I still have the original 1977 John Williams double-album (that came with a poster, plus a different poster, plus a couple more albums including the MECO "Galactic Funk" version. in my basement in a crate ). Also have an almost-complete set of the Topps Star Wars bubble gum cards (bought the old-fashioned way - with bubble gum). And have the movies from their original VHS release, then their re-release on Dolby VHS (both sets in the '80s), then the trilogy Laserdisc that came out before DVDs existed (around the mid-90s, and that had the first THX and "Dolby-Digital" sound), then the DVD set.

I saw that original movie 10 times in the theater (mostly the one near where I lived at the time and once or twice at a different location) and still have my 10 ticket stubs in a little box.

What chaps my hide is the insistence that what was the first film that was called "STAR WARS" (period), was purportedly called "STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE" at the time. IT WAS NOT!!!!

Lucas had no idea that the film would take off like that and when it did, that is when he decided to plan for his "3 trilogies" (9 films).

(now I really have to dig myself out of the rabbit hole... it's been almost 50 years now )

He was so convinced that it would be successful that he took a lower salary as director in exchange for ownership of the sequel rights.

It was the studio that stopped him from using a subtitle on the first movie, saying it would be confusing to the audience.

As you said, it was released as "Star Wars" with no "Episode IV" and no "A New Hope". That wasn't added until the re-release after Empire Strikes Back came out. But Lucas certainly planned for the multiple trilogies before the original move came out.

He had "American Graffiti" under his belt but I don't think that 20th Century Fox was intending on much beyond that first movie.

But my point is that it didn't release as "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" originally but over the past decade, I am slowly seeing "the media" have to keep backtracking on stuff about that movie, especially after Lucas started screwing with it with each consumer video release! I expect some of it was done to "fit" on VHS (including what was apparently a almost imperceptible speeding up of the Star Destroyer sequence after the opening scroll...). It was bad enough arguing about the so-called "deleted scenes", some of which I *did* see (i.e., a scene where Luke pulls out his binoculars, looks up, and sees the laser flashes from the Star Destroyer shooting at Leia's ship).

hahaha
I. sorry, get called Boomer so much I couldn't resist.

How old am I? I took my kids to see it as a first run at the theater. I had seen nothing like it to that date.

the only other movie that I saw more than once in the theater was "Return of the Pink Panther" (3 times).

...in the text scroll at the beginning of the film--mention the episode or subtitle. All of that was added after "Empire Strikes Back" was released.

That has always bothered me too. When it was released I think I saw it 14 times. We really didn't have that much else to do as kids at the time on Friday and Saturday nights, so we might see it three times in a day just to hang out with friends and find little details in the film to make fun of or appreciate. It was a good time, and it only cost like $2 to get in. Going to the arcade was way more expensive and you had to stand up the whole time. But it was NEVER EVER called anything other than "Star Wars".

I never actually understood why they felt the need to add the "Episode IV" BS to begin with--or include the idiotic edits that George Lucas added in later.

Also, I think there is one other huge tell that is still in the movie that--to your point--the whole series was made up after the fact of the original "Star Wars" script that always bothered me: when we are first introduced to Ben Kenobi and he is told by Luke that R2-D2, "claims to be the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi," which clearly--through both the musical score and facial expression--is a shock to Ben Kenobi. He then goes on the say, "I don't seem to ever remember owning a droid. Very interesting."

This made perfect sense in the original movie since R2-D2 was sent by Princess Leia and there was no reason for him to be familiar with R2. But with the prequels as context that whole line of reasoning is left mute. And yes, people have bent themselves into all sorts of logical pretzels to explain this blatant lack of continuity, but it is very hard to support those claims based on the original film. The claim that all of this was already thought out beforehand just falls flat IMO. Lucas caught lightning in a bottle and ran with it--albeit in a bit of a sloppy way from the story standpoint IMO.

There are plenty of other plot holes in the entire series, but that one is the one that tells me just how much of this story was made up on-the-fly.

