Actually, no, Star Wars didn't change my life
I'm starting to find this Star Wars 30th anniversary business a little over the top.

I was 14 years old in 1977. I'd already been hooked on Star Trek for years. I'd seen 2001, Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run, and (if I'm correctly interpreting some dim memories) Forbidden Planet and, possibly, one of the Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies. I'd already read Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Tolkien, and Lewis. I'd already seen one of the great adventure movies of the 1970s, The Three Musketeers, which was the perfect blend of action, adventure, humour, romance, and a great cast.

For that matter, by the time Star Wars was in theatres, I already knew the whole story. The novelization was published about six months before the movie premiered, and I'd bought and read it after reading a little about it in Starlog.

Star Wars wasn't a revelation. It wasn't something new. It had great special effects and it was a lot of fun, but it didn't change my life. I was already a fan of the kind of stuff it apparently introduced to a lot of people.

It was a fun adventure movie and I liked it enough to buy the comics for a few years and a few of the novels. Empire came out when I was 17 and I found the movie too serious for its own good, especially when combined with an annoying muppet. Return of the Jedi was... well, it was over. Blade Runner, the year before, was much more my speed.

As for the prequel trilogy: lots of very pretty pictures with no other redeeming values at all.

If not for Xbox games, Star Wars right now would be no more important a part of my life than a previous Lucas movie, American Graffiti -- a classic movie I enjoy watching every few years that didn't really need a sequel.