When and in what format was the first time you saw Star Wars?

So basically your mum was a video pirate...

You still had a betamax player in the early 90s and 2000?!

I was born in '81, so my first viewing of Star Wras was on VHS, taped off the TV (it must have been around '85).  I loved those films and had all the action figures.  I remember my copy of Star Wars screwed up (in typical VHS Fashion - lines across the screen, lots of noise) at the point where the Commander is telling Vader that 'holding her is dangerous' and now I always expect the picture and sound to f*ck up at that point even if I'm watching it on DVD.

Eventually I grew up and sort of forgot about Star Wars, but then I rediscovered it in the early 90s when I was 12 or 13(watching the same dodgy VHS recordings) and enjoyed it on a whole other level and it's stuck with me ever since. 

F*cking great movies.

Hmmmph.   Kids.

I saw ANH in a drive-in theater when I was 11.  TESB was in a theater in California when we went to visit a friend of my dad's.  ROTJ was a local theater.  Me, my sister and some friends got there early.  Stood on line thru two showings by the time we got in.  By the time we got out, the line wrapped around the theater -  a 12 screen multiplex  - TWICE.  Interestingly, that theater was built on the site where that very same aforementioned drive-in theater used to be.

I had a very Star Wars Christmas in 1995 when I was nine years old.  The Faces set was being hyped like crazy, and, even though I'd never seen the movies before, I had a general idea about some of the ideas and characters (mostly through growing up watching Muppet Babies on Saturday mornings).  That limited knowledge and the huge hype of these releases was enough to get me to want the movies for Christmas.  It turns out that both my dad and mom bought me the boxset without realizing the other had.  My mom ultimately took hers back.  So I got the movies along with nearly all of the first set of the new action figures.  I even remember the order in which I happened to unwrap them:  Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and Han Solo.  Looking back, it would have really sucked if I had not taken to Star Wars as well as I had, and it was kinda going out on a limb to have such a Star Wars-heavy Christmas when nobody really had any idea if I'd end up liking it or not!

But, in case you were wondering, I did!

I don't recall seeting the movie for the first time because I grew up with the OT on VHS.  ESB and RotJ were CBS/Fox releases, some of the first VHSs ever.  Our copy of ANH was a VHS copy of the CED.

The first time I really watched them was when I got the THX/Faces VHS set for my birthday in 1995.

Ok. I first saw Star Wars in 1977 at the Odeon Leicester square, London. I was 6 or 7. Loved it so much I fell asleep because I thought it was boring. Ha!!                       

Wasn't until it came to my local cinema that I loved it.

But I really started to love the films when I (actually my mum) bought my first action figure. Obi Wan Kenobi. Still have that very one, along with all the others, all stashed away in my parents loft with all my other Star Wars shit!

Saw Empire when first released, again at my local (which was only a 3 min walk from my house) and loved it. And because the cinema was such a short walk, I could go and watch the film on my tod whenever I liked.

But seeing Jedi for the first time is probably my happiest memory of Star Wars as a child (or at least one of them..so many) was being 11 or 12 , walking to the cinema with a load of school friends, waiting for the doors to open, and bam!..Straight to the front row. Man! When that film started I don't think the was ever a moment when I wasn't feeling pure joy. Oh man!!

So, there you go.

My first format for watching the trilogy was an unedited Star Wars off the Disney channel (that was taped and then watched many, many times). After that it was edited commercial television broadcasts for ESB and RotJ (that were also taped and watched many times).

I don't remember exactly either, but I know I watched it off a VHS tape that was taped from TV.  I watched it daily during the summer one year when I was a kid.

When I saw Empire, I remember being utterly enthralled by the Yoda training scenes and everything to do with the Force.  That was when I realized my favorite characters were Luke and Yoda.  Everyone else always wanted to be Han, so it was kinda cool that I could be Luke and have my trusty lightsaber.

Return of the Jedi, SE in theaters.  Alas, I missed the other two.

Z6PO said:

1977 (I was 11) at the biggest movie theater of Reims, France. It was dubbed in french (a pretty good and memorable dub), and I'm afraid in mono (just a guess, I have no memory of that !).

At that time everything was translated in french, the movie was called La guerre des étoiles, and the logo in the movie was in french as was the text crawl. The names of the characters, of the places, even the starships were translated !

Just out of curiosity: did you happen to catch "Au temps de la guerre des etoiles" when it aired 2-3 years later?

(for those wondering, it's the French Star Wars Holiday Special!)

--SKot

Oh, my!  Stopped by your own anti-hotlinking image, SKot.  :p

Whoa!  Funny, I can see the right image... but it must be in my cache or something.

--SKot

The first time I saw Star Wars was the theatrical re-re-release in 1982. I saw Empire that same year. I was 11.

I think my Mom didn't take me to see it in '77 because she had seen '2001' when it came out and hated it. She probably thought Star Wars was going to be similar.

I saw Jedi on May 25th 1983. Definitely my most memorable Star Wars experience. :-)

I just missed out on the SE Hype in 1997, as I had a bias against any movie with the word "Star" in the title. 

however, in August of that year, we sat down one night to watch "Star Trek: Generations", and that lifted the above mentioned bias.

since at the time i was recovering from a broken arm and couldn't go swimming, I dug out our copies of the 1995 "Last time" pan and scan VHS and watched them over three days and was blown away. (I was even still able to be suprised by the "I am Your Father" plot, as much as anybody seeing it in 1980) 

Baronlando said:

Mann Chinese, 70mm, late 1977. I peaked too soon.

Awesome.

Ah, first times... 

My first time was in the janitors closet with my ninth grade teacher...  the janitor just happened to keep a big screen tv and a VHS box set of the trilogy in there.

Was your teacher male or female? ;)