What a wonderful new smell you’ve discovered

And now, in this year of celebrations surrounding Star Wars, here is a very special day. It was this day, only 10 years ago, that people sat in their local cinema and saw the newly cleaned Tantive IV fly overhead followed closely by a rather large Star Destroyer. The consular ship on its diplomatic mission to Alderaan, being chased by the evil Darth Vader. The cheers that went up surrounding this release were great and could be heard all over the world. The cries that went up as Greedo shot first were equally great.

Ten years now we have heard people talking about Han shooting first, and still the debate rages. But still, it was a great day for Star Wars fans, getting to see the first film the way that George Lucas had intended. Maybe not the way the fans wanted to see, but how the father wanted people to see his baby, and who are we to say that’s wrong?

It was also the first time it was labelled ‘Episode 4: A New Hope’, before that, it was just ‘Star Wars’. It was just two years before TPM was to be released, and let us all sit in a cinema and relieve those memories of watching Star Wars for the first time. For me it was the first time I had seen Star Wars in a cinema.

Before this, my only exposure to the trilogy had been watching the old videos with my uncle. To a six year old these films, in all their shiny glory, were absolutely wonderful. I saw the film three or four times in the cinema for that release. I was hooked, and I have kept my obsession for the saga ever since. As I’m writing this Winamp is playing “A New Hope and End Credits’ from John Williams, and has just come off of Alex Wilson’s “Hutt Seeks a Slave”.

So here’s to ten years of the Special Edition of A New Hope.

In other news, I am now the prod owner of a Force FX lightsaber from Master Replicas. Modelled on Anakin’s lightsaber from Episode 3 and is currently sitting in all its wonderful collectable goodness on my mantle piece. AND my Master Replicas collectors club membership has been dispatched so I will hopefully soon have that sitting in my house.

And finally, celebration time. I am happy to say that I will be attending the convention with a few friends on the Saturday. I know that it will be great fun and I’ll probably be screaming about it a lot, so roll on July.

MTFBWY