'E.T.' and 'Star Wars' were cult movies then and opened up a brand new world of adventure and mystery. But as much as I would have loved to be friends with E.T., I realized that following in the footsteps of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan was more realistic.
A lot of people say Michael Jordan and all of that. But Magic Johnson and my dad were my role models.
Obviously you look at "Magic" (Ervin Johnson) and Michael (Jordan) and you learn from them growing up, but I think you are just born with it from day one.
One of my dear friends became Michael Jordan. That gave me a lot of access there. But I had access to everybody from Larry Bird to Magic Johnson to all of the other guys.
When I started playing, my mom said there were three players she wanted me to watch - Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.
There are some rappers out there that I listen to, that I'm like: "You are really good but you could be like the Michael Jordan of rap if you applied yourself." There's a lot of people who are better at basketball than Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan just wanted to be Michael Jordan, more.
Michael Jordan broke the mold of the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird era - he came in and he had a gold chain, he wore longer shorts and his sneakers were a different style.
I always watched Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and I said I could be playing on the court with them.
All my friends were 'Star Wars' kids but I didn't go to the movies, so I was the 'Star Trek' kid.
In terms of the film itself, there was nothing much very new about 'Star Wars.' 'Star Wars' was a trailblazer for the kind of monumentalist pastiche which has become standard in a homogeneous Hollywood blockbuster culture that, perhaps more than any other film, 'Star Wars' played a role in inventing.
I talked to George Lucas once, not about Star Wars. Everyone wants to talk to him about Star Wars, and I didn't want to be one of those people. In person - at least on this occasion - he wasn't effervescent and giddy, as the Star Wars movies are. He's more focused.
Magic Johnson didn't play the style that Larry Bird did, and Michael Jordan sure didn't play the style that Magic or Bird played.
Doug Christie, what skill, what strenght, what power, what quickness. The visionof Magic Johnson, the athletisicm of Michael Jordan, the toughness of larry Bird. Dough Christie has it all
I loved adventure movies. I loved movies where people went on an adventure to an unknown land, an undiscovered country, or a new territory. I think there's something, right at the center of storytelling, that people love about that.
'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' (1977) is probably the most influential film of my generation. That work was the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents' generations, it left an indelible imprint. So, in a way, everything that any of us does is somehow directly or indirectly affected by the experience of seeing those first three films.
The only answer to the question 'Which is the worst of the 'Star Wars' movies?' is, there is no worst 'Star Wars' movie. There - one might be the least amazing and fantastic, but there's none that is the worst of the 'Star Wars' movies.
As a player, you model yourself after other players. Kobe takes the same approach as Michael Jordan. But I follow someone like Magic Johnson; he showed emotion, he smiled and jumped around, he was happy for his teammates. There needs to be more players like that.