5-25-77

2008
2h 12m

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

Alienated, hopeful-filmmaker Pat Johnson's epic story growing up in rural Illinois, falling in love, and becoming the first fan of the movie that changed everything, 'Star Wars.'

Play trailer2:59

3 Videos

13 Photos

Comedy Drama

Alienated film-maker hopeful Pat Johnson's epic story of growing up in rural Illinois, falling in love and becoming the first fan of the movie that changed everything.Alienated film-maker hopeful Pat Johnson's epic story of growing up in rural Illinois, falling in love and becoming the first fan of the movie that changed everything.Alienated film-maker hopeful Pat Johnson's epic story of growing up in rural Illinois, falling in love and becoming the first fan of the movie that changed everything.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins

Videos3

5-25-77 TRAILER 1 2021

Photos13

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
A preview cut of this film was shown at "Star Wars Celebration IV" in Los Angeles. Appropriately enough, it was shown on 5-25-2007, the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). After ten more years of additional work on the film, the nearly final cut, of the work-in-progress, was test-screened, in 32 theaters, on 5-25-17, the 40th anniversary of the original release of Star Wars. The finished film is scheduled for worldwide release, beginning in late summer, 2021.

Goofs
Some shots show the characters driving on Gurnee, IL roads where Six Flags Great America's "American Eagle" wooden roller coaster can be prominently seen in the background.

The movie is set in 1977, but the American Eagle did not open until the 1981 season.

Quotes
Pat: The Death Star could take out the Enterprise with one shot.
Jenny: The Enterprise has deflector shields!

Crazy credits
Still photos of the real people involved, past and present, at work, behind the scenes, and at play, as well as those portraying them, accompany the end credits. All set to Ringo Starr singing "Photograph." At the end, there is a brief memorial to those of significance to Pat Johnson who have passed away.

Alternate versions
The movie has gone through a number of iterations since 2007, when it made its first public appearance in the United States on May 25, 2007 at the Star Wars Celebration Convention as a work-in-progress. Since that showing, it has appeared in various forms at the Hamptons International Film Festival (October 2008), the TIFF Next Wave (February 2013), the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival (July 2013), the Lake County Film Festival (September 2019), and the Skyline Indie Film Festival (September 2022), before having a limited release in the United States in September 2022. In these various variations, there are two known main versions, one with a runtime of "2h 12m (132 min) (total run time) (United States)" and another with a time of "1h 53m(113 min) (Workprint Version)".

Connections
Features 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Soundtracks
I'm Not In Love
Written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman
Performed by 10cc

User reviews29

Review

Featured review

4/10

It was OK. Except when it was very good. Or when it was very bad.

Aggravatingly uneven. I guess that's how it struck me. I was in high school when Star Wars (no bloody 4, 5, or 6) first came out and I was a big sci-fi nerd, so this movie I felt like this movie should have resonated with me and it really didn't. Austin Pendleton was great, but he always is. Maybe I'm just too old to relate to the teenage characters, but I don't generally have a problem in that area. I was a bit put off but some of the jump-cut sequences and I get that's technique that's used much more than it was in the past. And there was a general lack of focus. Too many sub-plots were competing for screen time and as a result some of them were left unresolved. Maybe the fact that it took 13 years for the movie to be completed had something to do with this.

It just didn't sit right with me.