It was renamed ep IV when it was released in 81 apparently.
It’s pretty difficult for a lot of people to remember the original release in specific it seems. Because it spent so much time in the theaters and went through so many re-releases. I was born after Jedi came out by a bit. But I’m told I saw it in a drive in at a little over a year old. I definitely remember seeing the non special versions and old trailers before the special editions came out when I was a few years older. Before VHS became affordable. Once VCRs became common and libraries started renting tapes for free. Constant rotation.
If you’re dorky enough (and I am) to have purchased the first run of DVDs, which cleaned up the original prints, but didn’t include any of the later CG BS, there was a bonus disk with each one that contains the original theatrical release. New Hope had no episode number.
I am dorky enough, I have the first two of those as well and watched the original. Are you sure it didn’t say “Episode IV: A New Hope” on the words that scrawled across the screen at the beginning? I so distinctly remember being confused as a kid by that, wondering when I’d missed the first three. But you could be right, memory is such a weird thing, and forty years later all the various viewings of it I’ve seen could be combining to form strange new memories.
EDIT: Yep, you’re right. It starts with “It was a period of civil war” and leaves off the episode stuff, which was added for the re-release in 1981. So I’m confusing my memories of the 1977 release with my watching it again in 1981. Since there were no VCR’s, no way to watch it again back then, it must have been that second time when I thought “why didn’t I see the first three?”
The story goes that George wanted to put “Episode IV” on the original release because Star Wars was basically an homage to the serialized sci-fi film series of the 1930s & 1940s. Back then the “opening crawl” was a necessary means of getting audiences up to speed on the story since many of them likely hadn’t seen the previous week’s episode. There wasn’t much opportunity for catching reruns back then, so if your first exposure to Buck Rogers was the fourth episode you’d just have to deal with it.
The way George tells it the studio initially didn’t want to indulge him on this since it would be bound to confuse people, but after Star Wars became such a huge success he had enough play to add the episode number to the beginning of the crawl for the re-release.
ETA: Though come to think of it I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas later changed his explanation to “no, honest, I was planning to make that prequel trilogy all along…”
For what it’s worth, I thought “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” meant it was the third movie, and I was mad that I hadn’t gotten to see One and Two first.
I don’t think I got my hands on those, but I do still have the VHS tapes somewhere. Before Lucas added too much unnecessary CGI.
I was actually excited when I heard he was restoring the Jabba scene to ANH, because I had the novelization of the movie and that scene was in it. I was, however, severely disappointed by the reality.
I went in on A New Hope’s opening day ice-cold. I hadn’t seen a single thing about it, but also around this time, kids didn’t spend so much time indoors.
I was in summer school that day, and a few kids were talking about it, but I was confusing it with Battle of the Network Stars, a low-grade version of those gauntlet-style shows, with the same type of hype as Dancing with the Stars.
When I got out of class, we went straight to the theater, where the surprise was revealed that we had tickets, which was even more confusing, because why would they show Battle of the Network Stars at the movie theater?
Anyway, best movie experience until we saw E.T. at a sneak preview on a double bill with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.
Even if the CGI hadn’t been atrocious that scene was made completely unnecessary by Han’s confrontation with Greedo in the cantina. From a narrative perspective you only needed one or the other to explain Han’s motivation, and the (original) Greedo scene also served the dual purpose of showing Han’s propensity for being a bit of an underhanded scoundrel.
Absolutely had to check, I know what a dicey thing memory can be. It made perfect sense once I found the scrawls and learned he had added it for the '81 re-release, I wouldn’t have much remembered it from one viewing on '77 and so would have thought that was how it was the first time, thus leading me to think for nearly forty years it had always been so. That also leads me to wonder if it was one of the first times a recent movie was re-released in theaters with a couple of small updated touches.
Yeah it’s super obvious that once they realized they’d have to cut that scene, they used half the dialogue for the Greedo scene instead. Han repeats himself verbatim.
i was 10 when the original came out, and i ended up seeing it a dozen times in the theater that summer. i have no problem remembering the original release.
