My earliest definitive memory of watching the movies was popping a vhs tape (recorded from a broadcast) of ROTJ into the vcr at my aunt's place when I was fairly young, probably about 6. Her family had a pretty huge collection of recorded-off-the-air movies, and I picked that one because I thought it was the fist sequel (because it had "return" in the title) and not the actual conclusion to the trilogy. Needless to say, I didn't know what the hell was going on when 3PO goes "look, Captain Solo, and he's still frozen in carbonite."
So, yea, that's the only definitive "first memory" I have. Although I remember an early memory from around that same time of stumbling across the scene of Luke watching the hologram at Ben's hut when Star Wars was being broadcast on TBS.
Those of you who say things like "ROTJ sucks because it caters to the kids," you're absolutely right. Believe it or not, around 4th or 5th grade (when I was around 9 or 10) I actually remember watching ROTJ along with the rest of my class (I went to a small, Catholic, K through 8th school). It was on one of those days where we had nothing else to do, so we'd have a couple hours to watch a movie (don't ask me to explain beyond that, it was so long ago that even I don't remember why that happened). I distinctly remember watching ROTJ not only with the rest of my class, but with the class above ours as well. One of the kids in the class above ours (I still remember his name, how weird is that?) went "Bo Shuda?!" with a laugh after Jabba spoke those lines.
It's funny because I also remember our class gathering in the library for that same kind of "movie time" thing, and we had to vote on what we wanted to watch. One of the choices was "The Empire Strikes Back" (by that point I'd already seen it). I remember my teacher describing it as "the continuing story of Luke Skywalker, (etc)." I don't think we ended up watching it.
Speaking of Empire, my earliest memory of that particular movie is seeing x or y "making of" special where they showed a clip of the "I'll never join you!" scene, and by this point I'd already seen all of ROTJ. I was struck by the whole "oh, so there was another scene in the movie before that where Luke fights Vader, interesting."
Oddly enough, that only leaves the original '77 film, and as I've said my earliest memory is that scene during the TBS broadcast.
Stuff I do have memories of:
-renting the movies (pre-'95), which is probably how I ended up seeing Star Wars and Empire all the way through for the first time
-USA's marathons (by "marathons" I mean something similar to what Spike is doing right now ...... if it was still the early 90's)
-The SciFi Channel showing Empire and Jedi in letterbox sometime around the holidays in the mid-90's. I even recall seeing a commercial sometime in the early 90's saying something like "for the first time, a broadcast of both the fullscreen (they used some other term) and letterbox presentations of the Star Wars trilogy."
Then came the "one last time" release. I even recall seeing the commercials, one of them was Vader looking from side to side during Palpatine's electrocution of Luke at the end of ROTJ with the text "one of the greatest villains ever" against black. Another commercial was 3PO's "and don't let me catch you following me" with some kind of text applying to him and R2, also against black.
Jesus, it it weird that I remember all this?
I ended up getting the THX vhs of ANH for Christmas that year. If you look back in the forums you'll find the thread I started after acquiring the full boxset just this past Fall.
Jump to November of '96. I go to see Star Trek: First Contact by myself while my mother and my sister go to see Jingle all the Way. Afterwards, my mom tells me that one of the previews was for the re-release of Star Wars movies starting "on New Year's Day" or something like that.
Jump to January of '97, I go to see ANH with some friends. Jump to February, I see ESB with my mom. Jump to March, I see ROTJ with some friends.
Ah, the funny thing is that my memories of that first time seeing ANH '97 are really quite vague / almost non-existant. ESB was different though: right at the opening crawl my mom said "y'know, did you ever think of how it takes millions of years for radio waves to get from one side of the universe to the other? So that would be like 'A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away'." I also remember pointing out the addition of the tibanna gas factory in that one wide shot of Cloud City. Later on, I remember naively asking my mom why they were "doing that" to Han Solo and she just replied "it's torture." Jedi '97, oh man: that digital sound really made the activation and deactivation of Luke's saber by Vader in that one scene on Endor especially LOUD. I still remember how that unexpected new Williams music at the end had me feeling (good, in case you were wondering).
Funny, I'd have to credit my mom assuming I'd want the widescreen (silver) vhs boxset of the SE for Christmas (instead of the fullscreen) as part of what actually ended up fueling my interest in movies. That was one fun holiday season, December of '97.
I guess this is as good a time as any to say that all of this is ultimately beside the point, since I was a Star Trek kid first and a Star Wars kid second. The funny thing is that Star Trek was at the height of its exposure in the mass media when I was into it (mid-90's) and yet I was considered really weird for being into it, whereas Star Wars (since it was only three movies from a decade-and-a-half back) was considered cool. That certainly wasn't the case by the time '99 rolled around ......
Which brings me to that whole OT vs PT thing. Let me just echo Baronlando when I say how odd it is that Star Wars went from this classic trilogy of films to this over-hyped "event" that was just one simple film: Episode I.
Of course, it's best to start in that afternoon in November of '98 when I was at the orthodontist's and he for some reason brought up that "they're going to start running the previews (for the new Star Wars movie)." That very night, I watched the teaser on Entertainment Tonight. I still remember it like it was yesterday, and it still gives me goosebumps.
Let me just say something else: 8th grade was hell for me. The fact that I'd be getting a new Star Wars movie for the first time in my lifetime made the light at the end of the tunnel all the brighter. I remember that night in March of '99 watching the theatrical trailer on Access Hollywood and finding out that the release had been pushed up by a couple days.
May 19th of '99 I also remember like it was yesterday. I was even kidding myself to the extent that I said "nah, I'll just wait until later to see it." My mom dropped me off that afternoon, the sun casting an orange glow over everything. By coincidence, a kid who lived up the street from me was walking out of the previous showing just as I was walking in. He asked "you going to see Phantom Menace?" "Yea" I replied, he just kinda smiled and said "it's pretty good." As I recall, the theater wasn't all that crowded. In fact, I remember being surprised that it wasn't sold out already. Guess that was only the midnight showings from the night before, and the showing for that coming night.
The fight club / titan a.e. / anna and the king 20th Century Fox teaser "and now, a look at three projects currently in development" teaser I still remember. Then the Loews Cineplex logo. The the first reel.
The 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm logos.
That opening crawl, wow, this was something.
I'd already read a third of the novelization so I was pretty much immune to those "bad feeling about this" sentiments early on in the movie. I guess that's why, by the time the lightsaber battle at the end was over, I was pretty much loving this. I saw it again with my best friend (who was so turned off by it so early on in the movie that he started telling a long chain of (admittedly quite funny) jokes to me. Take that story for what it's worth) and a third time with my mother and my sister.
I remember getting the vhs not all that long after it came out in Spring of '00. Rogue Planet I checked out of the library and read all the way through that summer. At some point I remember the website for "Episode II" going up with what everyone thought (and it could've been) concept artwork for the cloning facilities.
October of '01 was something special though. Popping in that dvd was a treat.
I remember seeing monster's inc in order to see the "breathing" teaser for AOTC. May of '02, I skip class along with several other people in order to see the movie in the middle of the day at Union Station in DC. That story I've already told elsewhere, so I'll skip it. I would see the movie a bunch more times throughout the summer, chalk that up to whatever you will.
Then there was the craziness that was Spring of '05. I still remember (heh, it was barely three years ago and I'm saying "still remember") as soon as the movie irised out to the end credits I just went "it was good." Not amazing, not great, just good.
In a lot of ways, I guess it took me until I was 19 to see the prequels for what they really were.
(I might edit this later, but this stream of consciousness will suffice for now).