with him later that evening.

I couldn't wait, so I turned up to my local at breakfast time, with a handful of other deluded souls - a couple of them waving lightsabers, and shouting a self-conscious "May The Force be with us!" before the film got underway. I also remember coming out of the screening that evening with Steve, and us both trying to convince ourselves it wasn't awful.

For Revenge of the Sith I'd bought tickets to the world premiere, which was a fan event that started at 7am, ran through all six films in the order they were made, and was attended by George Lucas and the cast. The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Solo are obviously much more recent, and for all of them I went to 10am-ish showings with my wife. 

But it says it all that I remember the least about the most forgettable of Star Wars films. Who knows where and when I saw Attack of the Clones?

​Frankly... who cares anyway?
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QUESTION YOUR FEELINGS
The point of all this is that I'm now questioning everything. Star Wars hadn't just been about Star Wars for me; the films, and so many memories associated with them, work as a series of footholds through my childhood. I don't just remember, say, getting a new Star Wars action figure... I remember everything around it.

Like seeing an ad in Star Wars Weekly for the new Star Wars toys and getting excited because I thought they were "bendy people" (pre-action figures, I was big into my "bendy people"). On summer holidays I had a little fold-out table that I would take around with me so that I could have somewhere to play with my "bendy people" that wouldn't get sand on them.

Because I hate sand; it gets everywhere. 

I remember my mum presenting me with my first action figure (Chewbacca), and playing with him on my parents' bed. I remember the old bathroom stool which I'd always appropriate as a Star Destroyer. I remember stealing my sisters' Mastermind game, disassembling it, and using the pieces as the walls of the Cantina.

I remember the sledge my brother-in-law built for me, and turning it into an X-Wing cockpit (frankly, most things in our house ended up becoming something from Star Wars sooner or later).

I remember the time my parents were thinking of moving house. We went with them to view some new homes, and in one of them a boy had spread all of his action figures out on the living room carpet, and he had a Sand Person - the one figure I didn't own. I asked my mum to ask his mum where he got it.

Weirdly, we took a look in one of the bedrooms and one of them had some sleeping woman in one of the beds. And the house smelled funny.

We never ended up moving.

BELGIUM
I remember when my dad came back off Territorial Army manoeuvres and brought an X-Wing back with him from "Belgium" (he later admitted he'd bought it from the local Debenhams, which had the best toy department in the world, and also once played host to a promotional visit from Darth Vader). I remember when we couldn't find Star Wars wallpaper for my bedroom, so I had to make do with wallpaper for Disney's The Black Hole.

​Which was still up on my walls when I was 16.

I remember "being" Han Solo in my middle school playground on a particularly icy lunchtime, because my Parka jacket had the right sort of hood. I remember around the same time - in that same playground - getting annoyed with a boy called Derek Douglas (who had once been an extra in an episode of Hammer House of Horror) for thinking that Yoda lived on a planet with Darth Vader. He didn't understand the concept of Force visions ffs.

I never understood those who didn't share on engage with Star Wars like I did. It was, for many in my family, what defined the young me. So much so that cousins still talk about my Star Wars obsession when they see me.

It was everything, and so its roots are entwined with everything else that happened in my life between 1977 and 1983. To find out that some of those memories are unreliable has shaken me in a way I'm struggling to get to grips with. How much of what I remember is distorted? How much of it is outright wrong?

Did I really go to see Blade Runner, because Han Solo was in it, wearing what I think was my sister's turtleneck sweater in a bid to look older (it was rated 'AA', roughly equivalent to a '15')? Did I really strap a washing-up liquid bottle to my back and stomp around pretending to be a Stormtrooper? Did I really  get given a 12-inch Luke because I'd been a brave boy when I'd had my tooth extracted? Did I really freeze Han Solo in a cup of water, and then drop it, and his arm snapped off?

