In this Entertainment Tonight expose’ from 1992:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHZUK-YsJ8E
Leonard Maltin refers to Star Wars as having been called A New Hope
Go to 1:25 in the video.So even by that point(1992) the original Star Wars from 77’ was already forgotten in the popular culture.
I wouldn’t say that Star Wars was forgotten in popular culture in 1992. I was 18 in 1992 at the original trilogy was still very highly regarded. Sure, it wasn’t the “hot new thing” anymore, but the OT was still considered to be a high-water mark in mainstream sci-fi cinema, and almost immediately gained the status of “classic.”
And Leonard Maltin didn’t really refer to Star Wars as having been called A New Hope per se… he said “you may recall that the opening title of the original Star Wars film labelled it Episode IV: A New Hope.” Being labelled something does not mean that it’s the official title necessarily. In fact, earlier in that same video he refers to the entire original trilogy as “Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi” (0:41 in the video).