Gaffer Tape said:
Amazing. Being a bit too young to have caught the movies in theatres, I've always wondered how people reacted to the shift in episode numbers, especially how kids reacted to it. I've never heard a story like that before, but it's a pretty well-informed rationalization.

I will be totally honest, nobody ever talked about the episode #'s when I was a kid, and I think that has to do with not having them on Video and just seeing them on HBO. As a kid, you would rarely catch a movie from the beginning on HBO, as you channel surf, see SW on, and start watching it til the end. Because of that, I never really noticed or cared about the Episode #'s from 77-83. I never had them on video until the late 80's, so there was no BS to deal with concerning the spines of the movies, or how they were worded on the boxset, or eventually which versions were being released;) Back then they were just Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi.

It was just assumed that Jedi was the last movie, even in 1982, and you had that context the whole time. It wasn't til after Jedi that the hype for more movies began, and that is when you started analyzing the Episode #'s, wondering what happened before and after.