<p>I must have seen it not too long after it opened, because I remember where I saw it, at the Uptown theater in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>After such a fabulous start it was sad to see what the Star Wars franchise deteriorated into in the later movies. The first two movies were great, but the cracks started appearing in the third movie with the advent of the Ewoks - cute walking teddy bears meant to appeal to very little kids I suppose. </p>
<p>The last three movies were hugely disappointing - getting bogged down in arcane and boring political squabbles of the Republic and degenerating into huge mindless battles (if one Jedi fighting with a light saber is cool then a hundred of them must be a hundred times as cool, right? Wrong.) I can barely remember any elements of the plots of the last three movies.</p>
<p>My brother, who is a very literary sci-fi geek and majored in Film in college, once wrote a paper, based on the first two movies, positing that the Star Wars series was destined to be the defining epic of our age, our Iliad and Odyssey. Right. He didn’t even bother to go see the final two movies - so far had the literary merit of the series fallen.</p>
<p>San Francisco. Where I saw it opening night in a beautiful theater, not the cramped multiplex crap we have today. I had just moved there and I went alone but enjoyed it immensely. I knew I had seen something special.</p>
<p>NJ we also saw it at the Uptown. Such a great experience!</p>
<p>I remember driving home from the theater feeling like I was piloting a star cruiser.</p>