CT 1997 Special Edition nostalgia

oh here we go! I've been on a 90s Star Wars Nostalgic kick for a few months now! I got all the 97 special edition Taco Bell toys for Christmas last year along with original Taco Bell boxes though they don't smell like tacos and cinnamon twists lol

I still have Shadows of the Empire and X Wing and Racer for N64

I only got to see Empire Strikes back in theaters my first SW movie in theaters but I don't remember it lol I was 7 at the time. A couple of years ago I got brand new unopened Special Edition trilogy box set that gold box really bought back the memories I really loved that set though mine had been lost for years



though this one from 2000 is pretty cool too



I remember an awesome trailer for the "so far saga" 1 4,5 and 6 at the beginning of the films along with sneak peeks at episode 2! the rebirth of Star Wars in the late 90s early 00s it was a great ride!

 

Cool...I've been contemplating purchasing the SE laserdisc...or the vcd's..just to have as collector items...I saw the SE of all three in the theater and one of the fondest moments of my life is that I after I got expelled from high school my dad took me to see ROTJ...LOL my mom was so pissed off because of that but my dad argued "it was important...it's Star Wars!"

 

I was 15 and I remember that I was the only one in my family excited over it( I'm still am to this day the only family member who gets excited over Star Wars in general). Remember dragging my parents to them(family bonding gone totally sour), and they actually fell asleep during them. And they call me the weirdo of the family...

 

I love this poster for many reasons. I love the gold embossed logo, but the tagline is really rings true. So simple, but undeniably true. Star Wars was always a theater experience, singlehandedly bringing in a new age of blockbusters. Even with home video availability at the time, it really makes no bones about it that the theater experience can't be replicated. Another reason why I was disappointed that they just gave up with the theatrical re-releases - I was that close to being able to see the trilogy in the proper environment.

 

I have that poster. It's awesome. I love the tagline - "Three reasons why they build movie theaters." It's why I built mine.

 

I have the VHS box set. I love the SE's. There my favorite versions of the films.

 

The three poster for the movies were so beautiful, I like most SE's posters than the PT.

 

I wish I still had a VHS player so I could watch them.

 

I remember my mom buying the box set at a yard sale, it was even still unopened. Before, we only owned one or two of the prequels so owning more star wars films was exciting as I was a new fan then. Oddly enough I thought ESB was AOTC as my parents called it the second star wars. I remember being disappointed as at the time I wanted to watch AOTC the most as I found ESB to be boring. Ironic, now ESB is my favorite film and AOTC my least favorite of the saga.

 

I have a soft spot for the '97 edition as it was the magic of the re-releasing of it that properly introduced me to SW. It's been awhile since I've popped my VHS copies of these in the old dusty player, so I don't remember exactly the differences besides Jabba and a few back ground effects but I'm pretty sure the Jabba Palace's performance isn't there/ isn't half as bad as the first DVD release of it...so that makes it the winner in my mind.

Plus, the whole "son of Anakin Skywalker" thing.... unnecessary.

 

ANH 1997 was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. Freaking blew my mind (apparently I was a nightmare in the room though. according to mom, I wouldn't stop crying whenever Darth Vader showed up on screen. I do remember that he scared the hell out of me.)

It was definitely a formative experience for me. But nothing like those VHS tapes. Those things were played on at least a weekly basis for at least a couple of years. Me and my brother just sucked it all up. Most importantly, I remember refusing to skip past those behind the scenes intros. That was my first experience with seeing how movies were made, and it didn't ruin the experience at all. In fact, it only made me more interested. I credit those intro sequences with making me the intense cinema fan that I am today.

 

The horrifying thing is that we're not really all that terribly far away from the E4 SE being closer to the original E4 release date than it is to the present day. Really just 2 more years.....

 

I loved watching those intros back when I was a kid! I remember after we got TPM on VHS, I asked my dad right before it began: "Why isn't George Lucas talking about how he made the movie like he does in the other ones?"

 

I will never forgive them for putting ROTJ Palpatine (and Vader) on the ESB poster, and the ESB Luke/Vader duel on the ROTJ poster. What were they thinking?

 

I was first introduced to the original three Star Wars films when watching them on TV with my dad. I was immediately hooked. My dad proceeded to take me to see the Special Editions in theaters, except for Return of the Jedi. I have seen every Star Wars movie on the big screen except for that one. Ironically, though, it is my favorite. For the longest time I waited to see the third part of this grand story, and I wasn't disappointed when I did. Dad and I borrowed it from a mutual friend of his who was a huge Star Wars fan. I had the pleasure of watching all three original editions of the films before seeing their SE counterparts, but the experience of seeing the SE versions with my father makes those versions even more special to me, and I have accepted the changes and updates since.

