On Feb. 10, it was announced that "Star Wars Episode I  - The Phantom Menace" will return to theaters for a limited time on May 3 in celebration of the movie's 25th anniversary. This announcement ignited several thoughts for me. 

It's no secret I'm a huge Star Wars geek and the two-time defending Star Wars trivia champ at Smooth Rapids. I even have the opening crawl from "A New Hope" on my basement steps (thanks, Mary, Rob, Eric and Custom Vinyl). So, any time a Star Wars movie, whether a new one or a rerelease, comes to the big screen, it's a big deal for me. "Episode I" brings an extra special set of memories, however.

The first thing the announcement made me think was, holy cow; that was 25 years ago! I was already well into my career at the Southern Standard at the time of the movie's release on May 19, 1999 (I didn't even have to look that date up; that's how engrained in my memory everything about the anticipation for that film is). It doesn't seem that long ago to me until I realize Standard News Editor Bethany Porter was exactly two months and two weeks old at the time. 

Longtime readers of the Southern Standard might remember the ridiculous amount of coverage we had in the newspaper in the month leading up to the release. Our editor at the time, Steve Wildsmith, shared my enthusiasm for all things Star Wars, but had perhaps less self-awareness than me when it came to how much he thought Standard readers would care about a new Star Wars movie. I was a willing participant in his mandate, but even I thought his decision to have a Star Wars article in every issue of the Standard for weeks may have been an excessive use of Force.

But it was emblematic of the sheer amount of hype that was absolutely everywhere you could turn during that time. Every product imaginable seemed to have some kind of tie-in with "Episode I" and entire toy shelves were dedicated solely to the movie. Coming 16 years after the previous Star Wars installment, "Return of the Jedi," it was perhaps one of the most anticipated and certainly most marketed movies ever.

As I've written about before, "Episode I " toys being everywhere, including Ashley's Attic, indirectly led to me meeting my wife six years later. I can even remember the day in 1993 when my friend Donnie Hitchcock walked into the student lounge at our local Motlow campus and told me he learned through his job at Three Star Cinema that a new Star Wars movie was in the works. 

I think it would be fair to say, the hype and hoopla around the movie is probably more memorable to me than the movie itself, even though I saw it 16 times at Three Star Cinema that summer. By the time May rolls around, I'll be 50-years-old, looking to recapture a little of the excitement 25-year-old me felt in the build-up to the release of "Episode I" and the flood of memories which comes with it. Looking forward to it I am.

Standard Managing Editor Seth Wright can be reached at editor@southernstandard.com