Then, around the Special Editions, people started pushing the “A New Hope” name hard, and also episode numbers.
I thought the use of episode numbers only really started catching on when TPM was released, becoming firmly entrenched once AOTC arrived.
Yep. It was really quite brilliant what Lucas set up back in 1980. There are so many fans who accept the PT and give it a free pass, simply because it slots into the big gaping “Episode I to III” hole he left in 1980 and the saga feels incomplete to them starting at the actual beginning.Of course, it makes it all th e more frustrating to those of us who are critical of it. But it was a bit of well-planned marketing genius to make the films seem necessary regardless of how they turned out.
Agree totally. If you sort of have OCD, it almost bothers you if you only watch the originals (4,5,6) and don’t watch the prequels.