Introduce Yourself : Markus Henry McLaughlin by Markus McLaughlin

"Star Wars - A New Hope" changed my life forever...and I was only 5 when I first saw it at a Drive-In Theater, in Austin, Texas; on Memorial Day weekend, 1977. After I saw it, I wanted to make my own films, but I didn't know how I would do it....Until...years later, I discovered Screenwriting. I have been writing ever since I was a 10 year old "oddball." I was always on a computer or typewriter....Writing about ideas I came up with. I was always DIFFERENT...and I was MEANT to be a Screenwriter. I blame George Lucas, Gene Roddenberry, and later, Gillian Anderson...for inspiring me... :)

I have watched the Despecialized Editions of the original SW trilogy....which I find just as enjoyable as the Special Edition Blu-Rays...

We would have been in the same theater, Markus McLaughlin ! As I'm 99% sure it only played at Capital Plaza (or maybe that area was just my world.).

I (and I'm not even joking) saw it 82 times in that theater in the year+ that it played there. I was a latchkey kid and my mom dropped me and my BFF there when she went off to work in the summer. I played video games (Galaga, I think, and PacMan) until the theater opened, and then watched several/day. For years, I could recite every word! That trilogy was the reason I ended up being a film major (no idea who to blame when I ended up in law school!)

I have seen SW-ANH, seems like a million times....Movie Theaters were the REDBOX for me from 1978 to 1991...I didn't buy my first VHS copy of Star Wars (A New Hope) until 1987ish, it was $30... My Dad retired from the Air Force and moved us family to Bangor, Maine. He got a teaching job there. And he was from Maine. I played arcade games from Missile Command...to Pac-Man...to Donkey Kong...to Star Wars...to Galaga...to Tempest,...TO Gauntlet...at the "Dream Machine;" at the Airport Mall, in Bangor, Maine. I was also a latchkey kid. There was no major crimes in Bangor. I don't have a hometown, I was born in Tampa, and I only lived in Austin from 1975 to 1980. I didn't have a typical childhood. My Middle School years were when I attended a writing convention in Portland, Maine. I wrote a scene for a student produced/written play that was accepted. I won $10, and my late Parents (Eine and Bob,) were proud of me. I'm writing my autobiography, as well as my Screenplay, "Writing To Gillian;" that's why I am bringing all of this up now... I can go on AND on.... If you want to learn more, just write me back! :D