I was a tad older but LOL we did the exact same thing. Moving going was never as fun after that. Ok well seeing Alien for the first time in a theater not knowing what to expect was cool but not Star Wars cool.
I was 12 in 1982. I don’t remember that year, or the one before or after it, with any particular fondness. To be honest though, I’ve found nearly every period throughout my life building on the wealth of things I find awesome. From Nintendo in the early 90’s to PC Games in the middle/late part of that decade to the Lord of the Rings Movies earlier this decade and the Star Wars Clone Wars Tv Show now (I would have been crazy for that when I was 12!!), there’s always something really cool happening everywhere I look.
Perhaps I’m just perpetually 12?
I was a demon for reading Sci-Fi (SyFy?) starting when I was about 12. My Dad was a buff and he got me boxes of books that a buddy of his from work was clearing out; all hard-bound book club editions from the SciFi/Fantasy book-of-the-month club or something. I read them all; the good, the bad and the ugly. 95% of that stuff I would never willingly read again, once was enough. But in that 5% I guess the seeds were planted. Not sure that I would regard what I personally read (even the 5%) as representative of my personal ‘golden age’ but as far as that being representative of my formative years in terms of taste, pretty spot on.
I was twelve in 1988. Looking over Wikipedia I am stunned at how many iconic, notable or just plain awesome movies came out that year.
A Fish Called Wanda, Beetlejuice, The Naked Gun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Die Hard, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, Willow, Young Guns, They Live and, naturally, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, amongst others.
I submit that 1988 was the best year EVER to be 12, and the rest of you can go suck it (unless you were 12 in 1988).
I was 12 in 1994, and my memories of that year are mostly focused on Sweden getting a bronze in the World Cup and winning the Olympic hockey gold. For pop culture and such, I think I was more affected by 1988, or the late 90s/early 2000s.
I think I really started reading fantasy when I was 12, though.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is the reason for this.
Also, I just checked the list of movies for the year I was twelve (1994), and oddly enough, I pretty much hate all of those movies that aren’t rated R (meaning I saw them much later). Weird?
This meme is going around. The talked about this on Giant Bomb – the golden age of gaming is what you played when you were young.
I think you hit on the exception to the rule, actually. I’m constantly amazed at the crap I enjoyed playing when I was young.
Stuff I played in college, though… that was the golden age of gaming.
I was 12 in 78. I read sci-fi books, but things were still pretty rough then.
My golden age was really around 14, after Star Wars had been able to sink in a bit, there was more to watch, and I had AD&D and my Atari 800.
That’s when it got real good, although not as good as when I hit my twenties, and there was CG and girls.
I’d say it is right now. Any age. Computer games. Video games. Board games. Miniature games. Card games. It’s hard to top right now.
Empire Strikes Back. Suck it back.
Lord of the Rings. Suck it down.
Each of you has posted ONE movie (or maybe Nawida is really old and is referring to the book). While they are good, I don’t see how they stand up to the awesomeness onslaught that was 1988.
12 in 1980? WIN.
Empire Strikes Back and Caddyshack.
Actually I’m only 18 and referring to the movies (TT and ROTK specifically, I believe they released on my 12th and 13th birthday signifying the beginning and end of the awesome year). Should I also cite Metroid Prime?
1977…
Movies:
Allegro non troppo
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Eraserhead
The Rescuers
Star Wars
Wizards
To name a few. A couple other things:
It was the year Bowie released “Heroes”, and the Boomtown Rats and (solo) Peter Gabriel had their debut.
It was the year A Scanner Darkly, The Shining and The Silmarillion were published.
Suck it, bitches.
The big films of 12, for me, were Stargate and Star Trek: Generations. And Speed.
But the big thing, the one major event that changed my world forever, was experiencing Doom for the first time, at a friend’s birthday party. It was E1L8, I believe… While that game may look muddier than a dirt road in April today, in my mind’s eye it still seems near-photorealistic, based on that one, first, indelible impression.
That’s seriously that best you can mine from that year?
We weren’t all watching Citizen Kane at 12.
I’m reasonably certain Citizen Kane didn’t come out in 1994.
Let’s see-- 1994 saw the release of Forrest Gump, The Flintstones, Dumb and Dumber, Speed, and The Mask.
Wow. Kind of a “Year of Dumb” going on there.