80’s OT kid
I remember being a Star Wars fan about as long as I remember being a kid. Born in 87' I missed the Original Trilogy (OT) in cinemas, but I was about the perfect age for the Prequels when they dropped (11 for Phantom Menace in 1999). That said, the OT was my big way into Star Wars, and I've often contemplated the timing of this.
It was around 1994, when I was seven, that I first saw the OT on TV. Basically unchanged from the theatrical release, and well before the 1999 special-editions. I managed to get all three on VHS, recorded directly from the TV, and a retail copy of Empire from a boot sale.
My Grandad somehow spliced in a text crawl of 'To Andrew, love from Grandad' just before each film started, maybe this has something to do with my nostalgia for these versions!
About 30 years on I feel so lucky to have experienced the OT first, more or less as they were released in cinemas. The Clive Revill Emperor, no extra Dewbacks, and when Han clearly shot first. Three amazing films, but undeniably a bigger untold mythos and story behind it.
I recall my Mam somehow knowing from off-screen material that Han won the Falcon from Lando in a bet, and that Vader ended up in lava fighting Obi Wan and that's how he got his injuries. We wouldn't see these things on screen for decades but I was hungry for the details!
It's not to say I don't appreciate what's been done since to update some of the effects, add scenes and continuity (certain Jabba's palace songs aside). But something about preserving the films as they were created, and the version I saw as a kid on those tapes, appeals to me.
Nothing else came close to being as much 'my thing'. To this day it's all just as exciting, and was more than enough to totally capture my imagination then. Over a decade after the films were released and well before the excitement of the Prequels.
Seeing Vader board the blockade runner, the Death Star escape and trench run, the Battle of Hoth, the Falcon cruise through asteroids, the mythic lightsabers and the epic space battle around the Death Star 2. Not to mention the three versions of Luke, the rest of the amazing characters and story. Ok, so sometimes I fast forwarded past a few Ewoks.
At my first Echo Base Live last year (amazing UK collectors event - check it out if you haven't) I went in hoping to stumble upon a VHS set of the 'original' OT, and I was lucky enough to spot one and scoop it. After all these years I finally have the full retail set to go alongside the Empire I had as a kid, and I can retire my aged and worn out TV-recorded VHS copies.
For me, this is the Star Wars that started it all, that I watched relentlessly, absorbing the dialogue, score and trivia, the action, the story, the characters and ships. I think I've consumed every bit of TV and film content that's come since, not to mention comics, video games, books and who knows what else. I've loved experiencing and feeling the galaxy get bigger, but for me this version of the OT will always be the OG.
MTFBWY