 

I remember skipping high school with my friends when the SE came out. My love for SW never died but it brought back all the love my friends had for it. Great memories from a great time. Everything was SW related everywhere I went. I own the VCD's, and 3 VHS Box Set Editions of the SE and still watch it regulary

 

18 years old already. These were a real event at the cinema, the promo and the marketing campaign for them was massive and it was cool to see them back on the big screen. It seemed like forever since I'd seen Jedi on the cinema, yet it was only 14 years previous. Wow time flies when you look back on fond memories like this.

A minor gripe, but the annoying thing I thought about this packaging was that it was too flimsy. I still have the widescreen boxset from the early 90's and thats a solid cardboard box and all the cassettes in plastic cases, much more hard wearing.

Whilst I'm moaning I'll also ask why they used an image from ESB on the ROTJ poster with Luke and Vader in the carbon freezing chamber.

 

The SE's bring that wonderful Star Wars nastolgia feeling back to a time where excitement was
building for not only the changes of the OT, but for the prequels. The SE brought a major marketing campaign, new toys!( even though they were bulky), video games (still remember playing SOTE in college) so many great memories of Star Wars. And best of all seeing all the fans dress up for ANH which i saw with my old college roomate and his friends. I now own them on vhs and watch them regularly in intervals with OOT, 2004, & blue ray.

 

It's interesting that a lot of folks on here are remembering the 1997 SE OT VHS tapes.

While I do have fond memories of seeing the SW SE's numerous times in the theater from January - March 1997 ( I probably saw the ANH SE 5-6 times in the theater!), I never had the SE VHS tapes that came out later in '97. My VCR had broken prior to that, and I never got it replaced. At that time, I wasn't nearly into movies as I am now (other than SW), and after seeing the SE's on the big screen I couldn't imagine watching them on a small TV screen. As I'm sure everyone remembers; back in the late '90's, most of us still had the old sub-par Cathode Ray Tube TV's (which I hated watching, BTW). The flat widescreen sets that are available today were years away from being sold for reasonable prices, if at all. Plus, IIRC those tapes were all full-screen/pan & scan, so the picture wouldn't have been widescreen, anyway - or at least not Anamorphic Widescreen.

That all being said, it would be nice to see just the SE's on Blu-ray at some point. These specific OT SE's (without the new Boba Fett voice in ESB & the Sebastian Shaw Anakin ghost in ROTJ) have never been available on DVD/Blu-ray.

 

AndyLGR, I still have the gold box set but do not have a vhs player to have play it on, stuck with my later se/oot on bonus dvd sets.

 

The old 1997 VHS tapes were the first way I ever watched the OT all the way through. (I'd seen bits and pieces on TV, but I'd never sat down and watched them all the way). I swiped the box set from my grandmother's house one day (she never noticed ), plugged in our old TV and VHS player, and watched them over three evenings. The rest is history

That box set is still sitting in my closet-it never did find its way back to my grandmother's house.

 

The gold VHS SEs were the first versions I bought personally.

 

@Ibr789. I don't think your grandmother misses those tapes more than you would so it's ok. You can always get her a new vhs box set for $2 or so.
I remember i had a friend help put the beginning intro to the SE's on a tape for me going over all the OT changes. I was too cheap to buy it then being a poor young adult. Later a former boss felt bad for me and made me a vcd set of the SE. I still have it even though quality isn't great. Just another nastolgic Star Wars piece that isn't worth a lot in price but priceless to us fans.

 

I still have my 1997 VHS Special Editions of the Original Trilogy.

I still enjoy what they tried to do back then but Luke's "Emperor scream" at Bespin is still kind of cringeworthy but still decent better than not screaming bloody murder down a breezy giant bottomless pit in/on a city floating around on a planet that's all clouds etc

 

I had the boxed set, and it was the first format I ever saw Star Wars on! Man, I used to watch this SE trilogy to death as a kid! I still remember one Saturday morning, my mom asked me what movie I wanted to watch, and then added "...Something that's not Star Wars, Jurassic Park, or Titanic". I used to swing my toy lightsaber to the tune of the opening crawl, every time I watched it. So yes, you could say I have a lot of nostalgia for the 1997 SE.