star wars, empire, jedi- 70mm
phantom-35mm clones/sith- digital
Speaking of modern 70s style buildings that no one wants preserved, the recently demolished theater where I saw Empire and Jedi was called Avco, and was the inspiration for the Blue Harvest-style production code name for Episode VII.
http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/alien-1979-560x406.jpg
SW and ESB on VHS, recorded off HBO (?) in the mid-80's.
ROTJ was much, much later. Definitely VHS, but probably sometime in the mid-90's.
Harmy said:
Oh, well, the buildings of those theaters I was talking about are still there, they are just not movie theaters any more - they were put out of business by multiplexes.
Oh, and I've been well enough, thank you :-) Yourself?
hanging in there. Looks like there's a 2.0 of ESB out and 2.5 for SW :O I watched the 1.0 earlier this month for the first time in a while and its still just great. If what everyone says about the 2.+ versions is true, I am tempted ;)
You shouldn't be tempted, you should seriously already be downloading! The 2.X versions are so much better it's not even funny. But that discussion belongs elsewhere ;-)
So, to stay on topic, I will confess this - before I saw ESB and ROTJ, I had this sticker album, which came out as part of the 97SE campaign and had the stories of all three films in it, so I already knew the basic story before I ever saw ESB and ROTJ and when the '97SE VHS came to the local video-rental store, my parents would only give me money to rent one movie a week, so since I'd already seen the original movie on TV (albeit, like 4 or 5 years ago) I wanted to see the other two and my friend who saw all three SEs in the cinema (I still can't believe, that I saw Titanic and Jurassic Park 2 in cinema that year and not Star Wars) told me, that ROTJ was much much better than ESB (we were 9 years old you know) so I went and rented ROTJ first and only saw ESB for the first time a week after ROTJ.
I saw all in their original theatrical runs, but remember almost nothing about the specifics, particularly sound.
Star Wars; 1977, theater, 35mm.
The Empire Strikes Back; 1980, theater, 70mm.
Return Of The Jedi; 1983, theater, don't remember any specifics.
'77 Larpenter
'80 Har Mar
'83 Ridgedale
The first time I ever watched The Star Wars Trilogy was in August of 1995. They were the Widescreen Versions on VHS.
My local theater did a re-run of the trilogy in Summer '87 (I was 7 years old then), to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first movie, playing one movie each day for three consecutive days. The re-run was so successful that they made a second re-run a few weeks later, and there I went to watch them again.
I wasn't able to watch the movies again until 1989, after my parents finally decided to buy a VCR, when they bought my brother and me the trilogy in VHS for Christmas.
I saw Star Wars and ESB on Christmas UK TV first and Betamax (recorded) and also used to listen to raw recordings on audio cassettes of the films when I could.
ROTJ I saw in the cinema in Edgeware UK which no longer exists and after it had finished we stayed in the cinema and watched the next showing so I saw it twice in a row. :)
I saw all the prequels in the cinema too. Oh why did I keep going back for more
OT: Faces P&S VHS
PT: 35mm in theaters
I still haven't seen the Special Editions. I'm going to see, for the first time, a showing of the ANH 97SE (35mm) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD on Saturday!
A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.
I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!
—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3
It's overrated. :p
I was a baby when my parents took me to Empire.
Other than that, VHS tapes taped off HBO that my wealthier cousins taped for me.
Also the Empire Strikes Back storybook, and the ROTJ record and storybook.
AntcuFaalb said:
OT: Faces P&S VHS
PT: 35mm in theaters
I still haven't seen the Special Editions. I'm going to see, for the first time, a showing of the ANH 97SE (35mm) at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD on Saturday!
Don't say I didn't warn you! ;)
Where were you in '77?
In hindsight, I really should have given "On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies." at my initial response to this inquiry. Unfortunately, that time has passed.
Hopefully at least one of my counterparts in an alternate universe had more foresight.
