Glentopher

Hi, so a recent discussion with someone about the fact that I never knew “Star Wars” episode IV was called a new hope until I saw the 1997 special edition.

This is totally true, when I saw the film at the cinema in 1997 I came out saying “So they’ve finally named it Episode IV then”

I was 11 granted, and live in the UK. I was already a huge fan of Star Wars (obviously) and I had old VHS tapes of the films that I watched many times as a kid and I swear that my tape simple said “Star Wars” in the craw. it was always a big point of curiosity for me “how come Empire is Episode 5?” etc.

I know all the background, I know that officially the film wasn’t released on VHS until 1982 when it was it already had the tag line attached, but does anyone know of some other “unofficial” market that would have lead to me potentially having a VHS of the version with no tag line? Maybe when it first aired on TV it was recorded to VHS at that point? Maybe there was a pirated version that was available on VHS/Betamax (probably off a car boot sale or such).

I could just have never noticed the crawl said “A new Hope” but I had never even heard the name until 1997 so I am trying to work out if there’s a widely known “unsavory” version of the film that was available pre 1982?

Cheers for any help,

Me