Happy Birthday, Darth

Yeah that's right. Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars. Ah, good times. Before I moved to Minnesota (the first time) in 1996, I think I might have seen the original trilogy once, but had never gotten into them. Then I met some geeky friends, and I went to see the Special Edition of the original movie in the theatre, and then I turned into a big fan, which overall increased my status in the geekhood. Here's a few miscellaneous thoughts concerning myself and Star Wars.

1. This may not be a popular opinion, but I thoroughly enjoy both the original and prequel trilogies of Star Wars. In fact, all six movies end up in my top 20 movies of all time, in this order (including my overall rank):
-Empire Strikes Back (#3)
-Return of the Jedi (#5)
-Revenge of the Sith (#6)
-A New Hope (#7)
-Attack of the Clones (#18)
-The Phantom Menace (#19)

2. From the original trilogy, I only saw A New Hope (the original Star Wars) in the theatre when the Special Edition came out. The prequels were a different story though. I saw The Phantom Menace 8 times in the theatre (yes, eight), and each of the other prequel movies three times in the theatre. I also went to the midnight showing of Attack of the Clones.

3. From about 1996-2002, I heavily played the Star Wars: Customizable Card Game (this was replaced as our main game by Lord of the Rings). I spent way too much money on the game. At one point, I started trying to collect one of every card. Then I moved to Ohio, and ended up selling off my collection (which I now very much wish I hadn't done). Last year, I bought a collection of them off of eBay, but haven't been able to work on it very much, but I still would like to some day. For a little bit, we also played a much simpler game called Young Jedi, and Mac Man and myself also tried out a third game called Jedi Knights.

4. When The Phantom Menace came out, Pepsi put out a series of cans with 24 different Star Wars characters on it. I collected them a lot, and had (and still have, hopefully) a set of all 24 cans, each of them unopened. I had a lot of open cans too, and had them stacked on a shelf at some point while I was still living with my parents. At some point, I had like 160 cans stacked on my wall. It was impressive. However, I got rid of most of them, but kept all the unopened ones. Those cans have leaked over the years, as carbonated cans aren't really meant for long time storage like that. :) But they're still neat.

5. At one point, I had a giant blow-up Darth Maul chair, and a giant blow-up Mountain Dew can, like the ones I refered to previously in this post. I also still have a medium-sized rectangular cardboard advertisement of The Phantom Menace that had been hanging in a Pizza Hut. I also have a set of 12 cups that I think were given out by Taco Ball or Burger King, or something like that (see picture). A coworker of mine gave them to me. :) Here's a few other things I've gathered over the years - from the Phantom Menace, I have: a Star Wars plate, an unopened tube of toothpaste, an unopened toothbrush, and an unopened bottle of shampoo. And from Attack of the Clones, I have a couple (empty) cereal boxes. I believe I also have a couple orginal Star Wars action figures, though they are opened and used. For a while, in my cubicle I had a full-page newspaper advertisement for Attack of the Clones, with Yoda standing, wielding his lightsaber, with "Size Matters Not" in big letters across the top. It was pretty sweet.

Anyway, there ya go. Happy Birthday Star Wars!