Memories needed for my Star Wars book

Hi all,

I am putting the finishing touches to my book Star Wars: The U.K Story, which covers the years 1975 – 1983.

I am a little short of fan's memories though. I would greatly appreciate if people could write at least two paragraphs on one or more of the following subjects, including your age and where you were living in the U.K at the time. Either post your answers in this thread or send me a private message. Please note that I am not including any recollections from 1984 and beyond - I'll be gathering those for the next book which covers 1984 – 1999.

Please include your real name (if you want to reveal it). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Craig.


When did you first learn about Star Wars?

Do you remember any of the build up to the release of the Star Wars films such as radio or television adverts, TV and press reports etc?

When and where did you first see each of the Star Wars films at the cinema and what did you think of them? (Please write two paragraphs on each).

Do you have memories of any merchandise that you had in the 70s and 80s? Is there one particular item that you have fond memories of?

Did you own any of the "cash in" Star Wars soundtrack albums?

Star Wars was re-released at the cinema in 1979 and 1980. The Empire Strikes Back was re-released in 1981. Any memories?

What was your experience of watching Star Wars on television for the first time?

Did you attend the Star Wars cinema Double Bill when it showed around the U.K in 1982?

What was your experience of watching the Star Wars cinema triple bill and when and where was your first one?

Do you have any memories of the Star Wars spinoffs such as the novels, radio drama and weekly comic?

Do you have memories of the Darth Vader or Boba Fett tour, or of any other Star Wars related events up until the end of 1983?

Were you involved in or have any knowledge of Star Wars fan groups or fanzines before the end of 1983?

How did you feel about the Star Wars saga at the close of 1983? Could you see it continuing or were you aware that George Lucas was taking a break from it all?

I remember crying when I received my first Star Wars figure. I didn't want an R2D2, I didn't want any Star Wars...

After seeing the film I wanted some Star Wars, my karma was to receive a C3P0 instead of the Stormie I really wanted :lol: :lol:

Thanks for that.

When did this happen and how old were you? Who bought the figures for you? What drew you to the Stormtrooper out of all of the other figures?

Er um.....

1980? I was about 5? My Aunty Pat got me R2 my Dad got Threepio for me when I was about 7. I was drawn to Stormie because they was cool in the film, cool as a figure and even then I knew the cardback looked amazing...

Its a strain remebering all this :? :lol:

Simply Sci-fi said:

Thanks for that.

When did this happen and how old were you? Who bought the figures for you? What drew you to the Stormtrooper out of all of the other figures?

Click to expand...

He's lying...it was 2 years ago :shock: blubbed like a baby :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

He is also known as the Scatman so good luck probing

Scatman probing is that a new fad via social media?

Jeez I'm getting old :!:

I didn't actually know there was an actual Darth Vader tour but I do remember Darth Vader turning up at the Spar shop in Longton, Lancs. It's a little village where nothing much happens so that was kind of a big thing back then ...and a little bit weird :?

Fantastic. Any more memories of that event?

I'd love to find the most obscure place that the Darth Vader "tour" ended up.

Craig.

http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8512&hilit=beeston

I could pad out the hunt for the Jawa story. It's interesting as it ties in with the fact there is no 12A palitoy Jawa card as that
figure had a later release than the rest of the first 12.

cheers Jason

I just read that. Very interesting.

The DV tour came to Gateshead. I always thought it was Prowse but last week he released a statement saying he has never toured in costume.

I remember standing in line to see him. My mum said I could have a figure and I picked Ben. I remember her saying it was a poor figure and forced me to get DV. When I met him he looked at my figure and ruffled my hair. I was do pleased. I'm guessing this was 1983

I have a few good ones

One being when my mother took me to a toy shop when I was about 8 for Darth Vader to come in for the kids, he stepped on my foot & in his best vader voice said sorry rather loudly to me for doing so, talk about killing it, a sith lord apologising :? really did piss me off no end, would have been much more in line for him to say something derogatory & threaten for my insulate behaviour of getting in his way - in my mind at that tender age anyway :lol:

I vaguely remember Vader coming to our local toy shop, Mumbo and I queued up to meet the man himself (well an imposter). I remember the queue stretching out of the door.

