The “see-the-movie-and-buy-the-related-toys” thing brought back vivid memories of my childhood, the days when “Star Wars” was bigger than life. If you were ages 4-10 during the summer of 1977, you probably saw “Star Wars” multiple times at theaters and, like me, spent the majority of your days playing with action figures from the film.

If important pop culture dates were holidays, May 25 would be celebrated. That was the day in ’77 when “Star Wars” opened at theaters – 35 years ago, this week.

In fact, if I had to rank the most pivotal moments in American pop culture in the last 60 years, the release of “Star Wars” would be in the top five. It injected special effects into movies like never before and forever changed how films were marketed.

“Star Wars” took the motion picture industry to the next level in a similar way the Beatles did with rock ’n’ roll.

And as it turned out, the original “Star Wars” was actually “part four” of six. Pretty genius of George Lucas to start us in the middle of a series and not reveal “how it all began” until 22 years later with “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”