CT Your Memories of Waiting for ROTJ

Yeah...Girls often root for the churlish sympathetic scoundrel....Hahahaha !

Seriously, did you have any doubt that Solo would be saved and "get" the princess ? She said she loved him (she couldn't resist a good kiss...). And Luke's the lonesome knight...

I was pretty sure about that actually. Couldn't imagine that Solo would either no be saved, or be denied his sweetheart Leia. Too sad for me at the time !!!

I agree. Although it was very well done, it was maybe to much of a rehash...

 

After seeing Empire for the umpteenth time and being totally transfixed more and more each time, the thought of the next one was mesmerising!! Even if at the time I didnt have a full grasp of what they were all about. I remember playing a lot with Hans blaster and the AT AT and scout walker toys! And of course all the figures I'd manage to collect! Just as Empire before I took the day off school to see Jedi on its 1st day at the odeon Leicester Square with my dad! I remember a man in a Vader outfit outside the cinema as we were queuing to go in scaring the **** out of me lol! And Jedi being everything id hoped it'd be. Fantastic memories.

 

I was young when I saw ROTJ at the theater. So, I have no real memories leading up to it. However, I vividly remember seeing ROTJ.

 

While "hype" gets a bad name - and I can understand that! - I wonder if younger fans realize just how much more there is "out there" now for fans of any genre / movie series, etc? Thanks to places like this, fans are much more connected to other fans, there is so much more information, there are tons of websites devoted to just about any interest, And while this is something which turns some people off, there are so many more "tie-ins" now -- toys and books and magazines and comics and product-tie ins and so forth. In general, I think our culture is a lot more entertainment-focused, as well.

As several here have noted, while anticipation for ROTJ was huge, while it certainly was a big deal, there wasn't nearly the amount of attendant hype/promotional material there is now, not even close. So while you might have tremendous anticipation for ROTJ, there wasn't nearly the surrounding cultural recognition of that like you have today.

 

Yes - these comments are spot-on. These days, if you want to find out about the SW (or any other) films, you can go to one of hundreds/thousands?! of websites, see clips on Youtube, discuss every aspect of the films (no matter how miniscule) on websites like this, etc.

Back in the early '80's, if you wanted to find out about the films there was word-of-mouth, the aforementioned "Bantha Tracks" (a primarily b&w newspaper-like quarterly newsletter with some info. on the films), & the occasional newsstand magazine and/or TV news story.

And, despite being a huge fan, as a kid growing up in the days of the OOT, I actually didn't see the films that many times before ROTJ; We didn't have cable or a VHS player in the early '80's, so, other than the theatrical releases of ANH & ESB, I only really saw the films at friends' homes or on TV (in a sub-par edited format). IIRC I actually saw ANH several more times than ESB, if only because of the '79 re-release.

 

The one thing I regret the most regarding that waiting period, is that I was able to see Vader unmasked before the movie came out (couple of weeks ago I recall).

Saw this on the sticker picture album some friends and I were completing...Couldn't resist to look at it.

I remember I was a bit shaky and afraid to see what was under the mask.

Did many of you see it before the movie ?

 

Not being argumentative, but I don't really get your point? There was huge anticipation for Jedi because ESB was so good and the ending set up Jedi so well. Don't quite understand what cultural recognitions got to do with looking forward to something?

 

Jcuk - What I mean is that while, back in the day, you might have a high personal level of anticipation for a given movie (in this case, ROTJ), there wasn't nearly the sense of SHARED anticipation, the broader recognition that "something big is coming". And I do think, personally, that when you are seeing all sorts of cool SW "stuff" everywhere, when there is a lot of buzz surrounding an upcoming movie, when you get that sense of shared anticipation, it builds the hype and excitement for the movie. In the case of ROTJ, sure, lot of folks were excited, and the fans certainly were, but it was a lot less prominent, much less a part of the overall atmosphere.

On a personal level, you may find that irrelevant, but I think, overall, the current situation magnifies the "big dealishness" of an upcoming SW release.

 

Yeah I get what your saying. These days there's a plethora of information available to the ordinary fan. Through social media and so on. I just remember the buzz of the playground and the rest of the kids where I lived at the time.

 

I remember hearing at the time that the Emperor would play a big part alongside Vader, I was excited by that and that most of the main characters would die during the ending of the movie. In the days long before the internet, the rumours just made the wait worse and the release of figures from the movie prior to it's release only fired up the imagination further. I loved those days.

