Star Wars on HBO, February 1983 

That HBO logo sequence still gives me the chills.

Thst feature presentation music just brings me back

This was my first time seeing Star Wars. I was 4 years old. I had plenty of the toys but hadn't seen any of the movies. My grandparents had HBO , so my grandfather recorded it on Beta for me to watch. I still remember Star Wars being on the cover of the HBO guide book.

I never missed a showing that whole month!

Oh yes! raised by my single mom, we didn't have cable! but a few of our friends did, her boss that she worked for had a star wars party and made popcorn, had candy and sodas for the kiddos! he also had at the time a big screen tv, and surround sound! it was a fun party! great video! HBOhad a great opening! that was awesome! plus i remember the cable boxes! the dial that went 100! all the movies i didn't catch at the theater i saw on cable! ah yes the simpler times!

I remember that day perfectly. I remember see it on the cover of the cable guide. The first time I ever saw Star Wars was that night. We didn't have a movie thearter close and got in a car wreck on the way to see it the one time I tried to go. Thank you for talking about it

Star Wars at home was AMAZING! I had a buddy sleep over as the next day was my birthday. No way we could afford a VCR in 1983 but I did have an audio cassette recorder and 2 1-hour blank cassettes ready to go! I listen to those tapes a TON until we finally got a VCR for Christmas 1985 when I could finally rent the movie and eventually buy them. Ahh.......memories! That HBO Feature Presentation intro music still gives me chills. It was always an event getting to see a theatrical movie at home back then. It’s so easy now that it has no meaning anymore.

We had Selec TV in my house. It was a one channel subscription TV service. You watched whatever was programed at any given time. Saw many amazing movies back in the day but they had Star Wars in 1982 as a special Pay Per View deal. It was like $50 for a one time screening and I was so happy my parents forked over the money to rent it. My cousin slept over and we just loved every minute of it.

We didn't have HBO or cable but. Had antenna when it come on CBS premiere 1984 I watched it

I fell back in love with a new hope watching it on my parents 70" curved screen 4k TV about a year ago or so.😍😍😍😍

Living in Australia we never had cable TV. But I do remember Star Wars on Channel 10. Which was and still is a free to air channel. Good memories.

Reminds me of the first time I watched Krull on Super Channel and Clash of the titans on VHS and The Dark Crystal. Or staying up until midnight to watch Escape from New York. There is nothing like the big movie events back in the 80's. The thing I remember best about the first time Star Wars was on TV was the groups of people who saw Star Wars 463 all together. I also remember the first time I recorded something off the television....it was the mini-series of Shogun on PBS. And the first VHS I ever bought was Aliens. VHS was a real game changer and I remember hunting down the movies I really loved. Clash of the Titans took me years to find. And when I found my letterbox edition of the Star Wars saga, I began hunting widescreen films. And then DVD, my first DVD was The Last Starfighter and I got it before I even had a player, along with Gladiator. I never really caught on to Blue Ray, until John Carter where you got a Blue Ray with the regular DVD. I rearly watch Blue Ray, but I have them if I ever get a better quality tv. I'm old school, I watch something till the wheels fall off. Still have my old VHS Star Wars....I'll never get rid of those....and will still watch them from time to time.

I watched it that summer of 83. We were fortunate enough to have a satellite dish. I stumbled by chance into it.

I totally remember this.. It is a major mark in my youth... I was 10 years old and we had a slumber party..... I had a bunch of my friends over and we watched it. Is was really something because I had not seen Star Wars Right before the Empire strikes back showing. I remember watching the movie originally in the movie theater and the last time I had seen it was right before the Empire strikes back came out at the theaters. It really was a phenomena that can not really be compared to to day. There really isn't anything that's comparable From 1977 until 1983 it was like a euphoria for children. It was like all the stars had lined up perfectly. There's really no way to capture that unless you were living in the time.

I remember my cousins had "ON-TV" and they invited us over to watch it they had one of those crazy projection T.V.s with the colored lights..before it started they showed music videos and i remember one of them was Duran Duran "Planrt Earth"... it was amazing to see Star Wars on a television but nothing beats the movie theatre back in "77

I don’t re ember watching it on TV, but I must have watched Star Wars on the VCR at least 300 times as a kid. The dialog is like music lyrics you never forget.