I think I will have to ask my mum for a better description of the day

I remember both Darth and Boba visiting my local toy store, Martins in Kingswood Bristol, back in the day on separate occasions. The Darth visit would have been around the time star wars was released (maybe 1978-79) and I'm pretty sure I knew who Boba was when I met him so it was probably around 80-81 (definitely way before Jedi came out). Both of which I still have their autographs in my scrapbook I made, and when I say made I really do mean made as it was just sheets of paper taped together (man we couldn't have had much money back then :lol: )

The only other time I remember was seeing Darth in Bournemouth ( I think it was there but I'll have to double check with my father). It was right on the release of Jedi and I hadn't seen it at that point but remembered seeing the trailer for it on the Jonathan King show, Entertainment USA, so was quite hyped up about it. I bought the red storybook of the film and again got him to sign it.Thinking about it now I've never actually put the two signatures together to see if they're the same but I'll have to do it one day.

One other thing is that my story is the same as Jason's with regards to the Jawa. It was the last I needed to complete my first 12 and my mother finally bought it home for me out of the blue one day and it was a vinyl caped one! I remember I had the Palitoy Death Star play set before receiving it (this is my number one Star Wars toy and was played with so much growing up! ), and that I had a day off of school the next day which remembering the weather at the time I think was around the first part of the year in 79 (as I received the Death Star for Christmas 78). Also I didn't have any of the 20 backs at that time and don't remember them until around my birthday in May 79 when I also received my Palitoy Cantina. Apart from those two play sets and one mini rig I just had figures (19 of the first 20, no Hammerhead and most of the ESB ones with a mail away Boba Fett and maybe a handful of Jedi with a mail away Emperor, as I was getting a little old for it by then).

Ian

Thought I'd have a quick go at these for you.


When did you first learn about Star Wars?

I don't really remember ever hearing of star wars I just seemed to know about it for some reason and then bugged my Father endlessly to take me to see it probably from late 77 until around late Jan/early Feb 78 when he finally gave in.


Do you remember any of the build up to the release of the Star Wars films such as radio or television adverts, TV and press reports etc?

None I can recall.


When and where did you first see each of the Star Wars films at the cinema and what did you think of them? (Please write two paragraphs on each).

Star Wars (ANH) around late Jan/early Feb 78 at the Odeon cinema Bristol. I remember it was cold and there was a huge cue going around the corner of the cinema that my father and I waited in. We just made it into the showing we queued for and I'm not sure if my father would have waited any longer so it was a good job we made it. I don't really remember much from that first viewing other than walking in just after the crawl at the start and seeing the star destroyer flying over my head! The other thing was the sound coming from that space vessel almost knocking me over. The only other thing that stays with me was seeing C-3PO and R2-D2 lost on Tatooine, classic images with them separating and C-3PO walking past that huge skeleton.

After the film had finished I just remember feeling so excited about the whole thing and strangely that the new adventures of Batman series was on when I returned back home (it was Saturday night around 5.30).


ESB I watched in 1980 at the ABC cinema Whiteladies Road Bristol (where I also saw Supermen). I really can't remember any details about seeing it but I do remember a child at my school telling me the Luke father reveal before seeing it and that pretty much ruined my chance of finding that out as the film played :evil: I do remember feeling quite shocked at the time I was told though and didn't quite believe it (I also never hung out with that kid again!).

ROTJ was back at the Odeon Bristol and it was my friends birthday treat who was trying to decide if he wanted to see that or For your eyes only. He was quite into Bond and it was his birthday but I still didn't feel too bad about persuading him to see Jedi…..well maybe a little once those Ewoks turned up! It was defiantly my least favourite of the three and maybe this was because ESB really is such a superior film and as I was getting older and out of my toy playing faze.

Do you have memories of any merchandise that you had in the 70s and 80s? Is there one particular item that you have fond memories of?

See my post above this one but I do remember also seeing the adverts for the toys on T.V. and in fact making a point of waiting for the adverts on saturday morning just in case they came on.


Did you own any of the "cash in" Star Wars soundtrack albums?

This beauty -

http://www.depthoffieldmagazine.com/2012/07/29/starwarsploitation-sounds-star-wars-on-record-1977-1979/glaho/

Also my first 7" I ever asked for and owned was this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Tkx6BgRFE&feature=kp

:lol:


Star Wars was re-released at the cinema in 1979 and 1980. The Empire Strikes Back was re-released in 1981. Any memories?

I never remember either of these being re-released.


What was your experience of watching Star Wars on television for the first time?

It seemed to take so long for Star Wars to make it to T.V. (and an eternity for it on VHS), but I had my brand new Betamax tape waiting and ended up watching it endlessly. My next-door neighbours boys who were younger than me and had never seen it had missed it on T.V. and were very happy to hear I had a copy of it. I remember it disappearing into their house for quite a while after (always a good feeling to spread the joy though and I got to play with their He-man figures).


Did you attend the Star Wars cinema Double Bill when it showed around the U.K in 1982?

Never knew of it at the time.