 

Yes, I certainly daydreamed about what was coming next...

I'd await every issue of Bantha Tracks in the mail with great anticipation, and check each issue of Starlog and Fantastic Films, etc. for updates on the movie.

Those three years were a very long wait!

 

This thread is so interesting. All of you guys are so lucky to have been alive during the wait. I wasn't alive yet, but thankfully I can be caught up in the hype for the ST!

 

If VII is as good as I'm hoping, then the hype for VIII an IX will be extreme.

 

I freaked out every time I saw a commercial for it. And I do remember a "revenge of the jedi" teaser. The wait was unbearable.

 

I remember being very frustrated with the cliffhanger -- I'd never experienced that before. And I wanted to live in the naive world -- it had to be lies, Vader couldn't really be Luke's father. It was agony waiting 3 years to find out. But luckily I was a kid and I think I got an Atari 2600 in there somewhere (when Asteroids was released, which I think was 1981). That helped pass the time.

Then, turns out, he was.

 

I didn't wait for the movie, I went out an got the novelization the day it came out and read it cover to cover about 5 times, then as much of it as I could while standing in line the Saturday night on the weekend of its release. I thought that Vader was lying and that Han was the "other". I think lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Olsean came out around the time of the release as well, because I have strong memories of that flick mixed in with Jedi. I drug my parents to it 5 times before they finally forbade me to even go to the theater until the run was over. Luckily, later that year we took a vacation to San Diego, and it was still in the theaters out there allowing me to see it one last time on the big screen before GL started meddling with it.

 

I kinda cheated. They always released an illustrated book that outlined the movie. With rotj I had the book before the movie and knew what was going to happen.

 

I remember checking the posters outside the theater every time I visited for three years in the hope that a teaser poster for Revenge of the Jedi would be there. Yes, the world before the Internet was quite different. I remember a grocery store tabloid putting a photo of Bib Fortuna on their cover with a headline of "Luke Skywalker's father revealed". The early action figure was Admiral Ackbar, which intrigued me but told me nothing. I hung on every Marvel comic that teased the discovery of a Boba Fett lookalike or someone (never Han Solo of course) frozen in carbonite. I saw the trailer before either Dark Crystal or ET and probably thought of nothing else for the next two hours. At some point the cast appeared on one of the morning talk shows and I got to see a very short clip of the speeder bike chase. That was pretty much it as far as what I knew going into the theater.

 

It must've been tough without all of the internets.

 

I remember in the summer of 1982, when a neighbor told me the third SW movie is going to be called, "Revenge of the Jedi." Before the advent of the internet, you just heard bits and pieces from either friends, or once in a while they would have some story about the upcoming SW movie on a commerical.

I just remember being so stoked that Revenge was in the title, and that told me Luke was going to kick some major ***!!! I will also say that I'm glad there was no internet back then as the Vader/Father Twist was perserved even after the movie came out. One of my friends saw Jedi before I did and he wouldn't reveal if Vader was Luke's father, but I do remember him telling me that Luke goes into Jabba's palace and chokes some guards in the first few minutes to show he is much powerful then he was in Empire.

 

It was like having to wait for Christmas for 3 years instead of 1, and then for this 10-year old at the time, finally getting the best present ever!

 

I wasn't old enough to see ROTJ in the theater, but I do remember a time before we owned the VHS. For some reason, my parents only got the first two movies when they bought a VCR, and so I'd seen them quite a few times as a small child. I must have seen ROTJ at some point, because I knew what Ewoks were, but I didn't remember it otherwise. (Unless I had seen one of the Ewok movies/cartoons instead?) For me in the '80s, Star Wars just ended at Empire Strikes Back! We finally got ROTJ when I was in 6th grade.

Ohh man, did Mark Hamill have blue eyes in the Ewok village (the scene where he uses the Force to levitate C-3PO)! That was my very first movie crush.

 

I remember getting up one morning and watching a preview on the today show. I think? It showed some jabba's palace scenes and talked a little about the movie..

Also my father told my sister and I that "Yoda Dies..", yeah he was kinda of a jerk...

Not sure how he knew that bit of information before hand... I was only nine, how did one get " spoiled" in those pre Internet days???