Star Wars 30th Anniversary Special - part 1

I just couldn't resist this.

On May 25th, "Star Wars," or what everyone now calls "Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope" will be thirty years old. This movie had a tremendous impact on myself and countless others. Back in the pre-VCR summer of 1977, I went back to the movie theater again and again with anyone who would go, and often by myself, shelling out my $2.25 per ticket to see this movie at least 25 times that first summer alone.

I knew I wanted to something fun all month long to celebrate, but with previous mentioned looming, and very tight deadlines, coupled with the fact that the bulk of my embarassingly large Star Wars collection is in storage 800 miles away from me, I was about to drop it, putting up a single post on the anniversary itself.

Then along comes like-minded compatriot, Todd Franklin of Neatocoolville, who began posting his own daily celebration of 30 years of "Star Wars" with a daily trading card from the original series, the original People magazine article, etc. Initially, I was glad that Todd was doing it. I could live vicariously through his posts, knowing he'd do a superlative job, as always, but then this nagging part of my brain reminded me of how much fun last Halloween was, mainly because of Todd and a few others, who created well done daily Halloween themed posts, that when assembled, formed an extension of each other, showing just how the virtual world can become a community of like-minded fools. I wasn't about to wait until next October for this thematic cameraderie to return, nor was I about to let Todd have all the fun.

I figured that even without the bulk of my collection available, and with the other demands on my time, I could still pull something together to scan and post on a daily basis.

Here, for the first entry, is appropriately, one of the earliest images that Ralph McQuarrie created as a visual aid for selling "Star Wars" to a movie studio. From left to right: Han Solo, the female Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2 while above them Y-Wing fighters arc towards the Death Star.