How did you prefer to watch SW before the fan edits came along?

Before the fan edits such as Harmy’s and 4Kxx came along, what was your preferred way of watching the trilogy? Did you put up with the low quality of the GOUT, watch on an old VHs or LaserDisc, or just give up and watch the special editions?

For me personally, I first saw SW in the early 2000s on an old 80s VHS tape, that was obviously pre-special edition. After that though, I mostly would rent the DVDs from Blockbuster, without even paying attention to whether they were special edition or not. I was still too young to care.

Around 2012 or so when I found out about the special editions and all the changes that had been made, I was determined to only watch the theatrical cut from them on. I went on eBay and bought the GOUT DVD for Star Wars. I was unimpressed with the quality (I was watching on an HD TV), but I was happy to be once again watching the theatrical versions, at least.

Before I could get to the other two though, I discovered that Harmy’s Despecialized was a thing. That’s been my go-to way to watch the trilogy ever since. I prefer the “cleaner” look over something like 4K77.

VHS recorded from tv!
It was Christmas 1985 I first see Star Wars (now called a new hope) I was 6 years old and my dad who has no interest in sc-fi whatsoever said hey son there’s a space film on TV you might like ‘Star trek’ I think it is 😂 I didn’t move the entire 2 hours i was totally hooked, luckily my dad had pressed record on the vhs so I got to re watch it over and over with 80s advertisements every 15-20 mins 😂 but still it was my favourite vhs.

It wasn’t until a year later that I see my next movie Return of the Jedi!
There was a re-release late 1986 in London, about 45 min drive. A dress up competition and meet darth vader! My dad booked it and helped me create a darth vader costume from cardboard and paper mashay.
I was totally confused lol!
Not about vader being luke’s father (kids talk)
It was han solo turned to stone!luke in black! etc.

Empire was the last one I got to see and it was around a friends, there parents had rented the trilogy from blockbuster so we had a marathon night and I gotta say I was really disappointed with empire at the time! I found it to be kinda boring compared to a new hope and Jedi but obviously I know better now and empire is top of my list but I was only 7 at the time 😂 I finally got the trilogy on official vhs around 1989 and I’ve had pretty much every physical realise since, I’m 43 now 😂

The VHS Faces Cassettes, yeah all i could afford was the pan and scan not the more ritzy widescreen boxed set. And i had the earlier non THX Star Wars set, which i preferred to watch Star Wars on because the 1995 release had the smashing glass in the detention block which i never liked. The one i watched the most on tv and on tape was the 85 sound mix.

I didn’t get a laserdisc player or the definitive collection til around 2005. About ten years too late for it to mean anything but by that time they were cheap enough. Then i got some of the fan made DVDs and the rest is history. All the way up to the release of the GOUT DVD’s and 4K77 hitting the net. Buying the awful Disney 2020 4K Special Edition watching it once and putting it on the shelf.

I had the 2006 GOUT DVDs and before that I had the 1995 “Faces” VHS release of the original trilogy. GOUT was the primary way I watched the movies for about 6-7 years until I discovered Harmy’s Despecialized around 2013.

When 4K77 was released, I had mixed feelings about it. Personally, I think it looks great on my projector in a dark room, but I never really liked the way it looked on TVs. My favorite way to watch the original trilogy now on modern 4K HDR OLED TVs are the D+77, D+80, and OTD83 releases.

JadedSkywalker said:

The VHS Faces Cassettes, yeah all i could afford was the pan and scan not the more ritzy widescreen boxed set. And i had the earlier non THX Star Wars set, which i preferred to watch Star Wars on because the 1995 release had the smashing glass in the detention block which i never liked. The one i watched the most on tv and on tape was the 85 sound mix.

I didn’t get a laserdisc player or the definitive collection til around 2005. About ten years too late for it to mean anything but by that time they were cheap enough. Then i got some of the fan made DVDs and the rest is history. All the way up to the release of the GOUT DVD’s and 4K77 hitting the net. Buying the awful Disney 2020 4K Special Edition watching it once and putting it on the shelf.

I’ve bought the OT three or four times at this point. I can’t bring myself to hand Disney any more money for yet another box set unless they are willing to release a proper 4K remaster with decent HDR color grading and a good Atmos mix.

As it is right now, their Dolby Vision color grade is just awful and the current Atmos mix they did is pretty hit-or-miss in certain scenes. There’s also noticeable compression in some scenes because Disney insist on publishing their 4K releases on 66GB discs rather than 100GB discs.

I never owned any star wars VHS tapes but would rent TESB and ROTJ from my local rental store this would be mid 80’s.
After that I would have had a VHS recording from TV until the first official DVD’s came out in 2004, I would just switch off during the Jaba scene in ANH lol but was a joy to watch with the surround sound on.

Only found OT a couple of years back and have been not only blessed to be able to watch Harmy’s Theatrical but also Hal9000’s Custom Special Editions. Now it’s always Hal’s latest custom editions.