Star Wars
I was eight when I finally got to see this at the local flea pit, something like a couple of years after it came out in US cinemas, and it was probably the best age to see it.
It is still the absolute number one movie experience for me, and as I get older and ever more jaded I doubt I will ever be sucked in so much by a movie again.
It was the first movie that had a used looking science fiction environment. The Millenium Falcon looked real, it was corroded and knackered and recieved only derision from all who saw it, but Han Solo was proud of it.
I identified with almost every character from this movie. I wanted to be an old Jedi wizard who had forgotten about ever owning a robot. I wanted to work on a vapour farm and look at the two suns dreaming of far off adventure.
And the Force. I have to say that I still think george Lucas is a genius.
I know this opinion is hard to support given the dismal rubbish that is the first three parts of the saga.
When
Simon Pegg after seeing Phantom Menace burnt
his Star Wars memorabilia in a giant bonfire screaming into the night, "..Why?", I understood how he felt. A couple of years have passed since then and I think I know what went wrong.
Lucas is good with ideas as long as there is some restriction on him being able to bring them to the screen.
Now that he has full creative control and can move his actors about at will with CGI, it's too much. His one flaw (ok he has more than one but this is a big one) is that he isn't good with the visuals. As long as the look of the film was somewhat outside his control things were OK.
Another problem with the new films is that the design is in the hands of a team of youngsters.
The old statesman Ralph Mquarrie was a huge part of the Star wars magic and with him gone it all looks a bit ordinary,
thanks to Wookieepedia for the information that Mquarrie's art is featured in The Illustrated "Star Wars" Universe.