What was your experience of watching the Star Wars cinema triple bill and when and where was your first one?

Now this cinema experience I do remember going to although i'm not 100% where. I always thought it was in a cinema around Nelson street in Bristol but can't seem to find any mention of it. I'm sure one of my old friends will be able to jog my memory as to where it was exactly but I know for sure it was in the centre of Bristol somewhere.

It was my first chance to see the first two films on the big screen since watching them on their release so it was a big day for me. The two things I remember from it was that the projectionist decided that right in the middle of the speeder bike chase sequence it was a good place to freeze the film for a toilet break!! Just seeing a close up of Luke on his bike suddenly screeching to a holt with the words 'intermission' being super embossed in white over his face was really not a good way to add tension. The other thing was that it was daylight going in and darkness coming out, a very strange feeling.


Do you have any memories of the Star Wars spinoffs such as the novels, radio drama and weekly comic?

The weekly comic was a big thing for me and I know I stuck with it until ESB and may well have had some of the Jedi ones as well. I'm pretty sure I remember it being advertised on T.V. although I missed getting the first issue (and more importantly the X-Wing free gift!), but made sure I didn't miss any others. I've since gone back and picked up both the Star Wars and ESB issues with the film retelling in them along with their untouched free gifts (as most of mine were cut up and pasted in my scrapbook or put up on my bedroom walls). They bought back a lot of memories looking through them again with all the other stories in there and the funny adverts and letters page. It was also so nice to finally get hold of that X-Wing (as well as the T.I.E Fighter), and I still think it's a great free gift. It was a shame that the first ESB one only had transfers that you could get with Dairylea ( I think they're the same transfers?), and no other comic from that run had anything (I'm not counting those so called posters as a free gift really).

The other thing I was into in a big way was the Blue and Red boarder cards we had in the UK with a stick of bubble gum and the FKS ESB stickers and Panini Jedi ones. The Star Wars cards were affordable for a small child's pocket money and I managed to put both sets together (which I still have), and the FKS stickers were pretty low grade in all fairness and there were just too many to complete although I did fill out the back of my sticker album to send off for the missing ones but never sent it off. I'm glad I kept it though as I actually managed to complete it about a month ago - an ebay success story!! . The jedi set was easier to complete for some reason (probably as there were less to get and I remember other children in the playground having stacks of swaps). These are much better quality than the Empire ones and slightly bigger as well. I managed to get an Empire FKS empty box when I was collecting them which I kept my action figures in as well as an ESB chewy bar box which was more sturdy and held up until I sold all my figures as a job lot to my mates brother for a fiver……sad days, especially as my Vinyl Cape Jawa was in there and I almost kept it as I had a strange attachment to it

The other things I remember from that time period was the shreddies with transfers and 4 different Star Wars backgrounds on the back of the box that I still own and the ESB biscuits and Jedi yogurts. We had our fair share of Star Wars related goodies with all the stationary based items and food related things, not to mention the toys. Thinking back now I also had the Stormtrooper mask that came with a lyons maid lolly and still have a few of the stickers that were packed with the ESB lollies.


Do you have memories of the Darth Vader or Boba Fett tour, or of any other Star Wars related events up until the end of 1983?

See post above.


Were you involved in or have any knowledge of Star Wars fan groups or fanzines before the end of 1983?

No, none of them.


How did you feel about the Star Wars saga at the close of 1983? Could you see it continuing or were you aware that George Lucas was taking a break from it all?[/quote]

I knew that that was going to be it although I always remembered hearing that he'd written them as a nine part saga and wondered if I'd ever see any others (you really do have to be careful what you wish for some times!).

At my age at the time it was all kind of over for me and although I was tempted to pick up some of the figures again when I noticed in a local post office in the late eighties some mint old stock 12 backs and about three sealed death star's I resisted the temptation (one for each Death Star not to mention those figures).

Hope that's all of some help to you,

Ian

JuniorChubb said:

I think I will have to ask my mum for a better description of the day

Click to expand...

We could have some fun with this.

http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19929

Great response Ian! I'll do likewise and bore everyone senseless!

I was 3 and a half when Star Wars came out. My 5 year old brother had picked up the hype about this film from school from his friends elder siblings. My mother took us both one afternoon, skipping school for my brother, and she thought the film was about a music group, no real idea of space stuff. We went in the afternoon because she had heard the queues were ridiculous and often we would go to the cinema and give up with the queue seemingly miles long.

