danny_boy said:
I envy you for having been there at the beginning!
Were those all 35mm presentations that you saw ---or was the stunning one a 70mm projection?
In June I saw 35mm/mono three times in a relatively small theater in Utah. My memory was the movie being fantastic and the image being marvelous.
In July I saw 70mm in a large theater in California. My memory was that the image was better, but that could have been excitement, or just a better projector.
Late in the year I saw it again - I'm not sure the format, and I don't remember any particular thought of whether it was better or worse. I believe it was probably 35mm and stereo mix.
In 1985 I saw a marathon of all three films in a small late night theater. The image quality was atrocious and I was sad to see the film(s) in such a damaged state.
I do have two memories that don't jive with historical record - like being quite certain that in Utah I saw the Biggs hangar scene all three times, and NOT seeing Vader survive and fly off. Before everyone assumes I'm crazy, I would also like to point out that I also remembered "close the blast doors" despite wondering where it went in every subsequent viewing. It wasn't until joining this group that I learned that my memory was actually correct in that case, despite the lack of any intervening confirmation. Regarding the Biggs scene, upon seeing it in the SE, my mind was able to fill-in the removed chunk of dialog from memory. And no, I didn't see it in the documentary because I only saw that for the first time very recently. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! :)