Born in 89.
I saw the original as a local channel's Sunday movie when I was 7. I remember the commercial had that shot of the X-Wings barrel-rolling, and that was the thing that made me go wide-eyed and say "OH MAN, WHAT IS THIS?!" Then I watched it and it blew me the fuck away. I became totally obsessed with Star Wars. Funnily enough, I played X-Wing, Tie-Fighter and Dark Forces soon after, and alot of stuff that came from the later movies like characters or music, I got introduced to through those games. Then that year for my birthday, my dad got me these:
I was like "THERE ARE
TWO MORE MOVIES?!?!" I opened my present late at night, but the entire next day, me and my whole family watched all three movies. One of the best days ever. Changed my life, man.
Thing is too, these VHS' all opened with interviews between George Lucas and Leonard Malton, and I remember this was the first time I ever became conscious to the idea that all this stuff had to come from
someone. There were people who wrote and designed this stuff. It was the first time I'd ever heard a creator talk about story, and having to change things, and solving narrative problems, etc. Also the first time I'd heard about the idea of a "prequel trilogy" and suddenly the 4,5,6 thing made way more sense and it made me super excited at the notion that there were still three more Star Wars movies coming. (
sigh...)
But still, seeing all this, that's totally where I got excited about the idea of storytelling etc. Star Wars Lego wasn't a thing then, so I took the toy ships I could find, and the ones I couldn't I made out of mismatched Lego pieces, and would like compose shots. Like when most kids play, they would just pick up a thing and carry it over and land it, and bash some action figures together. But like... that wasn't real enough for me. I would hold the ships super close to my eyes and move them away and towards me as if I was staring at a camera frame. I was trying to recreate the cool awesome shots I saw in Return of the Jedi and Empire, trying to replicate how the ships moved and stuff. Action figures' arms couldn't articulate and shit, so I would just look at my two pointer fingers and focus on those, thinking of them as lightsabers. How they moved on screen, how they'd spin and shit. I looked like a fucking idiot and my family mocked the shit out of me, but man... In my head, I was making some epic shit.
And now, I get to do what I do as a storyboard artist with motherfucking superheroes, and it's all because of those three VHS'. Seriously, my life was never the same after seeing that first Star Wars movie.
