(not to mention my memories of my mother helping me with all the Leia cosplays and building me playsets and my very own sandcrawler out of cardboard and milk cartons...)

I built an AT-AT out of plywood large enough to have a cockpit for my AT-AT drivers and a large area in the body for stormtroopers. It was painted white with an instrumental panel inside the cockpit and I stole a piece of my older brother's window tinting for a see-through windshield. BUT, the legs were a huge problem. I tried, but at my young age I couldn't figure out how to get it to stand on 4 articulated legs without falling over. In the end, it was a modified ST-AT - Snow Terrain Armored Transport with two large skis under the body. I think it's still in my mother's basement somewhere? I gotta go find that thing. It probably doesn't look as cool as I remember it though.

Edit: I also made a small jedi / rebel base thingy (more of a castle) out of gravel and cement. I had battles in it with my Star Wars miniatures. Until I looked out one day and some distant cousin (visiting my grandparents next door) was pounding it to dust with large rocks. If I had a true lightsaber I would probably be typing this message from a detention block library computer.

In 1977 when the first movie came out I was only 8 years old and too young to see it in the cinema.

Is that in the US? I saw it at 7 in the UK. My parents took me but I'm sure it didn't have an age limit

In 1977 when the first movie came out I was only 8 years old and too young to see it in the cinema.

Is that in the US? I saw it at 7 in the UK. My parents took me but I'm sure it didn't have an age limit

Nah, that would just be a case of his parents feeling he wasn't yet old enough. So far as I know, film ratings don't carry any legal age restrictions (maybe NC-17), but a lot of theaters will have rules.

R rated movies theoretically carry age restrictions, but you can get into them if your parent brings you and the ticket people have to give enough of a **** to ID you either way. NC-17 movies do not allow you in, regardless of whether or not your parents would go in with you. That said, regular theaters do not, to my knowledge, play NC-17 movies, and receiving that rating is basically a death sentence from the movie ratings board - which is bull because... well, this isn't really the place for a lecture of film ratings, right? There's a documentary about it on US Netflix, if you really care.

I'm pretty sure 'Star Wars' had a 'U' certificate in the UK, meaning 'Universal', anyone could see it.

We went in the evening, but I'm sure there were loads of kids there too, I wasn't the only one who was excitable. I don't think there was anything in the film that was inappropriate for a seven year old. The other two might have been 'PG' for 'parental guidance' but I was older by then.

I'm from Denmark and when the first movie came out it was restricted to 10 years or older I think. At least my parents thought I wasn't old enough. But I got to see Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi with my father.

In the 70s here in the Great White North (Ontario specifically) there were only 3 ratings; (No classification), Adult and Restricted. Star Wars would have fallen into the (No Classification) category at the time. I remember going back to see the movie many times with just my siblings; me 10, my brother 9, and my sister 8. We would stay all day at the theater hiding and sneaking back in to watch another viewing. Did this just about every weekend after it opened.

NC-17, PG-13, etc. didn't exist in 1977 in the US. If I recall correctly it may have just been G, PG, R, and X (yes just checked wiki and this is correct). I'm pretty sure Star Wars would have been PG back then, so suggestion of parents especially with pre-teens. Since it was a suggestion only, in my experience parents regularly dropped off older pre-teens and later picked them up.

I dunno... I remember seeing ANH when it came out (and I was 7ish at the time).

My best memories is that my brother and I were wanting to see it , as all the kids were talking about it at school, and we would badger my folks to see it, over and over and over and over....

One night my dad came home from work with two action figures, one for each of us. One Luke and one Darth. We each got one, and played with those two figs all night, even though we had NO idea who they were (except from what other school kids were talking about).

Then then next day, my folks took us out of school to see it for the first time, even though my old man was not a movie fan, and he took a day off of work to take all of us. That meant a lot.

I think for me, it was the fact that my folks did all of that for us, really made ANH all that much more magical to my brother and I.

So, for me, it was about the family experience making a great movie greater.

My first post here.

I was 15 in 1977 and saw Star Wars (it will never be "Episode IV: A New Hope" to me) maybe 30 times that summer. The look of the matt painting of the planets after the opening scroll set my goosebumps on edge. Darth Vader's entrance had me in full skwee, and when Luke turned on the lightsaber in Obi-Wan's hut changed my world forever.

I had just started playing D&D that spring in March (you know, white box three character classes, olde school) and had picked up Traveller that week. So I guess I have been playing Star Wars RPGs longer than some here have been alive. However, I do have say it nice to see some originals here who had the theatre experience in the '70's.

Saw Star Wars in 1977 in theater. I was 11.

My friends geeked over it, I just liked it. A high school buddy worked at a theater when RotJ came out, and he kept the Revenge of the Jedi movie posters when the title got altered.

