I remember some Mcquarrie paintings of the early scenes appearing way, way beforehand, and then extrapolating the whole movie from that. The movie was pretty close, if cheaper. And I also expected Jabba to appear in his marvel comics form.  (I wasn't there opening night but I can confirm people chanting "Throw him in! Throw him in!" When Vader saves Luke.)

Even though I saw all 3 OT movies in the theater, Jedi was the first one I was old enough to really enjoy the hype. I was going into 5th grade when Jedi came out, so I was a full blown SW fan at that point, and couldn't get enough of it.

My first memory was in the summer of 1982, and I was over a friends house eating lunch and her mom said, "I just read that the 3rd SW movie is going to be called Revenge of the Jedi!" I was so stoked, as the first thing I though was Luke was going to kick some ass and this was his revenge against Vader.

I remember leading up to Jedi that because there was no internet that you could actually goto the movie and not worry about spoliers. I told my one friend (who saw it before me) not to tell me if Vader was Luke's father. The only he said was that Luke is a badass in Jedi and chokes the guards at Jabba's palace to get in.

After I saw iit with my 2 older brothers, I was on a high for days. I was young enough not to be bothered by the Ewoks like I am now, and I was fascinated with the talk between Luke and Obiwan on Dagobah and that there was a backstory behind all of these movies.

I remember, and this is the gods honest truth, that I heard a rumor that the next movie was going to be called "Planet UBX40" (I know) and the story was going to involve the Wookie race! I dont know were I got all this from but I told everyone In the school yard.

I actually remember buying the "Revenge of the Jedi" figures before seeing the movie. And no I dont have any :-(

I heard a theory on the school bus that it was really Boba Fett that was Luke's father. Since he was the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, he must have missed deliberately when he shot at Luke on Cloud City. It makes complete sense if you ignore all the facts.

I collected the ROTJ trading cards (with gum!) to get my fix of pics and spoilers during the wait. There was usually a few months between the US release and our local theatre showings. so there were spoilers galore. I totally knew those black blobs were ewoks.

lpd said:

the story was going to involve the Wookie race

That was true until they changed it to Ewoks.

I remember reading an awesome theory in Starlog that Vader was a clone of Anakin. The clone wars were believed to have been called that because they needed more warriors, and so Jedi knights were cloned. Vader was seduced, and felt inferior to the original so he killed Anakin. This, he was Luke's father and not at the same time. I was so ready to believe that going into the movie when I was 12!

Bingowings said:

That was never on the cards for ROTJ though was it?

Back at the beginning when the Vietnamese as big apes were in the end of the only planned Star Wars film it might have happened but by the time that idea got to Episode VI they were always little bears.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I think in the early stages (like late 80 early 81), the original wookiee concept was split into the very short ewaks and the really tall yuzzem. The ewaks were kind of creepy looking at first. 

zombie84 said:

In Toronto there was a couple who got married in line for ROTJ. I still have the newspaper article.

And they say people went nuts for Episode I!

I hope that couple is still together, or did they divorce while in line for Episode I? Was that at the theater that used to be on Yonge near Eglinton? That was the Star Wars theater.

There wasn't much fuss in denmark but I remember being excited over going to scotland and seeing it 2 month before the Danish premier, unfortunately I was going with one of my friends and he didn't speak a word english so I end up translating for him all through the movie.

I went a watch it again the next day......by myself

by the way I was 14 at the time and the reason for going was some boy scout summer camp.  

I remember waiting in anticipation for RotJ.  Empire left so many unanswered questions for me.  Was Darth Vader really Luke's father?  Would it be possible to unfreeze Han?  How would it end?  How would the rebels overtake the massive forces of the Empire?  Would Luke turn to the dark side if he killed Darth Vader, so he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't? Luke didn't have a lightsaber anymore.  Could he get another one?  A bunch more I can't think of right now.

Then I remember the first magazine articles and pictures showing a bit of what was to come.  I felt Revenge of the Jedi seemed strange and thought it was interesting that they changed the name and a good idea.  I was excited to see Luke had a new lightsaber and thought the green version was cool.  I was a bit surprised to see Leia dressed up in a funky bikini and felt that it didn't really go with Star Wars. After seeing it, the whole Jabba part always kind of sucked for me and I always was looking forward to get past that part of the movie (yes Carrie Fisher looked great, but it wasn't Star Wars for me).  Seeing Han in the pictures was cool but spoiled the fact that he would be unfrozen.  I liked the new ships with the wings that folded up.  I couldn't wait to see the movie and when I did, I got to see it twice which was unusual for me.