I first saw Star Wars when it was broadcast on TV (on our 25" RCA color console TV, on CBS I believe) in '84 when I was 9 years old. I think this was the first time it was broadcast on regular TV, because it was a pretty big deal. Kids at school were talking about it about a week prior to its broadcast.
I was enthralled by it; it seemed so epic. It was an event, like The Wizard of Oz, but even better.
I'd been aware of the Star Wars movies since my earliest memories, and even had some of the toys (given to me by my neighbor who had "outgrown" them), including some action figures (Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker [orange flight suit], Darth Vader, a standard storm trooper, Hammerhead, and Greedo), Luke's landspeeder, a TIE fighter, an X-Wing, and the insanely awesome Millennium Falcon. All of those were built roughly to scale around the action figures, so they were pretty big, especially the Millennium Falcon.
So, between the toys I had and what I'd heard from other kids over the years, I knew what it was all about, but I'd never seen any of the movies. So seeing Star Wars for the first time after having wanted to see it for as long as I could remember, was a pretty big thing.
I didn't see another Star Wars movie until '87 when I was 12. My mother was going to be gone for the weekend, and she dropped my little sister and me off at our grandfather's house. He had a VCR (we didn't get one until Christmas of '88), and he said we could rent a couple of movies. So I rented Return of the Jedi and Star Trek IV (which was a new release at the time). I loved both of them, and watched them 3 or 4 times over the weekend.
For some reason, it was a while before I first saw The Empire Strikes Back, because even after we got a VCR and I could have easily rented it, for some reason I was under the impression that I'd already seen it. But, at some point in '89 I rented it, to watch it "again", and realized I'd never seen it. It too was amazing.
I remember talking about The Empire Strikes Back with my neighbor Jeff after watching it, telling him how great I thought it was, and how I'd just seen it for the first time despite thinking I'd already seen it, and how it was the movie where Luke first finds out that Darth Vader is his father. Jeff kind of scoffed and said, "It was obvious from what Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke in the original Star Wars that Darth Vader was Luke's father." That claim is funny in hindsight, considering what I know now, but back then, everyone believed that George Lucas had 9 Star Wars movies all written and ready to go, right down to the last detail, before the first movie was even made.
There are several here who first saw ROTJ before ESB, and it seems like a really strange jump. You go from seeing Han being applauded in Star Wars to "we need to rescue him from carbonite!" in Jedi. Though upon second thought, we already know that Jabba wants him dead, so it's not really that confusing. The biggest thing would be the "I am your father", which is a really strange thing to have happen off screen. Though the series started with Episode 4, so it may have been an interesting experiment to continually skip episodes.
In fact, there's not that much which has been missed. All that happens in Empire which is important in ROTJ is the introduction of Yoda and Luke's training, Luke considering that Vader could be his father, and that's it. Even Han's belief that Leia loves Luke is more understandable without the intervening installment, as well as Yoda's insistence that Luke confront Vader, as if Luke hasn't done that yet. Lando's arc contributes little to the overall story, and it may even be more understandable that ROTJ Lando, who seems to know Han and rescued him from captivity, is now a general, rather than ESB Lando, who previously betrayed a leader of the rebellion. An interesting thought experiment indeed.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Well, I was one of those people, as I said above but I already knew the story from a book before seeing the movies, so it wasn't like I was missing the information.
Harmy said:
Well, I was one of those people, as I said above but I already knew the story from a book before seeing the movies, so it wasn't like I was missing the information.
It wouldn't need to be a long book. Here's the cliffs notes version:
Luke trains with Obi-wan's old master, and Vader tells Luke that they are both Skywalkers. Oh, and Luke loses a hand.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Yeah, I mean, I had all the information I needed to understand what was going on in ROTJ.
Yeahhhh, I'm just messin with ya. ;)
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
SilverWook said:
I don't think it's just movie theaters. There's just no appreciation for preserving "modern" structures in general. People will rally to save a 1950's style McDonald's, but would anyone care when the last 70's style one gets knocked down or remodeled into the current look?
