A Clip From The Star Wars Movie In 1977

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Via Polygon.com:

William Forsche took a tape recorder with him the second time he saw the original Star Wars with his mother, and this clip provides just a few minutes of how that experience sounded.

This was before Star Wars entered into the pop culture as something we took more or less for granted, and this sort of blockbuster was experience wasn’t yet common in movie theaters. Hearing the crowd react to Han Solo coming back to save the day at 2:51 is a high point of the recording. You can also hear Forsche’s mother’s indulgent laugh at the experience.

“Hearing her laugh (@ :42 & @ 2:54) and cheer with me and the rest of the audience is absolutely priceless to me,” he wrote on the video’s description. “You can also hear me making laser beam sounds at the end of this recording, because Star Wars got me all fired up!”

This is a great way to get a taste of what it was like in the early days of the fandom behind Star Wars. It’s not time travel, but it may be as close as some of us get, and it’s great fun to hear what it was like for audiences to experience these scenes for the first time.