Most of this is true. The rest is even truer.
-- Opening disclaimer, "5-25-77"
"To everybody else, movies are something to do when you're tired of living real life. To you, real life is something to do when you're tired of watching movies."
-- from Patrick Read Johnson's "5-25-77"
In James Bridges' "September 30, 1955" (1978), Richard Thomas (then best-known as John-Boy Walton on TV) played an Arkansas college student devastated by the death of his idol James Dean on the title date. In Patrick Read Johnson's "5-25-77," John Francis Daley (best-known as the great Sam Weir in "Freaks & Geeks") plays, basically, Patrick Read Johnson, who visited his idol Steven Spielberg on his spring break in 1977 (while Spielberg was finishing up "Close Encounters"). As the story goes, Johnson got to see an early screening of "Star Wars" (which opened on the title date 30 years ago) while there were still dogfight scenes from old WW II movies in place of the spaceships, and proclaimed himself the world's #1 "Star Wars" Fan. In his semi-autobiographical movie -- "from the producers of 'Star Wars' and 'American Graffiti'" (Fred Roos and Gary Kurtz) -- Johnson tells a version of his own story, about growing up in a small Midwestern town and trying to make it to a showing of "Star Wars" on the first day of its release. Teaser trailer here -- at least for the time being. (BTW, Anybody else remember with fondness the episode of "That '70s Show" in which Topher Grace and pals were smitten with "Star Wars" mania? It captured the now-bittersweet utopian euphoria the movie inspired at the time.)
And here?
Twitch had some sympathetic ruminations about "5-25-77" and the "Star Wars" phenomenon last year that I'd like to share with you on the 30th anniversary of that Portentous Day:
I've learned the hard way that there is a basic generational gap involved with "Star Wars" fans. There is the current crop for whom the prequel trilogy was their first exposure, and then there are the rest of us.While I'm not quite old enough to have seen "A New Hope" on its first run it is no exaggeration at all to say that "Star Wars" populated the landscape of my imagination like nothing else at least until I hit puberty. The "Star Wars" universe is where I lived out my childhood. [...]
No comment.The current crop of "Star Wars" fans can't seem to understand why us older lot are so bothered by the over-digitization of our childhood dream-world. But Patrick Read Johnson does. And how. "5-25-77" is his loosely autobiographical film about the impact of "Star Wars" on his own life as a teenage geek in love with the movies. We linked to an early, very rough teaser a while back but we have just been sent the full length trailer and if the film comes anywhere close to living up to this Johnson has made one of the most loving odes to geekdom ever. It is simply fantastic.
It's kinda true. Geeks today are a lot different than they were. More technically advanced. But I think in heart we've remained similar. But how old is this Twitch person. I was born in 78 and not sure if he's referring to people my age when he refers to a younger generation. Because my generation has a high regard for the original untouched versions. And from a lot of the home made star wars films i see around LA a lot of the younger ones do to. This is an argument I would have to think about. His POV is more than likely dominated by a few specific examples. My experience feels a little different.
I'll have to check out this "5-25-77".
the trailer is available here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=DxQYb183Z2w)
and it gives me goosebumbs, even though i'm between the two generations of Star Wars fans (i was born when "Return..." was released), so my first experience with Star Wars on the screen was actually watching the updated versions...which were a huge letdown, even though i only saw the originals on crappy vhs copies.
Props for mentioning 5-25-77. I've been looking forward to it for a while because of John Francis Daley. I try to keep tabs on all the Freaks and Geeks alums (why else would I watch How I Met Your Mother or the awful remake of Pulse).
My family provides a perfect example of the dichotomy of Star Wars fans. I, in my mid-20s, grew up obsessed with the originals and was thrilled with their late 1990s re-release (oh my! I finally saw them on the big screen!). But nothing can compare to my disappointment with the new trilogy. I haven't even seen the final installment, having had the first two leave such an awful taste in my mouth.
But then there are my two nephews (11 and 13) who adore the new trilogy (and the old). We're basically the same people, into analogous things 13-years apart and yet I cannot see eye to eye with them on this matter at all. It amazes me that they could be duped by episodes 1-3.
I downloaded the first trailer for "5/25/77" a couple of years ago, and every time I watch it I get those goosebumps. I was 10 years old during the summer of "Star Wars," and it definitely changed the course of my life on some level. I still count seeing that opening, with the Star Destroyer flying overhead, as the great cinematic moment of my life.
I'm hoping -- and betting -- that 5/25/77 will capture that feeling of the era, when "Star Wars" was everywhere. My hometown of Niles, Ohio, only had two screens -- not theaters, screens! -- and "Star Wars" played on one of them for almost a year. Nowadays I'd probably be very frustrated by something like that (in fact, out local 16-screen multiplex is only showing 3 movies now -- Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates) but back in 1977, before home video, I was grateful "Star Wars" played that long because I didn't know, after it left, when I'd be able to see it again.
