Plenty of fanboys talk about how Star Wars changed their life (and Wired News wants the evidence! - upload your favorite fan pix at Wired News Submission Site.)
But how many have made an actual movie about it? Check 5-25-77 a labor of love from Patrick Read Johnson which debuts Friday at Celebration IV in Los Angeles.
This is no home movie. Johnson raised $2 million, recruited original Star Wars producers Fred Kurtz and Fred Roos to shepherd the project, cast "Freaks and Geeks" star John Francis Dailey and stretched the budget by paying crew members with shares of the film's future gross receipts.
Johnson has a unique story to tell in* 5-25-77*. On spring vacation in 1977, Johnson, then 15, came to L.A. where he was shuttled around town by a family friend who seemed to know everybody from his gig as a magazine editor. At a former airplane hangar in Santa Monica, Johnson hung out with Steven Spielberg as he tinkered with models for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
"This movie is in many ways a thank-you note to Steven Spielberg for inspiring me to jump into the Ford Pinto and drive out to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker," says Johnson.
He then spent a few days tooling around the San Fernando Valley where John Dykstra and company raced to finish the film's special effects. Months before Star Wars opened, Johnson saw a rough cut. "I can lay claim to being Star Wars fan number 1," Johnson says. "The funny thing was, the version I saw had all this footage from old World War II movies like Dam Busters cut into the dogfight sequences, and we're sitting there thinking, 'Wait, why did we cut to World War II?"
Johnson, who wound up seeing *Star Wars *27 times when it opened in finished form, struck up a friendship with Spielberg but did not meet Lucas during his whirlwind visit to Los Angeles. "He was a mysterious name, invoked many places: 'George wants this, George says that.' Little did I know he was in the egg company across the street from Universal at this location everybody knew about except me."
Johnson says he made * 05-25-77* as homage to Lucas "for making a movie that was so thought-provoking and fun and free of the cynicism that was happening in Americna culture at the time."