The Leamington regal Cinema was an enormous 1000+ seater cinema with red seats and if you didn't smoke you had to sit in the side isles. My only memory of the film is being there in the cinema and enjoying the x-wing fighters. Apparently I fell asleep after that. But I was hooked. My first piece of memorabilia was a star wars pillow case, which I still have. I loved the "robots" but I had little memory of their names. We never got to go to the cinema twice to see the same film as the run would have ended. With a lack of available cash, and also a lack of information to hand, it wasn't until star wars was shown on tv that we saw it for a second time. That was well into the early 1980s, around late 1982. It was a massive deal for everyone I knew. Nobody had a video recorder, and it was quite late on a sunday evening. Myself and my brother had a long sleep after lunch so we could stay up late to watch it. My dad, who was normally not really bothered with such nonsense, became intrigued by our frenzied anticipation. We had seen Empire, but this would have been technically the first time we would have seen Star Wars where our memories would be fresh and the story given context to what we witnessed in the sequel. That anticipation we experienced, the country experienced, can never be repeated today. It was a national event.

Our number 1 film was star wars, but this was fuelled by anything else space related; the Black Hole, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Whether it was books, movies, toys. You didn't have the deluge that you get now. We weren't kids with parents who spent loads of money on this stuff, my star wars fix was birthdays, xmas and very little in-between. As brothers, we would get different toys so we could have a variety and share.

A memory that always sticks with me is that we didn't know the names of the 'robots' for years. It wasnt until we got the toys did we find out what their names were. I loved R2 because he made funny noises. C3po sounded like professor yaffle from bagpuss, and thus he annoyed me.

I still have some of the music from star wars on 33" LP vinyl. The Sounds of star wars by the Sonic All stars and Geoff Loves' "Star Wars and other space themes", the cover which was a Han Solo and Luke crossover design. I loved that cover!. The star wars theme got played 100s of times in our house, to the point of driving my father mad and our time on the record player ( which was quite a large wooden box on legs, which doubled as a sideboard) restricted.

I got the Return of the jedi weekly or monthly magazine as well as subscribing to the fan club. It was a really disappointing fan club experience. There was little for a 7/8/9 year old, bantha tracks were too technical and the freebies weren't really something I wanted. The cloth patches were cool, but I wanted figures. There were some nice photo prints, but I really yearned for more and had to just wish to get hold of that Luke bespin jacket in my dreams. It was always featured in the catalogue, but my xmas budget was pretty strict and getting stuff from America was just going to be logistically impossible.

I don't think the double bill appeared in my town, but the fan club advertised where it was happening. Seeing as we rarely travelled far for holidays, we weren't going to travel to birmingham to see movies and leave the car somewhere. Plus my mother and father weren't that interested in sitting in a cinema for half a day watching something we'd already seen.

I met darth vader twice. Once when I won a £25 gift voucher to spend on star wars toys at Jordans, I got two lightsabres, and maybe a snow speeder (or xwing). The second at a meet and greet, again at Jordans. The picture which I have posted on this forum, the first event is on the farthest from facebook group as it appeared in the local media.

I was cheeky to Darth as I was a tall kid for my age and Darth 'strangled' me. I found it eerily a little too real.. he was strong, whoever he was. But I got a darth autograph on proper darth vader paper, I still have this today.

I can sort of remember the bubble gum cards and I have a feeling somebodys brother stole an entire box as I can still smell that bubble gum freshness smell as we unpacked the entire box to complete that massive chewbacca / han picture and the tusken raider picture. I can recall having a mouth packed full of gum. I still have the cards today.

There were also empire cards which my brother managed to persuade our neighbour (who had been with his estranged father in the USA), to swap us a few doubles for something (**** knows how my brother got him to part with them). I can still visualise us in his garden shed, hot day, this lad had an enormous stack of these cards and as he flicked through them with a group of us speculating as kids do to how the film was going to pan out, we were looking with drooling wonder at the images of the next star wars movie.. all I wanted to do was get these cards and stare at them more, ensure I could imprint the images onto my eyelids. These cards were like gold dust to us as they were out before we saw ESB. The card 'the fate of han solo' had us apoplectic with frenzied frothing. What the **** had happened to Han solo!! Why was he a statue? Or whatever he was. I can remember we stared at this card for days, weeks, wanting to know what the hell was happening.

I don't know where this was, it might have been friends at school, or a newspaper speculation, but it was always 9 films. And we hung onto that for years through the mid 80s to the late 80s where the interest in star wars ended with many other great movies already out (Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Back to the future), computers replacing toys, we just felt lied to really as the reality of growing up and the magic of star wars slowly left us. 9 films just became a whimsical comment that we had to accept was never going to happen. I never imagined I'd ever buy a star wars toy ever again in my lifetime by the time I departed for university in the early 1990s.