How did you react when you 1st found out that the 1st Star Wars film was given the "ANH" subtitle?

Didn't care back then.lol. Don't care now. Star Wars will always be STAR WARS. As far as the numeric numbering,it annoyed me because I didn't know what the Is and Vs meant.

 

IIRC, it wasn't until the PT was coming out that the OT started being referred to as ANH, ESB and ROTJ.

Up until then, it was SW, ESB & ROTJ.

 

Right, it may have been officially renamed way back when, but like you said, it really didn't catch on until the SE came out.

 

The strange thing is I saw the OT films on HBO a zillion times as a kid and didn't really notice 'A New Hope' or the Episode #'s until the mid 80's when my older brother explained me the possible 9 movie saga that Lucas was going to eventually make.

The reason was when the films came on cable, I would usually catch them when they already started so I would rarely see the opening crawl for any of them. I didn't have them on VHS so I never got the chance to watch them from start to finish like I do now.

As for 'A New Hope' name change it didn't bother me any, but every kid my age still called it Star Wars, Empire and Jedi.

 

Thinking back to opening day 1977 (I was 8 years old), I could have sworn Star Wars was already called A New Hope.

I saw SW again a couple of days later, and then again in the summer of 1978 when Star Wars was re-released and
played at the local drive in, and again, I remember it being called A New Hope.

Of course, that was 38 years ago.

I guess I'll have to chock it up to CRS syndrome.

 

I was too young to see the first film in the cinema first time around, but went to see TESB when I was four.
Even then I wasn't aware that SW wars was called anything other than Star Wars. I just don't think it was that big a deal to anyone, certainly where I was growing up. People knew it was "A New Hope" but everyone just called it "Star Wars" as shorthand anyway.

I have a vague recollection that the first time I may have seen it refered to as "A New Hope" might have been in some editorial piece in the Marvel comics at some point... I kind of remember thinking have the writers of the comic had just dubbed it "A New Hope" because it was ushering in a new era of sci-fi movies or something.

In saying that, I must have cared about it enough to write out the full titles on my taped-from-TV versions some time in the mid-80s - which I still own to this day:


I guess there wasn't that much of a "reaction" that I was aware of. I was more aware of the 4, 5, 6 numbering than I was of A New Hope, and when I realised that was the correct name for the first film it was probably just "oh, yeah, there it is at the start of the movie, I suppose it is called that" - but I'd still use the name "Star Wars" to refer to that movie in conversation, because everybody else did...

 

It didn't really faze me when Star Wars got its new subtitle. Only thing I really thought when I learned about it was that it was a good thing that the movie hadn't originally been released with a tepid title like "A New Hope", or moviegoers would probably have mistaken it for another Ryan O'Neal/Ali McGraw smooch-fest. Mostly, though, I just ignored it.

Only time I call it ANH is whilst typing away online like this, since that's the accepted form of the title. Usually, I just refer to it as "Star Wars" or "the original Star Wars flick."

 

Wow! I thought it was renamed in the 1990s for some reason lol.. Maybe because it was labelled as 'Star Wars' on the VHS I had? Weird..

 

In fairness to fans like you and I who thought this even Lucas didn't really start calling it 'A New Hope' in interviews until the PT. If you watch the 1997 SE trailer, the movies are still referred to as Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, and no mention of Episode numbers.

Episode I trailer is the first real time Lucas start advertising the movies as part of the saga.

 

I was just a year and a half when Star Wars came out, so I was also too young to see it in the theater. But I was fully a fan by the time Empire came out, and I remember my dad explaining to me that Star Wars now had an episode number and a name, just like Empire did. The only thing I remember that really phased me at all was the fact that it was Episode 4, and not Episode 1. I thought that was super cool.

 

Born in 83. It's always been numbered and subtitled for me. But I agree with most of the people on here: it was always Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I think ANH was just too hard to say in conversation, and it was originally SW anyway. But as FAN from the first time I laid eyes on SW (probably about 3 or 4 yrs old). I soaked it up and I don't remember not know about "A New Hope". I remember being a little confused by it. (weird name, weird numbering) But its always been that way in my mind.

Awesome VHS pic! I've got mine buried somewhere too. Commercials and all!

 

When I first saw it I thought hey this galaxy really does need hope right now.