Reporter has first big-screen experience with Star Wars

Judging by the $99 million it raked in during its first two weeks of re-release, it is apparent that 20 years of special-effects upgrades and swelling budgets have not abated the popularity of the film sensation known as Star Wars.

The eight-figure box office numbers and the new-found interest in Star Wars trilogy-related merchandise stem from several factors.

For one, in a movie epoch characterized by films that may come off as little more than concatenations of high-octane, multimillion-dollar action sequences where destruction and catastrophe is key, Star Wars relies on the innocent plight of a young man thrust into a universal struggle in which he takes on his role in the name of valor and honor. The Death Star explodes at the end, but the Rebel Alliance didn't have to blow up half the galaxy in the process.

Another advantage in its corner is the prevalence of fantasy. Again, where many of the current blockbusters make full use of present and future technologies in their plots, sticking wholly to meticulous, precise ideas, Star Wars' tale of strange creatures and distant planets embodies the latter half of the phrase "science fiction."

Its entrancing storyline provides a fresh break from the stale histrionics of nuclear warfare and virtual commodities. It was this fusion of both science and fantasy that allowed such motion pictures as E.T. and Jurassic Park to topple the chronicle of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia from the pinnacle of the movie mountain.

Now, it's all good and well to divide this genre-defining film from its second-generation clones, but even so, how much of the film's new-found profit is coming from long-time fans of the flick? Is anyone really casting eyes on this epic for the first time, you ask?

Indeed there is.

As much of a statistical anomaly as I realize this brands me, until three weeks ago I had never seen Star Wars. I was able to ascertain the plot from various media over the years and I know all the "big secrets" of the sequels -- the family relations between Darth Vader, Luke and Leia -- but had never gotten around to watching the movie.

To a moviegoer versed enough in 1997 cinematic techniques, one certainly notices such differences as the antiquated quality of the physical film itself; the graininess of the footage is indeed positive proof of its age.

Signatures of the times are evident, even in a sci-fi film (young Skywalker's floppy hairstyle, for example). Seeing actors such as Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher two decades younger truly drives home the point.

But above all, one is refreshed by such a movie as Star Wars. There is an almost complete absence of vulgarity in the language -- probably the most disparaging remarks in the entire film come from the tirelessly condescending C-3PO. A stark purity exists in the struggle against the Empire, and yet it does so without descending into triteness. Factor in the sheer mass of the plot -- from the vast size of the outer-space setting to the mammoth labyrinth that is the Death Star -- and you have an opus that pushes all the right buttons. Even the doctored scenes, which reportedly were augmented due to Lucas' discontent with certain parts of the original film, preserve the pristine quality of the original movie.

Star Wars could very well exceed its 1977 earnings this time at the box office, as its appeal is at once universal and unique. I believe it was put best by an 8-year-old who left the theater at approximately the same time I did, quipping, "They did that 20 years ago?"