Your Favorite Star Wars Memory

[happyninja42]

For those of you who are fans of Star Wars, I was curious what your favorite moment from the movie series is.

Mine's pretty easy.

It was going to see Return of the Jedi in the theater, when it was first released. It's one of my strongest early memories. I was probably...six? Maybe seven years old, and me and my parents went to see it. I remember being stunned by the line. I'd never seen a line that long, ever much less to go see a movie. The theater was in our mall, and it was an "I" shaped building. The theater was in the corner of the top bar of the I, and the line was curled down the central hallway, like halfway down. To a 6 year old kid, that was a HUGE number of people. :O

Then we got in, and it was packed, people standing in the back to watch it was so packed. Another first for my tiny nerd brain, never been in a theater that full. The movie started, and we all watched it with hushed anticipation. The stuff with Jaba's palace was interesting, and then Luke showed up, and there was a murmur through the crowd, equivalent to "aaawh shit, here it comes!" The first moment that branded itself into my brain, was when Luke was about to be pushed into the Sarlaac pit. Nobody had any clue what was going to happen. We knew Luke had planned something but it was a total mystery. The whole theater was quite, as the music got tense, as Luke got out on the edge. And then he jumps, flips, catches the lightsaber, and the music swells as he lights the blade and starts kicking ass.

The crowd, went nuts. The theater erupted in noise as people cheered, and I was just dumbfounded. I'd never seen such a reaction from a movie crowd, and it was great.


The second memory was at the climax, as Luke leaps out of the darkness, full of rage, and starts to wail on Vader. I was really worried about how that was going to play out. I thought "oh crap! Is he going to go dark! Nuuu!" xD Just the musical score, and the imagery, everything cast in shadow, with only the glow of the sabers to illuminate what was going on, just, priceless.

So yeah, those are mine, what are yours?

 

[Neverhoodian]

Honestly? Probably seeing The Phantom Menace in theaters for the first time.

...What? I liked the movie. I still do. I think it ranks up there with the classic trilogy. I even like Jar Jar Binks.

*Braces for angry mob*

I was a hardcore Star Wars fan for most of my youth, so I have a number of "honorable mentions" as well:

-Getting Tie Fighter as a Christmas gift when I was a kid. The amount of hours I put into that game was insane. Even today I consider it to be a masterpiece.

-Discovering the Expanded Universe. I was about seven or eight when I found out about it (keep in mind this was before the internet), and my mind was blown. Granted a fair amount of it was utter tripe, but there were some real gems in there as well. The Thrawn trilogy, the X-Wing series, The Han Solo Adventures...all excellent reads.

-Playing the demo level of Jedi Outcast over and over. I had so much fun that I simply had to get the full version. I played that game for years, tinkering around with all sorts of custom levels and mods. It's also the first game I seriously tried online multiplayer in. I still fire it up every now and then to play a Ladder map or whatnot.

-Playing through KOTOR 1 for the first time.

-Dressing up with a friend to wait in line for Revenge of the Sith. The movie itself wasn't very good, but the experience socializing with fellow costumed fans in line was a blast (Who did I dress as? Only the most badass Jedi of all: Kyle Katarn).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

My first memories of Star Wars come when I was 5 or 6 years old. I got a whole bunch of action figures for my birthday, or maybe it was Christmas. This was before or after I started filling in a sticker album that comprised all three movies.

After that I finall watched the first movie on VHS on my parents' bed. I was about 7 years old. My sister was bored and fell asleep. I remember distinctly that I saw the movie after getting the toys and the album, because I didn't know what each character's role in the movies was. I had a Yoda toy and didn't know he only started appearing in the second movie. And I imagined R2-D2 and Chewbacca spoke with normal voices.

By that point I was completely hooked. Next in line was "meeting" C-3PO and R2-D2 at MGM Studios. I was 9 or 10 by now. Getting an R2-D2 cassette player. And more action figures. And a trivia game. And the SNES games. And a Milennium Falcon that shot little rubber discs. And official, separete guide books for characters and starships. And the "special" trilogy edition on VHS. And more stuff I'm probably forgetting about.

I was 11 when Phantom Menace came out. And I loved it. I even got another official guide for that. My interest wallowed somewhere between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. I couldn't tell you exactly why but the magic went away by then. I suppose puberty had something to do with it. That or simply replacing the object of my geekdom with other stuff.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

My favorite memory from just the movies would have to be the entire space battle of Endor. So many ships, so many explosions, so many random actors on screen for only two or three seconds, and yet so many memorable lines from all of them. I was enthralled by that, and I still think it is the best space battle ever put to film.

My favorite part:
"Sir! We've lost our bridge deflector shield."
"Intensify the forward batteries. I don't want anything to get through."
(BOOM!)
"Intensify forward fire power!"
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"TOO LATE! AAAAAHHH!"

To this day, I still quote that out loud at random times because it was just so amazing to me.

Second place:
"She's gonna blow!"
(BOOM!)
"I'm hiiiiitttt!"
(BOOM!)

 

[Zontar]

What always gets me is the scene from A New Hope where Luke just looks out into the sunset with the classic music from Williams playing in the background. When I was 5 I didn't understand many things, but in that moment I understood perfectly how he felt better then any dialogue could.

 

[Guffe]

For me it has to be the final battle in Phantom Menace.
Two of my fav chars dying and all that....

