Who else remembers circa 1994/95 when the USA Network showed the Star Wars OT over the course of a weekend? I remember it being one of my earliest exposures to Star Wars (I was 7 and 8 during 1994/95 respectively) and it got me hugely into SW at that age. I have fond memories seeing the OT that time and when I got into SW and collected things like the toys and some books and magazines.
The USA Network and the Sci-Fi channel had a similar owner so this preservation effort is linked to what you remember seeing, some of the USA promos are on the disc:
Ah man, I remember those too. I loved catching Star Wars on TV at my grandparents house (they had cable and we didn't). It was awesome.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
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(It hasn’t happened yet)
I still vividly remember watching the OOT marathon on Presidents Day Weekend 1990 (I was in highschool at the time). After the 3 movies back to back to back for the first time since the HBO days, I realized how great Empire was and how average Jedi was. I'm pretty sure it was on USA Network?
I remember seeing ROTJ in letterbox on TV as a child. I had never seen a letterbox film (only P&S), so I thought there was something wrong with the TV because of the black bars. I'm not sure what station that was on. My guess would be TCM since they usually air films as they were meant to be seen, uncut, commercial free and in the correct aspect ratio. I think I saw ROTJ in letterbox before TCM existed and I'm not even sure if TCM has ever aired any of the Star Wars films. This was sometime in the early 90s.
I remember the USA Network and SciFi Channel airings pretty vividly as well. They were also some of my earliest exposures to the films (I turned 9 in June of '94).
I still remember the bumpers at the end of the USA commercial breaks. It would just be several seconds of footage from a scene with the announcer guy going "we now return to" whichever movie. When they came back from the final commercial break for Jedi, the announcer guy would add "and may the force be with you."
For the letterboxed SciFi Channel airings, I still remember how the bumpers for Empire's commercial breaks would be Billy Dee Williams walking out into a room filled with the miniatures from the movies (iirc) and sharing bits of trivia like how the Executor model had however many thousand light panels. I distinctly remember he pronounced it like you pronounce "execute" and not "executive." They did something similar with Takei and Koenig for the Trek movies, which is how I first heard the story about the Starfleet Academy movie that never was.
I think these were my first real exposure to the movies. I had seen them before, but the USA broadcast was the first time I sat down and watched them seriously. I seem to remember they did something neat with the framing of ANH. The opening crawl and the flyover were letterboxed, then they switched to pan and scan for the reverse shot with the corvette and the Star Destroyer coming toward the camera. It made an impression on me, and I was disappointed when I got the official releases. The crawl was harder to read and the starships' reveal was poorer.
I remember during the 1990's, USA would air the original trilogy on Christmas day.