You have to understand there was nothing like it. Nobody I knew had heard of Star Wars before it came out. Then my friend Dana Gleeson went with his older brother the first week and came back to the neighborhood unable to talk about anything else, and the next Saturday we rode our bikes downtown and found a line wrapped all the way around the block. In the sun. In Sacramento in June. We stood in it anyway, two hours, and we were the last two people let into that show.

I saw it eleven times that summer. I paid for every one by mowing lawns, a dollar fifty for the matinee, and Dana and I would sit through it twice if the usher wasn't looking. By August we knew when every sound effect was coming. I still have the ticket stubs from nine of the eleven in a cigar box in the garage. (The other two went through the wash in my jeans. My mother has never been forgiven.)

Then there were the toys. The movie was such a surprise that Kenner couldn't get the action figures into stores by Christmas, so what they sold that year was basically an envelope: a cardboard display stand and a certificate you mailed in. Under our tree on Christmas morning 1977 was a picture of four figures I didn't have. Luke, Leia, Chewbacca and R2-D2 came in the mail the next spring, and I think I wore the paint off Luke's hair the first week. I ended up with eleven of the first twelve figures. Never did find a Jawa. Of course my mom gave all of them to the church rummage sale when I went off to trade school, boxes and all, and I try not to think about it.

My son Jeffrey is eight, which is about the right age to see it for the first time, and I wasn't about to let him see it on a TV set. I took the afternoon off and picked him up from school early for what my wife Linda called "a family appointment." (Sorry to his teacher. It was educational.)

There was a line again! Not around the block, the multiplex has twelve screens and they had it on three of them, but a line, with grown men my age in it holding the hands of kids Jeffrey's age, and I'll admit I got a little choked up when the music started. Seven dollars for me and four-fifty for him and worth every penny. The picture is beautiful. They cleaned the whole thing up from the original film, and colors I remembered as muddy are bright again, and the sound shakes your seat.

Jeffrey's review, in full: "That was the best movie ever. Can we get a Boba Fett?" (We got a Boba Fett. The new Kenner figures have muscles like they lift weights. Luke looks like he's been working construction.)

I guess the rest of the country felt the same. It made about $36 million the first weekend, a record for January, and it's still selling out on Friday nights.

I've seen the Special Edition twice now (opening day, and the next Saturday with Dana, who flew up from L.A. for it, and we sat through it once and didn't sneak a second). Here's every change I caught, in order. My rating is out of four.

Bottom line: It's still Star Wars. Most of the new stuff is window dressing, a lot of it is pretty, one change is just plain wrong, and seeing it on a big screen again with my son was worth all of it. Go.

Opened Friday, February 21. I saw it Saturday night with Linda. Jeffrey stayed home with Grandma, on account of the snow monster.

Empire was always the best one, everybody my age knows that, and the good news is they didn't mess with it much. What I caught:

• More of the snow monster. At the start, on the ice planet, you now get clear looks at the wampa, the whole creature, instead of a few quick flashes. Linda jumped. I'm glad Jeffrey wasn't there, honestly. I'm half sorry they did it; the old version, where you mostly didn't see it, was scarier.
• Cloud City has windows. The hallways where Han and Leia and Chewie walk used to be closed in. Now there are big windows with the city and the orange sky out past them, and ships flying by. Beautiful. This is the kind of thing the Special Editions should be.
• New shots of Cloud City from outside as the Falcon flies in, with the towers and traffic. Also beautiful.
• A new bit with Vader walking to his shuttle and leaving Cloud City. Doesn't add much, doesn't hurt.

Bottom line: The best of the three movies, touched up the least. Four stars out of four, same as 1980. No Greedo problems here.

Jedi was moved back a week, to Friday, March 14. I've read there's a new musical number in Jabba's palace and a different party at the end. We'll see. I'll be there opening night with Jeffrey AND Dana, who says he's driving up this time.

Review the weekend after. Watch this space.

The Special Editions are George Lucas warming up. He's writing a whole new trilogy that takes place before Star Wars, about Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi back when Anakin was young. Filming is supposed to start this year, and the first one is due in 1999. Nobody knows who's in it yet. Jeffrey will be ten. I'll be 35 and standing in line.