Did I really meet Boba Fett - wearing what was obviously a screen-used costume - in a toyshop in Bournemouth? And did I really get annoyed when I overheard another kid telling someone that we'd know if it was the real Boba Fett because his armour would be all dirty and beaten-up - which was exactly what I'd just said to the kid in front of me in the queue?!?

Don't steal my ideas. 

And if these recollections are wrong, what else can't I trust about my memories? 
20 Comments
Kara Van Park
10/12/2019 10:36:59 am

Ok Boomer

Reply
Alastair
10/12/2019 11:18:52 am

I think Mr Biffo is Gen X.

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MENTALIST
10/12/2019 01:48:21 pm

I suspect the vast majority of people to whom that phrase is directed are Gen X. Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are Gen X, for example, although Jeremy Corbyn is a Baby Boomer.

I'm not sure if that's a product of young peoples' ignorance, or a deliberate taunt, like "Grandad".

Kara Van Park
10/12/2019 06:21:39 pm

Yeah, he's the same age as my brother. When did we all get so old!

Kara Van Park
10/12/2019 06:25:21 pm

Mentalist, what I assumed was Gen X is actually Millennial and what I presumed to be Millennial is Gen Z.

aaron noone
10/12/2019 11:04:35 am

Im too young to of watched star wars when they came out in cinema ( born in 87) But i remember Ep1 coming out in cinema and I wasnt allowed to go watch it.
My mum was a manager of pizza hut in bluewater shopping center at the time and they had a visit from the actor dressed as Darth Maul and I just happened to be let off school that day and taken to work with her. She kept alot of the huge window posters and promotional items from the job but they got lost in a house move afew years after.

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Daph
10/12/2019 11:43:28 am

I'm guessing.... Because we both share (nearly) the same age..... You was like me and in fact saw return of the jedi first as a kid..which I saw in a cinema near great Yarmouth on holiday so it seems.. But I was sure it was the original star wars... But dates don't match and then mum found a photo with it in the back ground... Anyway. Love this ❤️ xx

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Mr Biffo
10/12/2019 08:57:15 pm

Oh no. I definitely saw them as they came out. I'm REALLY old...!

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
10/12/2019 01:04:33 pm

I think Derek Douglas got his Star Wars info from that laughably I correct “Star Wars Weekly”. Look at the cover!

Luke’s lightsaber is red! The “X Fighter” and Y-Wing and whatever that is flying in from the right are all very odd. What is up with the Jay Leno Leia? She seems ambivalent about Luke “destroying the galaxy”. At least the “enemy fighter” looks correct. Cuh. They probably showed the uniformed Walrus version of Jabba the Hutt inside, too.

I first saw Star Wars on video, as I was too young. When I saw Empire, I was a little scared by Yoda, he seemed unhinged.

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Taucher
10/12/2019 01:23:13 pm

Peoples' memories are notoriously bad. I cant really read autobiographies because I certainly don't trust writers when they say 'It was a Friday in August 1952 when I said to my cousin Barry "What shall we do this weekend?" and Barry said "Let's go fishing at 9am on Saturday..." and then Barry did a burp and threw his bag across the room while swearing loudly at a badger...'' etc. No one can possibly remember those kind of details but it's like a memory of a memory of a memory which gets warped over time.

You probably haven't even seen Star Wars and are mis-remembering the time you went to see Flash Gordon at the Barnsley Alhambra in 1994.

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sonicshrimp
10/12/2019 01:25:33 pm

Makes me remember (ha!) a psychology book I read about memory. They photoshopped people into situations they had never actually been in as children and asked them to recall it (alongside genuine childhood photos). All of them spontaneously generated false memories of events.

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Carlos Nightman
10/12/2019 02:03:12 pm

I always tell people, and some part of me believes it too, that the first film I saw in the cinema was Return Of The Jedi. But I don't know how that could be because both it and me were released in 1983, and even if they allowed screaming babies into cinemas in those days, how could I remember it? But somehow I do have memories of it, the posters hanging outside during the walk in...