 

[Nimcha]

Watchin the third movie in the cinema on opening night (which was one night before the USA release, hooray!). So many people in costume, everybody clapping and cheering at the end... Still my favourite Star Wars movie.

 

[jademunky]

Gotta be the battle of Hoth in Empire. Yeah the space battle of Endor was great too but nothing better than seeing Wedge tie up that walker.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The space battle above Endor still holds up today as a fantastic action piece. The scene in particular that stuck with me the most was the Falcon and a handful of X-Wings skimming along the surface of the Death Star, bobbing and weaving between cranes and turrets, before suddenly flipping up and then flying inside the damn thing while kamikaze Tie Fighters follow them right in. That scene is so incredibly awesome, and one of the most amazing model based effects ever created.

The second place appropriately goes to Revenge of the Sith for its space battle. Right at the start, with nothing but a drum beat and the slow pan down across the star destroyer.... and then the fighters shoot by. The music swells, and just as the Anakin and Obi Wan reach the apex of their turn, the camera flips forward to reveal thousand upon thousands of ships in an all out brawl down below. After that, it gets a little hard to follow with all the chaotic dogfighting going on, but that juxtaposition of the single ship alone in space above the largest naval engagement of all time really works.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Hahaha, EVERYONE is gonna haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate me :3

My fave memory: Going to a 12AM showing of Revenge of the Sith. I had been anticipating it quite a bit. Opening with the scene of a big ass space battle before two Jedi infiltrate a ship was so cool when I was younger. Seeing the battle between Obi Wan and Anakin was MIND BLOWING for me. The music, the way they do the fight, and the emotions... Was just plain awesome. Yes, Anakin sucks ass and so does his motive. But I don't care. I liked this movie, and still do.

 

[penguindude42]

Disney buying it so it can finally die. /thread

 

[Harpalyce]

Growing up, Star Wars - ESB, especially - were always the movies I'd watch to cheer me up when I was home sick.

Every time my mom would read out the opening crawl for me. She knew I could read it, but she did so anyway knowing I wasn't feeling well. Now every time I watch the original trilogy, I always hear the opening crawl in her voice.

(But, more recently, probably sitting in the theater in Atlanta finally being able to see ANH on a theater screen, bbq chips in one hand and cocktail in the other. Utter bliss.)

 

[FPLOON]

Huh... Most of my favorite Star Wars memories, in general, more or less revolved around LEGO for some reason... Like the time I teamed up with 5 other kids at my local child care center back in the day to build the Death Star out of [recommended] LEGO bricks or when I was playing co-op all throughout the LEGO Star Wars saga with my mother (excluding Clone Wars at the time) just to name the ones I remember the most...

However, my favorite non-LEGO-related Star Wars memory is a tie between watching the original trilogy with my grandmother back when she did have it on VHS and watching the full 2D animated Clone Wars mini-series alongside this one elementary school friend I had the day before he moved to another state... The formal was during a time where my grandmother was just showing me movie after movie of "classics" (both black-and-white and in color) just to not only show me what movie entertainment was like back then, but also showing me movies that I would have enjoyed in my own right... The latter was more or less coincidental, given how I was already spending the night over at his soon-to-be-formal place and we didn't know what was going to be playing on Cartoon Network at the time...

 

[Soxafloppin]

My dad taking me to the see the Phantom Menace as a child, My first Star wars movie! I actually haven't seen it since but I remember loving it and dressing up as Darth Maul for Halloween, good times.

I am ready for your rage.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Like the OP, it was probably seeing Return of the Jedi in theatres with a couple of friends. I was too young for the original, but the 'first' wave of special editions with the least amount of unnecessary meddling. Great scenes on Tatooine, Dagobah and the Death Star, and as a kid I didn't hate the Ewoks too much.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

When Ming the Merciless is finally overthrown and Prince Barin is placed as the head of Mongo's ruling council of elders.

I'm not being snarky, that is literally my favorite Star Wars related moment.
As a kid I was never super close to my Dad and my Granddad, but one of ways they both managed to connect with me is by sharing the stuff they grew up on as a way of trying to relate.

As with most kids my age I was really into Star Wars. I bought the comic book, I watched those godawful Droi8ds and Ewoks cartoons, I had a bunch of the Kenner toys, There's a good chance that I have, at some point, consumed a box of c-3Po's.
Seeing how m,uch I was into this stuff my Dad went down into our basement and came up with a a big dusty box of old dog comic books and scrap books full of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon stories which we poured over and read and re-read over the span of a few weeks.


Sentimentality aside, to answer your question more directly, my favorite moment from the Star Wars films is easily the last act of Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, in the scope of the generic storytelling formula it's about as cut and dry as you can hope to expect. All the same I always like the second act of these types of stories, the inevitable stumble on the road to victory in order to increase the stakes for the heroes.

 

[small]

Gotta be the battle of Hoth in Empire. Yeah the space battle of Endor was great too but nothing better than seeing Wedge tie up that walker.

Mine is similar, but its that exact moment where you see something in the ditance, the commander looks through his binoculars and you see the AT-AT's for the first time

 

[Scarim Coral]

I guess for me it's that scene with Luke went above his uncle and aunt farm and saw the two sun sets. That scene was memorable because of that muscial score that went with it (I have no ideal what that score is called).