The EotE game system is what I wanted for my sci-fi game. Star Wars itself really has nothing to do with it.

What sold me on it? X-wings, lightsabers, the deathstar, ROTJ.

I can't remember if I saw Star Wars in the cinema or not, I suspect not, but I had certainly seen it when ROTJ came out which I did see in the cinema. That was amazing as a kid and I still love it. I hadn't seen Empire yet but I knew the story because I had these book/cassette tape combos that told the story of the film with dialogue and soundtrack etc. I used to listen to those things all the time, they must have been pre-VHS or before we got VHS anyway. So first time I saw ESB was at the drive-in when they showed all three together, I still remember that night, I was so excited. So I have always loved Star Wars, like so many it went hand in hand with childhood.

Taking my two kids to see their first Star Wars movie in a cinema last year brought back all of those great memories.

What sold me? I always enjoyed the movies, but when we our gaming group was deep into the FFG WFRP system and heard about their new Star Wars game using Narrative Dice 2.0 I thought "I better pick that book up". That Christmas my wife gave it to me... We didn't play another game of WFRP. I discovered the Order 66 podcast a little before their reboot and that sunk the hook in even deeper

But ultimately the biggest thing has been my kids, especially my sons Star Wars themed 7th birthday was a big highlight, seeing him so happy.

Phantom Menace allowed me to turn my 10-year-old son into a complete Star Wars geek. Games, comics the whole thing

I'm a child of the 80s-into-90s and didn't watch Star Wars until high school, where I became friends with a bunch of Trekkies/Warsies(?) who inspired me to watch the original trilogy. Then the prequels started up and I left the cinema thinking that Ep1 was actually pretty good. I saw it again soon after and started to reconsider my initial impressions, though I still quite enjoy the Duel of the Fates. Once the Star Wars bug bit, I was round my friends' houses all the time where we would play Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 (and later, Jedi Outcast) over their PC network and it was fantastic. Between bouts on the PC, we would play the old WEG rpg - so loads of our gaming time was spent re-living the saga. Great times!

Edits: dumbass typos.

The Kenner action figures.

And some thing else... what was it again? Oh yeah:

The movies!*

*The OT movies to be exact. But I have to admit it was the toys first and the movies second.

I'm a child of the 80s-into-90s and didn't watch Star Wars until high school, where I became friends with a bunch of Trekkies/Warsies(?) who inspired me to watch the original trilogy. Then the prequels started up and I left the cinema thinking that Ep1 was actually pretty good. I saw it again soon after and started to reconsider my initial impressions, though I still quite enjoy the Duel of the Fates. Once the Star Wars bug bit, I was round my friends' houses all the time where we would play Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 (and later, Jedi Outcast) over their PC network and it was fantastic. Between bouts on the PC, we would play the old WEG rpg - so loads of our gaming time was spent re-living the saga. Great times!

Edits: dumbass typos.

Honestly I think the prequels get a lot more negativity than they really deserve. No they're not great movies, but they're far from the worst things out there, particularly in the scifi genre. If they didn't have 20+ years of Star Wars fanatical fan expectations to deal with, and just looked at in their own right, they're not that bad. Sure the acting isn't great in some cases, but they look pretty **** good, the plot mostly hangs together (if you ignore the OT stuff and just look at them on their own), and are for the most part, an ok experience with some genuine humor, and some genuine emotional moments, at least for me.

Do I plan on watching them ever again? No, probably not, but there are several movies that I love that I have no plans on watching again, mostly because I just don't rewatch movies all that much as a general rule. But if they came on tv, I'd probably leave them on in the background while I did something and enjoy it.

@KungFuFerret: One thing that you can't take from the prequels is the sheer bonkers imagination throughout - I'm not sure the same can be said of The Force Awakens, even though I enjoyed that film immensely.

@KungFuFerret: One thing that you can't take from the prequels is the sheer bonkers imagination throughout - I'm not sure the same can be said of The Force Awakens, even though I enjoyed that film immensely.

True, but I don't think Awakens was trying to "break new ground" with Star Wars. That had been tried before, and for the past 20 years, Star Wars fans have increased the internet blood pressure level, with how salty they are about the PT. Awakens was the familiar comfort food the fans were frothing for, and they got it....and then complained that it was just like the original trilogy and didn't try anything new.....which just goes to show, fans are jerks, and you can never make them happy.

Original Trilogy (specifically episode 5), but I enjoy them all. My mother was astounded that a VHS tape could start to go bad from use. As a lifelong musician, I find joy in the entire soundtrack.

Outside of the films and books I have been most sold on the magic of Star Wars by other fans. Roleplaying with friends, throwing down some Battlefront II (or other games), etc. Having an infinitely creative universe is a wonderful thing.

When Han shot greedo under the table I shouted out in glee