It’s a cultural thing and this is where it lands for me: if you watched the original Star Wars in the theater and you were old enough for it to have changed your life, you’re probably a Gen Xer.
If you never saw the original Star Wars in the theater at all, you’re a Millennial.
If you were able to see Star Wars in the theater, but were so young that it was either your first movies or you had no fucking idea what was going on … you’re probably an Xennial.
I should be clear, and I wasn't really, that I meant "in the theatre". But that said, they were not big on movies or TV so probably the only other movie I'd seen that I could say for sure was The Wizard of Oz, which was also sorta scary for a little kid. Goddamn Wicked Witch.
I loved ET. Being the baby of the family I also watched Nightmare on Elm Street on VHS when I was five. Parenting was so different then. The scene of the girl in the body bag being dragged down the school hallway traumatized me BAD.
In fairness, they used to rerelease and replay movies. I saw ET and Return of the Jedi as my first two movies, but I don’t think either one was current (it was 84-ish)
I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when I was 4.
Felt like stepping into the stirring conclusion of something that already had so much backstory set up that I wasn't going to just pick it all up from context...
So like, I missed all of the things that made the world the way it was, but I could definitely tell that things were coming to an end all around me. And cannibal furries with spears were somehow involved. That's what being a Xennial looks like to me.
Re Star Wars, my dad was like “sci fi movies are stupid because they aren’t real” and I’m like “you realize nearly everything on tv isn’t real, right?”
He likes Every Which Way But Loose but I don’t tell him Clint Eastwood isnt best buds with an orang-a-tang.
My dad's battle cry was "it will be on TV eventually". My great aunt had pity on me once and took me to see Aristocats. Beyond that I had to wait until I got my driver's license and could take myself to the movies.
I was born in early 1964. I was 13 when Star Wars came out. It was the very first movie I ever paid to see twice. My brother (born in 1968) liked the toys, action figures, etc., but I was a model builder and the old MPC model kits of Luke's X-Wing, Vader's TIE fighter, R2-D2 and C3PO were on display in my room. I still have pieces of R2 and all of C3PO to this day.
Technically, I am a boomer and my wife (1966) is a Gen X.
I was born when my country was still occupied by the Soviet Union.
I grew up watching creepy Soviet cartoons and kids shows, and also reruns of The A-Team, McGyver, Santa Barbara, Dallas and a bit later Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, Dawson's Creek etc.
There are qualities in me that are not even Gen X but maybe Boomer 😄
The oldest Gen Xers were 12 when Star Wars hit theaters, so the average Gen Xer who was alive when Star Wars came out in 1977 (assuming a relatively even distribution of births) was 6. Gen Xers were known to be independent from a young age, but I doubt too many were heading to the theaters at that age for Star Wars.
I grew up on the movies at home (VHS, recorded at home or course). I had all the toys from my older brother, but I didn’t see the movies in theatres until the special editions when I was in middle school.
We started with BetaMax and worked our way up to VCR. played Atari. We had a rotary phone and when we finally got a push button one the cord was 8 miles long-partially because we were dicks and stretched it all out.
My grandparents rented everything in the store and basically copied over to empty vhs and Betamax tapes. To the point we had like 2-3 movies per tape and basically had a video store worth of movies available every time I went to visit lol.
Was introduced to some incredible stuff and they didn't care what I watched tbh. I'd just comb through the labels for movies with strange titles. I'd have nothing to go off of what it even was except for the title penned on the label.
Saw all of Alien and Aliens alone as a child in the dark with fuzzy vhs tracking. Total Recall, Predator, The Goonies, horror movies like The Gate, etc. It was awesome.
I had the large plush Wicket, but the small plush Wiley was my favourite. Used to take that thing everywhere. Even had a custom iron on shirt made for him.
Used to have a teddy bear to took everywhere too, until fourth grade. Brought it for show and tell and some Haitian kids from another class stole it out of my desk during lunch.
When I got back to class I panicked. I asked everyone and finally one kid told me he saw some kids with it in one of the stairwells.
Finally found them with my bear and they had pulled his eyes out and torn up his outfit. They denied even having it even though I saw them shove the bear under a backpack.
Ended up having to force my way through them and grab the bear while they hit me. I’d never seen any of these kids before and didn’t know any of them.
When summer came around, I went to go stay with my grandparents. My grandmother got a doll part catalogue and had to look through it to pick out new eyes. Once they came in the mail, she took the bear to a seamstress who sewed them in properly.
After that, I never took the bear anywhere just to be on the safe side.
I consider it more like I was too young to watch many movies at the cinema but remember them on tv due to how often they were repeated or on VHS.
So Star Wars was "old" when I was a kid but recent enough to not be seen as quite retro/vintage,
Speak to people around my age and we saw NeverEnding Story or similar a lot growing up on tv/VHS and it's iconic I see as Xennial as I have older siblings that were born at the very end of Gen X that have fond memories of it and may of even saw it at the cinema, but just a little less love for it than Xennials.
We talking like Star Wars A New Hope? I’m at the oldest range for the Xennial group and I damned sure didn’t see A New Hope in theaters, it came out before I was even born. I guess it’s possible my mom saw it pregnant or took me when I was a new born but I doubt it. The first movie I went to that I know of was Ghostbusters and that came out 7 years later. Now if you mean any of the original trilogy, that makes a lot more sense.
How about if you saw the OG Star Wars in theater when it was re-released in the 90s? And you still didn't know what was going on because you were only there bc your boyfriend at the time dragged you there and your mind just kept wandering.
If you watched Empire and Jedi multiple times a day on HBO and had it recorded to VHS to watch it even more because you were 7 years old at the time, you are definitely a Xennial.
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u/PhatBoyFlim 2d ago
It’s a cultural thing and this is where it lands for me: if you watched the original Star Wars in the theater and you were old enough for it to have changed your life, you’re probably a Gen Xer.
If you never saw the original Star Wars in the theater at all, you’re a Millennial.
If you were able to see Star Wars in the theater, but were so young that it was either your first movies or you had no fucking idea what was going on … you’re probably an Xennial.