I've read enough film books by now and seen enough pre-"Star Wars" movies of the 1970s to see how it can be argued that those blockbusters helped end the era of gritty 70s cinema, but what I think those critics and authors (all boomers or older, of course) miss is that "Star Wars" was ground-zero for an entire generation that grew up loving movies. Whenever I watch any film -- whether it's a studio blockbuster or a small art film -- on some level I'm hoping to get just a taste of that feeling I had 30 years ago when the Star Destroyer flew over my head -- and just kept going and going...
Let me preface the following longwinded comment by underlining the fact that I consider myself a world-class geek in many, many ways.
But even though I was enthralled by Star Wars when it came out, it was never a movie that I was obsessed with. Yeah, I had a Darth Vader T-shirt, I bought the soundtrack album, I even bought the Story of Star Wars LP, and I saw the movie at least five or six times on its original theatrical run. I remember the rush of excitement talking to people who'd already seen it-- my own opportunity wouldn't come for another few days, when my friends and I could hop in the car and drive the hundred-mile one-way trip to where it was playing.
But I did not kick in my TV set when Annie Hall won Best Picture of 1977. I did not automatically bestow upon George Lucas godhead status. And by the time The Empire Strikes Back came out, I knew I'd have to see it, but frankly, I was more than a little sick of Star Wars. (And I was more than a little happy when Empire turned out to be so much better as a movie than the first-- not the fourth-- episode.)
My wife thinks I was just a bit to old to be driven crazy by the movie-- I was just about to turn 17 and enter college. That simple reason seems a bit too simple to satisfy my curiosity as to why Star Wars has never meant to me what it meant to most everyone else of my generation. (My wife is three years younger than I am, and she was swept away by that everlasting star destroyer.) I mean, my best friends, all at least a year older than I was, were complete, unapologetic Star Wars geeks-- they scooped all the toys, masks and toothbrushes they could get ahold of, and they read you the riot act if you cared to express the opinion that, well, some of the acting was kinda wooden, and gee, that George Lucas isn't much of a director...
At the risk of sounding conveniently revisionist, I thrilled to Star Wars in 1977, but I got just as big a kick out of The Spy Who Loved Me. The movies that meant most to me then were the movies that were hallmarks for a generation slightly older than I was-- The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, Dog Day Afternoon, Dirty Harry, Chinatown, Taxi Driver-- as well as Spielberg's great ones (Jaws, Close Encounters), and a lot of other movies that were hallmarks for no one but that I held dear just the same. And, of course, the movie that ended up meaning the most to me, the one that still does, is the one with which I had the biggest wrestling match of my young movie-watching life, the one that still means the most to me today-- Nashville. These are the movies I was thinking about in 1977, the ones that were burrowing into me. I certainly understand and respect the fact that so many people of my generation have so much
at stake in this movie, and I understand that for many it marked the awakening of their awareness of THE MOVIES. But for me it's just another touchstone, one that holds and sparks a lot of dear memories, but is otherwise just another movie among many, many others that I love or am interested in more that didn't make nearly so much money or such a massive dent in popular culture. Go figure.
All this said, I loved Freaks and Geeks-- I even told a somewhat nonplussed John Frances Daley so myself when I ran into him at Disneyland once just after F&G finally drew its last breath. And 5-25-77 looks like it's going to be a riot!
It's funny how music from movies is recycled into trailers for other movies. In this case the song 'Knock Yourself Out' from 'I Heart Huckabees'.
In saying there is a generation gap johnson is forgetting about people who were born in the 80's. I discovered star wars in the summer of 1995 when i was 9 about a year and half before they re-released them and I was forever hooked on the series. Four years later when episode 1 came out i enjoyed it as i did the re-releases because it made something i had bugged my friends about for years as being cool part of the pop culture scene. I saw episode 1 three times in theaters and i loved the fact that once again star wars was everywhere and even cool people were forced to deal with it. For one shimmering moment we star wars geeks again controlled the national pop culture dialogue and I felt as like this is what it must have been like when the original's were coming out. Unfortunately we devolved into infighting over the merits of the new movie(s) instead of just enjoying them for taking us back to a familiar place even if the ride wasnt as good as the last time. Maybe 5-25-77 and fanboys will help us reclaim the pop culture spotlight once again.
P.S. When is lucas going to start re-releasing the movies in imax 3-d digital like promised?
The current crop of "Star Wars" fans can't seem to understand why us older lot are so bothered by the over-digitization of our childhood dream-world.
Do you speak for all who saw the 1977 movie as a child? I saw the movie when I was 12 years old. I saw REVENGE OF THE SITH when I was 40. Quite frankly, I'm not bothered by the "over-digitalization of our childhood dream".