24 Jul 2006 :: Star Wars New Zealand Premiere, 1977

When did Star Wars first screen in New Zealand? It's a question that I've heard a few times now, so I decided to undertake some research in the Auckland Library microfiche archives to verify my memory of the premiere. For the Auckland region (and upper north island), the first opportunity to see it was on Christmas eve of 1977, at the Cinerama theatre in Queen Street, Auckland (newspaper scan). Almost 7 months after its USA debut! This was before the time of multiplex cinemas...only one screen was showing Star Wars, with 4 shows daily: 10.45am, 2pm, 5pm and 8.15pm. The booking details for the listing read: "Feature occupies entire programme. Book at theatre only. No phone reserves. 8.15pm reserves 6 days ahead [!!] Tomorrow's 10.45pm session tickets on sale at Theatre from 3pm today".

Also on the big screens at that time were...'Sleeping Dogs', Charles Bronson in 'The White Buffalo', 'Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo', Jodie Foster in 'Freaky Friday', Roger Moore in 'The Spy Who Loved Me', Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro in 'New York, New York', Evel Knievel in 'Viva Knievel', and Clint Eastwood in 'The Gauntlet'. If you were quick, you could have caught one of the final screenings of the 70s family adventure 'Puf-n-Stuf'! All the big names of yesteryear.

There was more to the story behind this Star Wars premiere however - it was originally scheduled for about a week prior. The hold-up was due to the fact that the projectionists of the main theatre chains were on strike at the time. In fact, the delay of the Star Wars screening made headline news on 16 December, 1977 (newspaper scan). That story read: "Shutdown of cinemas hits shopping in Auckland city. The Auckland premiere of 'Star Wars' has been postponed and central city businesses are losing thousands of dollars in lost sales as the Queen St cinema dispute drags on...The general manager of Amalgamated Theatres Ltd, Mr JP Moodabe, said that the company had accepted and then cancelled unofficial group bookings for today's film premiere. 'We naturally expect to do massive business with Star Wars, but we cannot open under the threat of future possible strike action' said Mr Moodabe.".

We got there in the end though; and, for some of us, nothing's ever been the same since!

25 Jun 2007 :: Update - Preview Screening

The above article describes the public premiere of Star Wars in Auckland ...but... I've just received the above scan from Stuart T., giving evidence that there was at least one invitation-only preview screening some time earlier, in conjunction with the 1ZM radio station. Check out the date on the ticket... October 16th [1977]! If anyone has any additional information about, or recollection of, this event (or other previews), please get in touch with me.

04 Oct 2007 :: Update - School Holiday Re-release, 1978

The above newspaper clippings (1978) have been stuck in one of my childhood scrapbooks for nearly three decades! I could never have guessed at the time that I cut them out as a seven-year old (hence the less than perfectly straight edges and not quite right-angled corners) that this would be their ultimate fate. They appeared in the Bay of Plenty Times, and highlight the fact that not only did Star Wars enjoy quite a long run in the cinemas for its initial release, but it was re-screened on few occasions through 1978, around the country - these clippings relate to its time in the Tauranga (Odeon) and Mount Maunganui (Regent) theatres during one of the school holiday breaks.

13 Oct 2007 :: Update - Special Edition Release, 1997

Star Wars: "Back On The Big Screen". It's hard to believe that it was over a decade ago now that the Special Edition Trilogy took us back to our childhood through the silver screen. Not everyone was fully enamoured with every single change, and further revisions have since crept in to the canon of the epic, ...but it was, without a doubt, the return of "Star Wars".

'Star Wars', 'Empire', and 'Jedi' were released two weeks apart, on March 27, April 10 and April 24 respectively...New Zealand got them each about 7 weeks after their North American debut. Yup, back then we were still suffering a delay between most of the world seeing movies, and them showing up on our shores. A number of venues had midnight (12:01am) screenings.

Before it had even opened in NZ, Star Wars: Special Edition alone was reported to have generated over US$200 million in box office sales...not bad for an outlay of US$22 million to digitally renovate all of the Original Trilogy films.

07 Jun 2008 :: Update - 'Listener', 10-16 Dec 1977

Immediately prior to the December 1977 theatrical debut of 'Star Wars', the Listener magazine had an issue (10-16 Dec, 1977) with a couple of features pertaining to the galactic blockbuster. Well before the sequels (let alone the prequels), well before official websites and online discussion, the content of such articles gives interesting insight into Star Wars' reception and relative fanfare.

A sidebar article amongst wider discussion on the topic of the history of sci-fi starts: "Star Wars, the epic of struggle between pure of heart Republicans and evil dictators in a faraway galaxy, comes on-screen in New Zealand theatres this month.

Overseas, the film's box-office receipts are already climbing towards the all-time champion, Jaws, which grossed $200 million. Star Wars has already won inclusion in the American Film Institutes list of 10 all-time greats."

Also discussed is the leading edge of the merchandising phenomenon that has now lasted over 3 decades: "In New Zealand, Hodder & Stoughton have stocks of Star Wars paperbacks totaling 50,000, which they are confident of off-loading when Star fever gets under way. That sales figure would far surpass New Zealand's best selling science fiction book to date, Dune by Frank Herbert, which has sold 30,000 copies since 1965."

Separately, in the cinema section, the Listener's reviewer critiques the film that started it all; at times, the analysis hits on elements well ahead of its time. Star Wars garners a 3-star rating, out of a presumed possible 4: "Everything they say about Star Wars being great fun, enormous entertainment, full of spectacle and old-fashioned thrills, is all true... The immediate impact is stunning, but later reflection (a mistake, it is not the sort of movie which should be reflected on) reveals how contrived everything is... Everything, even the much praised special effects in this film, is subservient to giving the audience a simple good time.

The battles between the rebel spaceships and the imperial fighters are actually nonsense, but they sure look nice. The ships don't even look right - though used for close-range fighting, at visual distances they have tiny little windows and obscuring panels, and they manoeuvre like aircraft rather than spaceships.

And I'm sure nobody except hardcore science fiction fans will give a hoot. It is fantasy, not science fiction, and if one should feel disappointed by this then it is only because our expectations have been incorrectly primed. The two genres are not identical, though they do have regions of overlap - thus it is possible to treat science fantasy as sloppy science fiction and compare films of the two types."

The review is realistic, but encourages film-goers to just sit back and have fun: "Hard SF fans looking for more than escapism will have to wait until someone decides to release that interesting home movie Dark Star, or perhaps until Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with luxuriating in the lavish visual effects and amusing incidents of Star Wars."

Related article: 'The Empire Strikes Back' New Zealand Premiere, 1980.
Related article: 'Return of the Jedi' New Zealand Premiere, 1983.

Matt G