🌠 Garbage Masher 3263827
[1977]
The first movie I saw in the theater was Star Wars. It's the first movie I can remember even existing, in fact, and also the first movie where anyone asked me ahead of time, "Have you seen it yet?"
It was a kid whose apartment I was at for a play date. I don't remember who it was, but the apartment must have been in Marysville or Yuba City, I'd wager. He might have described the movie as bad, because in the 1970s that was slang for good.
I didn't know what Star Wars was, but I probably relayed the suggestion to my parents at some point.
And so we went to see it! My first movie!
I remember this being a significant drive, and my brain faintly places it down highway 65 or 70, putting the theater in Roseville or Sacramento. Maybe our small town theaters (The State Theater in Marysville and The Sutter Theater in Yuba) didn't have the bucks to put up for such a new blockbuster.
We got down there, and the sky was clear and the sun was warm. There was a big parking lot and a towering (to my 5-year-old eye) cineplex.
At some point we got indoors and the movie started. I've seen Star Wars so many times that I didn't need to even look up the garbage masher number that's in the title of this piece, and all the viewings have long-since blended together. But I do remember, from my first viewing, the garbage masher scene.
All our heroes, to escape the marauding stormtroopers, had dived down a chute into a garbage masher, a room full of trash and wreckage with a floor covered in a foot of dark, oil-slicked water.
I was probably okay at that point, since things had quieted down after all the laser fire. But then a spooky-as-hell eyeball-on-a-stalk popped up through the slime and looked around the room before disappearing again.
This had me getting nervous.
And then Luke gets pulled under... (Spoilers? If you haven't seen Star Wars by now, you've no one to blame but yourself.) And that's getting just plain scary. They can't find him and I'm sure they will never.
And he's back! Phew! That was close! I can relax again.
Wait! The walls are closing in! No! They'll never get out now. I'm terrified for our poor heroes! To make matters worse, I'd often had nightmares at this age where I'm trapped in a room that's getting progressively smaller.
(Later I'd realize there was good sound design on this scene that really helps ramp up the pressure, as well. So George really is entirely to blame for this.)
I couldn't handle the stress—I pulled the safety lever: I asked to sit on Mom's lap. And I perched there in marginally increased maternal safety as the walls threatened to squish everyone to their absolute deaths.
I don't have a clear recollection of the viewing after that, but I know R2 was unclear on which masher, but 3PO told him to quit messing around and shut them all down, and everyone, after a small amount of radio confusion, was saved! And they escaped through the pressure maintenance hatch, which was apparently labeled with the masher number.
Once through the scary part, I believe I retook my seat, but I'm not certain. It might have just been safer to stay with Mom.
My next memory was being back in the car, just stoked to the gills that I'd been witness to such an incredible and action-packed adventure. Lasers and spaceships and robots, oh my!
I sat in the middle of the front bench seat of our 60s-era station wagon, which was no longer a station wagon. The radio dials and heater levers were now clearly the controls of a fantastic space ship! I moved us in and out of light speed and fired lasers with abandon, certainly leaving the car's settings in total disarray. But I couldn't concern myself with that; there was a galaxy to defend!
Though I only remember doing this for a few seconds, it seems likely that I did it for at least the entire drive home. Mom and Dad later reported that I spent a substantial amount of time after the movie walking and talking like C-3PO, as well.
And given that I've remained quite a fan over the years, I believe it.