AntcuFaalb said:
1. What was being an 80s Star Wars fan like?
I was a child in the 80s, but I can remember being a Star Wars fan. My first encounter with Star Wars was when I was at my Uncle’s house and he randomly put on Empire Strikes Back on VHS. I watched it and was blown away.
The main difference between then and now was that the Original Trilogy was the only live-action Star Wars content in existence (ignoring Ewok/Holiday TV specials), and pretty much everyone agreed it was awesome (except for some minor complaints about ROTJ).
And we all loved George. Consider how Lord of the Rings fans view J.R.R. Tolkien today. That was how Star Wars fans saw George Lucas: as this master storyteller with an unparalleled creative vision. The man was surrounded by an aura of mystique - unlike today, where Lucas is a divisive figure.
The other difference in the fandom was there were different ideas about what aspects of Star Wars were the most awesome. Today, the fandom seems to really be captivated mostly by the Jedi, lightsaber combat, the Sith, Force powers, etc. But in the 80s, the fandom was much more captivated by the world and technology of Star Wars: X-Wings, Star Destroyers, TIE fighters, etc. Yes, fans still love that shit today, but the focus of the 80s fandom was more around the “military sci-fi” aspect of Star Wars, whereas today’s fandom is more interested in Jedi lightsaber duels and Force powers.
This is probably because the Jedi in the OT were more subtle, more spiritual, and not as physically impressive. The Jedi were simply not as much of a big deal as they are today. The most beloved Star Wars character throughout the 80s was not even a Jedi: it was Han Solo. In fact, if there was one bit of iconography that defined Star Wars in the 80s, it was Han and Chewie in the Falcon.
4. Did you participate in the early home video revolution? If so, how did you, for instance, obtain all of the episodes of Star Trek (TOS)?
Well, my family bought a VCR when I was very young. Obtaining all the episodes of Star Trek was pretty difficult to do back then. You’d probably have to pay a lot of money to order a box set of VHS tapes from Paramount or something. Either that, or just wait for each episode to be aired on some local channel, and methodically record it over the span of a few months.
When I was a kid we mostly just recorded HBO movies on VHS. (I think that’s how I got my first VHS copy of Star Wars.) We would occasionally purchase an official VHS release of a movie, but that was pretty rare.
I think one aspect of media culture that was quite common in the 80s but has mostly disappeared today was recording movies/music directly from the television or radio. I would record HBO movies on VHS often. You had to check the “TV Guide” (a physical magazine you got in the mail that listed all television show time slots for the week for your local channels) to know when the movie would be playing. It was not uncommon to go over to somebody’s house, and see their “library” of VHS tapes on display on a shelf somewhere, with self-made labels inscribed with hand-written movie titles.
The first time I saw pretty much all the 80s classics (Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.) was when I went over to a friend’s house and they had it on VHS, recorded off of HBO, Cinemax, or even just a regular cable or network TV channel. It was quite common for movies on VHS to contain commercials, since they were recorded straight from network TV.