Star Wars 30th Anniversary Special - part 4

I remember the first time I saw "Star Wars" I got a chill in that pause between "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." followed by that first trumpet blare as the opening fanfare came in accompanying the movie title outlined in yellow as it fell against the distance.

Then after the Flash Gordon inspired opening crawl, one of those cinematic moments that the big, wide screen is made for, as the rebel blockade runner "Tantive IV" shoots from overhead, behind the audience, towards distant Tatooine, pursued by another ship which seemed to come on forever, the Imperial star destroyer. I was won over at that very moment, my sense of awe and wonder completely activated.






Though the scale was hardly as impressive, here's the die-cast star destroyer I picked up in 1979, complete with the captured blockade runner tucked in underneath. I actually began buliding a three foot model from scratch, using a corrugated cardboard from covered with odd bits of model kits, much like I read the actual model builders on the movie did. The project was abandoned once I realized I didn't have enough small convincing pieces to use, and couldn't justify buying perfectly good battleship, tank, truck and airplane model kits, just to cannibalize them for my star destroyer.