Michael Ward said:
it didn’t become mind blowingly huge again until The Phantom Menace.
From my own memory as a 9 year old in 1997, the Special Editions and all of the hype surrounding the 20th anniversary were the point at which Star Wars became mind blowingly huge again. Remember, they had to re-establish the Star Wars brand as a viable marketing behemoth like it had been in it’s heyday in order to get the hype train rolling for the prequels. I knew what Star Wars was as a child but to me in the early 90s it was just some forgotten old relic that old people watched marathons of on USA. I had a few of the vintage toys from random garage sales and thrift stores and I would be like “look, it’s that shiny gold robot guy from that old movie they show on TV all the time!”. Basically from the time I was born to about 1994, Star Wars to me was just “some old movie”. 1995 was when things really started to pick back up again with the new toy line and by 1997, You could find all manner of Star Wars merchandise in any department store like it was 1977 again. lunchboxes, backpacks, Pencil cases, underwear, toothpaste. You name it I had it.
For me, 1997 was the year that Star Wars came BACK with a vengeance! It was everywhere and EVERYONE was talking about it again. Oprah freaking Winfrey had her own special devoted to the Special Edition hype. That era to me as a child of the 90s is what I would have imagined it was like for children of the 70s growing up when the original film was released. If it weren’t for the '97 SEs and 20th Anniversary hype I wouldn’t have likely given a rat’s ass about the Phantom Menace as a child, It would have been just another movie to me. I was only hyped for it after having become a die hard Star Wars nerd 2 years before with the Special Edition theatrical re-releases, getting the '95 “Faces” VHS Trilogy for my Birthday and the Power of the Force toy line. All of the hype and anticipation for the prequels was based around the '97 SEs having firmly re-established Star Wars as a major pop culture phenomenon.
I certainly don’t love what has happened to the original versions of the films since the release of the Special Editions, but the hype around The Phantom Menace wouldn’t have been what it was without the mid 90s rebirth that began with the Special Editions. That is when the 2nd coming of Star Wars truly began.