I saw The Empire Strikes Back in theaters when it was released. It was 1980, so I was seven. I loved it, of course, for all the reasons a seven-year-old is supposed to. (Yoda. The droids. Luke being oh so cool.) (I still preferred the safe boys to the bad boys.)
I’ve seen it many, many times in the years since. I saw it in its first run and subsequent rereleases a couple of times. When the original trilogy special editions were released theatrically in the 90s, I was there every opening weekend. I’ve sat down to watch it numerous times when I’ve come across it on TV. I’ve seen this movie more times that I could possibly count.
But of all those times I’ve watched Empire, the one that sticks in my mind the most, my absolute favorite viewing, took place on a crowded bus.
If you’re not old enough to remember, it’s hard to grasp what an incredibly big deal the original Star Wars trilogy was. For everybody, but especially for kids. It was everything. Toys, comics, books, clothes, every kind of merchandise available – I had them all, and so did almost every kid I knew, because it was the only way to relive the movie. It was three years from Star Wars to Empire – three years with no new Star Wars! That may not seem like a long time now, but think back to when you were seven. Three years was an eternity.
Because once it left the theaters, that was pretty much it. Home release of big movies wasn’t like it is now. There was Pay-Per-View, and a few pay cable movie channels like HBO, and sometimes a VHS or Betamax release, but those were all pretty expensive, and the bigger the movie, the longer it took for it to be distributed in those ways. The money was in theatrical rereleases, so the original Star Wars didn’t see homes until 1982, two years after Empire came out. Empire itself didn’t come out for home viewing until November of 1984.
Which is odd, because my favorite viewing was, as I said, in a bus, not a movie theater, but it definitely took place before November of 1984. My friend Tommy lived down the street from me, and he had a birthday party. I can’t remember exactly when this was, but I’m sure this was before Return of the Jedi came out in 1983, and if I’m wrong about that, Tommy and I weren’t really friends anymore by late 1984 (I had started at a new school).
In any event, Tommy’s parents had hired a clown, who performed for the kids inside his bus, which was parked in front of Tommy’s house, just down the street from mine. I remember we were all sat around a table, I think there were some balloon animal shenanigans, something involving popsicles, and then the clown told us we were in for a special treat. He turned on a little color TV, and that music started, and that opening scroll started, and a bus full of children went fricking bananas.
Because this wasn’t possible. You can’t just watch The Empire Strikes Back whenever you want! That’s madness!
But because of this clown we could, and we did. No idea how he got a copy of it. It was cut-down – I think it ran about an hour, so it must have been butchered to hell. I didn’t care. I enjoyed it even more than I had in the theaters, because it was so unexpected, so special. I sat there with a bunch of kids I mostly didn’t know and we ate popsicles and cheered for Luke and laughed at Yoda and whooped at every laser blast and lightsaber swing. Then it was over, and we were out of the bus and into the afternoon daylight.
I just now watched The Empire Strikes Back again, for the umpteenth time, and it was great. I loved it.
But not quite as much as I loved it in the back of that bus.
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Next: Return of the Jedi (1983)
