A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, America was mesmerized by a scrappy band of rebels engaged in a bloody battle against evil. On May 25, 1977, Star Wars was released in theaters, leaving audiences literally blown away.

Now, almost 20 years later, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition is set for re-release in theaters, and many Iowa State students are psyched to be reconnected with “the force.”

Even though the majority of college students were too young to catch the first showings of the films in the theaters, many have seen them on video or TV.

The fans.

Luke Stoffel, a freshman in graphic design, said that he has seen the trilogy somewhere between 50 and 75 times. Born in 1978, Stoffel was not even a gleam in his parents’ eyes when Star Wars was unleashed upon the world. Despite his youth, however, he was deeply entrenched in the trilogy phenomenon.

His parents instilled the Star Wars legacy into their youngest son from the beginning: They named him after Luke Skywalker.

“Actually, I was supposed to be a girl, and when my dad found out I was a boy, they started calling me Luke,” Stoffel said.

He had all of the figurines, star cruisers and toys that flooded stores in the late 70s. His older brothers were “really into” the movies, as were the kids in his neighborhood, who dubbed him “Luke Skywalker.”

“I got, ‘Luke, I am your father’ all the time,” Stoffel said. Now that he’s in college, he keeps the movie alive every time he sends an e-mail: He signs every message with his childhood nickname.

“That’s what it says on my signature file,” he said.

Star Wars has also served to inspire other Iowa State students. Ben Ferrell, a freshman in aerospace engineering, said he chose his major because he has always been fascinated with “space and space vehicles and that kind of stuff,” since seeing the trilogy.

Though he never saw the first two movies in the theater and can barely remember Return of the Jedi on the big screen, he had all the action figures and toys. During junior high and high school, he got really into the movies once he bought the videos.

He has seen the trilogy more than any human has a right to: He estimates having watched it “hundreds of times,” he said.

“I stayed home a lot in junior high,” he joked. His favorite is The Empire Strikes Back because “it’s the darkest of the three films.”

Janina Brandt, a freshman in biology, was also born in 1978 and remembers seeing only Return of the Jedi, which was released in the movie theater in 1983. She has seen the whole trilogy numerous times on video, even while out of the country.

Her dad was in the army, and when she and her twin sister Colette were younger, their family lived in what was then West Germany. Janina said that they only got one TV station, “so it was either, watch what’s on that one channel, or watch videos,” she said.

Now that the first of the trilogy is hitting the big screen again, she and Colette are getting a group of people together to go see it, “as long as we can get tickets,” she said.

Stoffel also plans on seeing the film when it opens today “at least eight times, so I can tell my kids that I saw this in the theater,” he said.

Stoffel is set to see the newly remastered film in the theater as opposed to the confines of a family room. “There’s just something exciting about going to a theater with booming sound,” he said. “It’ll be really interesting to see all of the new special effects they put in.”

Brandt agreed that Star Wars is something that needs to be experienced with surround-sound and a massive screen. “It’s a movie that’s more impressive in a theater,” she said.

The effects.

Fans of the trilogy, especially those who know every line and scene by heart, will likely appreciate the improvements more than a free light saber. In 1977, the original Star Wars negative was carefully stored in a subterranean vault in Kansas, at a temperature between 50 and 53 degrees, in order to retain its mint condition.

Unfortunately, a now-discontinued color stock used in the negative proved to be susceptible to fading, and dirt had become embedded in the six reels of the negative, which could have produced scratches and pit marks that would loom large on the big screen.

The first task that faced filmmakers was to restore and clean the negative, frame by frame. Some portions were too faded to use and were replaced with negatives made from YCM (yellow-cyan-magenta) separation masters.

The sound was also digitally remixed. In 1977, Star Wars was released with the highest-quality sound potential of that time, even though most American theaters were not equipped for it. Despite the film’s pioneering sound mastery, the digitization has improved it galactically for play in today’s theaters.

Along with the addition of digital sound, the team of filmmakers incorporated new material to provide enhanced spatial effects throughout the film. So you’ll hear spaceships flying overhead, and low frequencies will shake you during explosion scenes and spaceship pass-bys.

The film team also “surgically implanted” some new scenes into each movie, including a never-before-seen exchange between Jabba the Hutt and Han Solo in Star Wars, and some additional chills during the rebels’ clash with Jabba’s henchmen above a pit occupied by the scary Sarlacc creature.

They even cleaned up a few of the original effects, which Stoffel said was necessary for certain scenes.

“In the ’70s, you can tell that they’re not actually flying through space,” he said. “You can see where they taped Luke and the rebels shooting at the enemy, and you can see the nice blue screen of stars.”

Brandt said that there is even a big difference between the quality of special effects in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and she’s psyched to see what an extra 16 years of technology will do for the films.

Despite the trilogy’s “imperfect” special effects, at least according to today’s standards, they spawned an entire generation of spectacular visual treats in movies ranging from 1988’s Willow, which introduced morphing, to Howard the Duck in 1986, in which rigs, props and wires could be digitally removed from a scene.

And it goes without saying that George Lucas’s masterpieces influenced decades of adventure films, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and The Abyss (1989), to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Mission: Impossible (1996).

With all of the trilogy’s far-reaching cinematic effects, it’s easy to see why the movie industry adores the film. Star Wars was, after all, honored as one of the first 25 films placed in the National Film Registry in accordance with an act of Congress designed to preserve American movies of historic significance. But fans say that there are more reasons to love it than there are stars.

The story.

Ferrell said he cherishes the film because it reminds him of his childhood, when he, his brother and his cousin would sit around and play with the action figures. He also likes that the story doesn’t stop at the end of one film — or, for that matter, it doesn’t begin with the first.

“It’s like an ongoing movie,” he said. “It’s like a fairy tale because of the symbolism, teaching different kinds of values.” He noted that the “good guys” wear white, while Darth Vader wears the infamous black cape and mask. He also pointed out that Han Solo wears both black and white.

“After hundreds of times seeing the movies, you notice these types of things,” he said.

Brandt said that while she’s not a big science fiction fan, she adores the trilogy, mostly because of its simple message. “I like the whole idea of good conquering evil,” she said.

Star Wars opens this Friday all over the nation — at the North Grand 5 Theatres in Ames — with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi scheduled to follow a few weeks later.

Employees at the theater are expecting a large crowd, according to Ryan Jones, assistant manager of the theaters, but there’s only going to be one theater showing the film.

So get there early, and may the force be with you.