They recently tore down an old Taco Bell in Calgary that still had the red, green, yellow colour scheme and had an ancient ad in the window for 69 cent tacos. I loved driving by it, because I had totally forgotten that Taco Bells all looked like that when I was taken there as a kid. It's a Tim Horton's now, which sounds like a joke but isn't.
There's also an "ancient" KFC on Seventeenth Avenue in downtown. It still has that amazing white wallpaper with the pastel pink and blue in the wispy brushstroke style with matching framed "artwork". Really takes you back. Kind of a shame they'll all be gone forever soon.
Anyway. I'm pretty sure the versions I saw first was the Faces set; those are the versions I remember from the Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos (also dead and gone) of the day, at least. I still have the image of Vader striding onto the Tantive IV burned into my brain. I believe I had paused it there to go talk to a friend who had knocked on the door. This would have been about 1995 or so. After that, I got the cropped standard-screen Special Editions for Christmas, and that's what I grew up with.
The first time I noticed the differences (despite watching the pre-movie mini-documentaries about the restoration process every time I watched the films) was when I watched the 1981(?) VHS version of Jedi at a friend's house. I remember not realizing until the end, and wondering out loud where the extended celebration was... but at the time I loved my SE. Hell, I didn't ever see the Sandperson Luke was talking about seeing by the Bantha until I saw my first fan edit. Once I got here, I never looked back.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when I was five. I remember loving it since it was my first Star Wars film. Later, I caught The Empire Strikes Back on HBO. My parents recorded ESB and ROTJ Off HBO and I watched those VHS tapes growing up. For some odd reason, I didn't see Star Wars ANH until much later. I think I was in junior high and watched it on some cable movie channel. The first official trilogy release that I owned is the faces VHS set. I went to all three SE's in the theater in '97.
I saw them on tapes from blockbuster. I'm not sure which ones exactly but it was probably some of the earlier tapes of the films.
The Person in Question
I saw the Trilogy like this. Though I do remember the grocery store near me having the 1982 big box release for rent.
Phantom Menace: Theater. I remember being pissed I had to wait a few days to see it because we had to drive to my brother's graduation in upstate New York. My parents made him take me just to shut me the hell up.
Clones: Opening day after school. My mom dropped me off and went to the mall instead of watching it.
Sith: Theater. It was an early showing. My disgust with Star Wars was starting then.
It seems like people are really embracing the new characters. In fact, the big question people ask me now about Star Wars is, “Are Finn and Poe gay lovers?” And really how the f*ck would I know? My second husband left me for a man, so my gaydar isn’t exactly what you’d call Death Star level quality. ----Carrie Fisher
My Dad took me to see Star Wars at a theater in California some time in 1977, but I was not even three years old at the time and although he tells me now that I really enjoyed it, I don't remember it at all. The weird thing is he also took me to a drive in Theater in '77 for a double bill: Herbie goes to Monte Carlo and James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me, and I do remember being there for both of those. The first time I remember watching Star Wars was October 1982 when it aired in the U.K. on ITV. By then I was almost 8 years old, and I've been a fan ever since.
I saw The Empire Strikes Back for the first time on Betamax in 1984 at a friends house, and Return of the Jedi for the first time on VHS in 1986 at my cousin's house. I also saw Jedi in a theater on an American Air Force base in Frankfurt, Germany in 1987.
Also in '87 we finally got a VCR and the very first VHS tape I ever bought was this one:
http://www.swonvideo.com/vhs/vanhuk1987.htm
which I still have, £14.99 from my local WHSmith. Laserdisc never really took off in Britain so VHS was as good as it got for me.
Then I saw all the Special Editions and the Prequels at the Theater on 35mm and I've felt old and grumpy ever since ;)
TheStarWarsTrilogy.com.
The007Dossier.com.
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