I think the first film I actually saw was Superman IV, because I remember coming home and having a Nuclear Man vs Superman fight with my brother. Or possibly Three Men And A Baby, which I saw in a 'cinema' which I think was really a converted barn which had steep concrete steps up to the room.

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CdrJameson
10/12/2019 05:58:01 pm

Your memories are most likely completely screwed up (I know mine are), but don't get too disheartened. Movies back in the 70s/80s would hang around for ages, and get passed down the chain from metropolitan to provincial and rural cinemas over a period of months.
Also, comics would hang around in newsagents forever (particularly US-ish ones) and the cover dates only have a tangential relationship to the calendar.

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Lannuss
10/12/2019 08:52:45 pm

How weird, I had the same memory about going to see Star Wars. It was after school and it was sunny. I never realised it would have been 1978. I don’t really remember seeing Empire but I do remember Jedi as we went with my friends into the city centre to see it and I thought it was the greatest thing ever in my life.

I also remember feeling so emotional at the song the ewoks played at the end. And later Lucas took it away and effectively pissed all over one of my happiest childhood memories. Cheers George

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Treacle
10/12/2019 08:56:16 pm

Nice article that got me musing on my own Star Wars memories which I'm sure are about fifty percent fabricated (previously I would have asked my older sister for clarification but for the past few years she's been bizarrely insistent that as a child I had an inhaler WHICH NEVER HAPPENED).

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Lummox60N
10/12/2019 10:55:24 pm

Ah, yes, Star Wars memories.
I first saw it on the big screen when Empire came out, because our local cinema had a double bill on. I was desperate to see them, and my dear old Gran decided she'd take me.
I mostly remember the look of resigned disappointment when she started to leave when the credits of Star Wars rolled and I informed her that, "No, there is another."

I remember seeing Jedi with my pals, what with being a little older by then. It was fucking ruined because the lunatic parents in the row in front had allowed their children to bring their toy AT-AT and snow-speeder...but hadn't had the good manners to remove the batteries from said toys.
ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FUCKING FILM those infernal devices were blasting and dimly lighting up.
Arseholes.

Those memories, though, are entirely accurate. Thankfully.

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Random Reviewer
11/12/2019 03:37:40 am

I saw the OT on VHS, when I was in my early teens. My best friend lent me his copy and I had a fun time absorbing everything in the story like a sponge. I remember not really being old enough to be pissed off at the Prequel Trilogy, but I do remember an anticlimactic feeling that grew over time.

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Bruce Flagpole
11/12/2019 10:31:19 am

This is rather interesting, got me thinking of my memories of star wars.
I know I was not born/too young for the original and then Empire...there's a vague possibility i was taken to see Return at the cinema but i don't remember it.
My memories are based around watching it from TV broadcasts, recorded and rewatched. My mam would say i would literally watch the original, rewind and watch it again - though I don't remember this specifically.
Anyway, I thought I'd look up broadcast dates and found this.
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-UK-Broadcast-dates/id/14913
apparently that means i would have been 9 before Empire was broadcast and 10 for Return - I was sure I was much younger than that. I also have this vague memory that i was 'stuck' with Empire for a long long time without being able to watch Return (aka the one with the Ewoks), as such I didn't like it so much (obviously I appreciated it more with time).

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Windy
12/12/2019 09:24:38 am

I remember pinpointing the first time I saw Star Wars to Feb 78 between Issue 2 & 3 of Star Wars weekly. I was 6. My mom picked me up from school and we went straight to the local cinema the first day it opened. Queued around the block. It was the defining moment of my life.
42 years later and I'm booked into the Triple Bill Midnight opening at the local IMAX.
Its been an incredible journey. There will be tears.

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Jack Kipper link
29/4/2022 09:23:26 pm

You aren't wrong about Tiswas showing clips from Star Wars months before any of us saw it in the UK. I have vivid memories of first seeing C3PO & R2D2 in the Tatooine desert on Tiswas and how amazing they looked. My guess is it would have been late Summer early Autumn 1977.

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