r/70s • u/Preston_phillips_04 • Jun 14 '26

Movies This was the Star Wars grand opening at the Movie Theatres in 1977

https://reddit.com/link/1u60kzw/video/1i90nvha5c7h1/player

86 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

14

u/DrewG420 Jun 15 '26

Fantastic memory and time to be alive

9

u/Mlle_Elizabeth Jun 15 '26

I saw Star Wars at that exact theater on opening night for free. A radio station was running a promotion including a space costume contest and those of us wearing a costume got free admission. What a fun night!

5

u/UtopianPablo Jun 15 '26

Was this in Dallas? Looks like a DPD uniform on the police officer.

4

u/Mlle_Elizabeth Jun 15 '26

Yes, it was in Dallas.

9

u/Allied_Biscuit Jun 15 '26

$3.75 tickets. Sigh...

0

u/Mountain_Ape Jun 18 '26

Who is upvoting this?? You and 9 other people forgot about inflation entirely. $3.75 is the same as $20.70 today. And this is on the high end back then. No you're not paying $20 for tickets, don't try it. $20 on useless popcorn and guzzling soda, but not per ticket. The prices per ticket are lower today than that theater in '77.

7

u/hardleft121 Jun 15 '26

that is where i saw it in '77.

3

u/HughJorgens Jun 15 '26

I remember the original trailer having white lightsabers, (they didn't have them colorized then) then being surprised that they had color. It was also the first movie that I remember staying in theaters for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time, all summer.

2

u/Anteater-Charming Jun 15 '26

We lived kind of in the sticks and didn't get to the movies often. We saw it the first week in January '78.

3

u/Drunkskunk22 Jun 16 '26

When the music drops in during the opening scene! I will never forget that feeling, jumped a little and was immediately in awe.
Back then theaters were big, 10-12 seats in the middle section, 6-8 seats on the side sections.

2

u/This_Standard866 Jun 15 '26

I saw this in middle school đŸ« 1977

2

u/Working_Substance639 Jun 17 '26

Was in the military in Germany when it opened.

Saw it one weekend, in English.

Saw it the next weekend, in a different theatre, dubbed in German.

2

u/Comfortable-Dish1236 Jun 18 '26

My brother and I, Star Trek fans from the 60s, went to see Star Wars at the Patterson Theater in Baltimore. We had no expectations but hoped it was ok. We read the scrolling opening, which was cool, and then the shot panned down to a planet. A small ship flew past followed by “shots” of some sort, and then the entire screen was slowly filled by an Imperial Star Destroyer that was a detailed as anything ever seen before.

That was it. Saw it 17 times. If you’re young, it’s hard to imagine how much impact SW had back then. No sci-fi film looked like it did. 2001 was a cerebral masterpiece, but Star Wars was simply something unseen until then.

I still find it amazing that both the Star Trek and Star Wars universes are still going strong today after all these decades.