I write “to some degree” because, when you consider the following, it may strike you even more strongly. Try to imagine 1977. Special effects like these had never been seen. Indeed, the entire notion that everything in the movie looked “used,” as Lucas notes in the box set, was a radical one for science-fiction.

The film seemed much faster paced than when you see it today. In 1977, the quick cut techniques commonly seen today on MTV and in videogames simply did not exist. So being thrown into the opening sequence was as immersive as being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool.

James Earl Jones was not a familiar voice. He became one because of this movie (though I don’t recall whether he had the prominent credit now placed at the end of the film). You could not have heard him on CNN, because it didn’t exist. All you knew was that Darth Vader was the coolest villain you had ever seen. His entrance into the rebel ship, through clouds of smoke, is an iconic image seared on the brains of kids who saw it then (and I suspect now). And the creepy respirator sound made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Another difference from then to now is referenced on the DVD extras, but worth emphasizing. The tone of Star Wars was unlike that of any other sci-fi flick that a kid could think of — and different from most other films of the period. In the late 1970’s, America was in a serious, downbeat sort of mood overall. Star Wars was heroic, upbeat and funny. That’s not to say the period did not have good comedy: the original Saturday Night Live, Richard Pryor, Mel Brooks, and so on. But the humor and heroics in Star Wars was different in that it harkened back to the old movie serials to which Lucas was paying homage, as well as playing off them. Star Wars was simultaneously classic in tone and radical in technique.

I’ve gone a bit long (as I tend to do). But since you seemed to “get it” instinctively, I thought I might add a few extras to those on your DVDs in the hope that you will enjoy them all the more.