Now I'm off to find my copy of that original score and throw it on the turntable. For all the money they spent on special effects, "Star Wars" would not be the film it was without the brilliant score by John Williams. It is worth listening to all by itself.

Exactly. And I think it was still playing in some theaters over a year later (into 1978 - I remember some Jersey theater was still showing it ). I even stayed up to watch the Oscars the next year because it was nominated for something like 11 or 12 Academy Awards but only won for technical categories.



My theater had the $1 "matinee" so... heh.



I can understand some of the edits like cleaning up many of the land speeder and ship scenes - especially since Battlestar Galactica (the original) came out the following year on ABC - "television" of all mediums, and actually had effects that exceeded Star Wars (but on the little screen), but that cost them $1 million per episode.

However all the other "additions" were unnecessary and I guess since a decision was made to eventually do a "prequel" and "sequel", then it had to be ordered somehow.

And it took almost 40 years to get to the last one of the nine (manly due to that big gap between "Return of the Jedi" and "Phantom Menace", the latter that I really looked forward to).



Agree and will add this still head-scratching thing - to have ONE character, who had maybe 5 minutes total of screen time between 2 movies - "Boba Fett", and create a whole universe dedicated to him (including back-filling him into the "Clone Wars", based on a brief utterance by Obi Wan), cracks me up. I know a whole pile of the fandom love that character but come on!



I think the idea was to create opportunities for "spin-offs" and they have certainly done a pile of them (I did like "Rogue One" and the almost-scary "resurrection" of Peter Cushing's Tarkin - I guess AI would have no problem doing that now)!

I know a lot of people hate "Phantom Menace" (mostly because of Jar Jar Binks). But there were elements of it that captured my interest like that "elegant" double-light saber battle of Darth Maul. I remember having a measly 2400 baud modem and wanting to download what was a 25 Mb trailer of that movie (and it was a tiny version to boot). It took a week of trying and continually getting disconnected until one day, I had a clear 4 hour window and got it.



"Dual of the Fates" was my favorite scene (and score) of "Phantom Menace" -



The actor who played Darth Maul was trained in the martial arts and he helped to take that whole scene up a pile of notches from the standard light saber battles of the first 3 films.



I was glad that Williams was still around to score all 9 of the films. As many films that he has scored, the Star Wars franchise has to be burned into him.

Enjoy! I know I wore my record(s) out.

I don't exactly miss them, but I do feel nostalgic about them. I still have my old Apple ][ -- and that was like my third PC.

"trash 80" MC-10-micro computer. Looks like this -



Hooked up to a TV and could be programmed with BASIC using a cassette tape and recorder/player to save the programs.

There's more computing power in my car's key fob now, but back then it seemed really cool. It had the 6502 processor that the Apple ][ had, so at least programming was very similar.

I still remember getting my first floppy drive for the Apple ][. Whoa...what a day!

I was assigned a "Computer class" - and they were supposed to get Apple IIes and the machines were in, but down in the basement, and couldn't be setup because they were going to use the old "typing room" (which had electric plugs on the floor by each desk), but the room needed to be "secured" (wire cage on the windows and door). So from September - November, I had to wing it (I had some stuff from my college PASCAL course and could put together something of the "basics" - e.g., stuff about "time-sharing", modems and couplers and BASIC programming)... AND I had my handy Tandy and could get the school's 19" color TV to hook the Tandy to the TV for a demo. Had kids cutting other classes to see my demo! I was like, "Wait? Who are you????"

Once the room was finally secured and the machines brought up, I spent all 5 periods of classes to get them up and running and then here comes the school's Math teachers, who *could have* taken over the class at the beginning, but didn't bother because there were no machines installed yet (a couple had Apple IIcs at home).

That January, I was officially a fed and that was that (it was a 1/2 year class that I think they rotated with gym)!

although obviously Trek came out before Star Wars.

Many Star Wars fans HATE HATE HATE Star Trek. They are cold like that.

What an addition to some fat cat's billiard room or casino lobby.
I hope it has public access.
I'm surprised it isn't framed.