Thanks for stirring up old memories. Great times to grow up in.

Growing up, we had copies of all 3 that our mom had recorded on blank VHS from HBO. We still have them , it wasn't till the 1995 VHS set that we owned non-bootleg copies

Graduated from high school in 87, I relate 💯!!! That HBO guide was everything, and when “the wars” finally debuted on HBO is when I began counting how many times I watched Star Wars (over 500 easily throughout the 80s). Don’t forget when Halloween hit HBO years before, and how just the guide description scared us!

Nice one Junkman. In the UK I remember Star Wars being shown on TV for the first time back in October 1982 when I was 7 (ITV). We didn't have a VCR so my brother recorded it on audio cassette. I used to listen to it every night.

I have an olde VHS of when it first aired in the UK - best bit about it was as it aired on a commercial channel and the adverts upon it from the early 80`s

Great video amazing to look back with that old footage my first exposure to Star Wars was the VHS tapes

My Aunt had Star Wars on a big laser disc that we watched before the HBO show.

I remember that too! I must've watched Star Wars 7 or 8 times when they first released it to HBO. My birthday is in February, and had 5 of my friends stayed the night after my party. We played the new Magnavox Odyssey 2 i just got. Then after sneaking out a couple of hours, came back and it was on about 3 am...lol

No junkman it wasn't only you I'm 45 years old and I remember exactly what you were talking about and yes everybody here in Chicago was excited to we were all Star Wars fans thank you for everything you do very entertaining

I love that opening

My love of Star Wars was cemented from the numerous HBO viewings. I shifted from GI Joe to hardcore Star Wars collector after that. HBO was a great way to see a variety of films you never would have known you'd like or love.

I’ll never forget when we first got HBO, my dad got a video cassette recorder. We had probably a cabinet full of blank tapes, with random movies on them. Just cause he figured out how to record, he recorded everything. Rambo, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and didn’t put a label on any of them LOL. What I wouldn’t give, to have those tapes now.

I pretended to be sick that day from school to see star wars on hbo that day at 10am on the east coast in Connecticut .. It was a magical time back then.....atari was the only console to play video games,bmxs and arcades at the mall was all i wanted when i was a kid.

Fantastic junkman..thanks for the time warps

Awesome Video Junkman! Thank you bringing back great memories. I don't remember exactly what month it was, but it was around that time I had a sleep over at my friend's Todd's house and he had HBO, I remember watching Star Wars on the small screen that night and thinking how cool it was. I also remember that it was an extended cut and showed Jabba the Hut as big fat guy, not a slug, talking to Han at Mos Eisley with Boba Fett. None of our friends believed what we saw, be we knew it. I only learned about the stand in when the 90s behind the scenes videos. I was hoping someone else would mention seeing it also to confirm what we saw, oh well.

I remember seeing the Showtime premiere. No cable, so had to watch it at Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Great story. Never got to see SW when it premiered I was too young.

I remember all of that JM, I'm sure I was watching HBO the same day you were. A few years earlier my grandmother rented a VCR and Star Wars for the weekend. That was when it was first released on VHS. Yep, I watched it all weekend. There is one thing about watching Star Wars. Something that all of us who were into it back in the day will never get out of our heads. Whenever we see and hear the old 20th Century Fox logo. The Star Wars titles are next, it was even on the story album. I remember the disappointment I felt when Star Wars didn't follow the Fox logo. These days it's just not Star Wars without it, that's how conditioned we were. :)

In those years it was an event to see these "Special Movie Presentations" I miss those years, nostalgia at it's best....

I remember very well what you're talking about. I think I watched it every time it was on that month. Great video.

The night it premiered on the ON TV network was an event for the whole neighborhood. We all crammed into my neighbors house to watch, and heard the phrase “if you can see this picture, you and confirmed to see Star Wars”. I’ll never forget that day.

Over here in the UK, it was shown one Sunday night in October 1982, on ITV we only had three channels in those days (channel 4 started broadcasting the next month) I was almost 7 and only knew the characters names from the toys I had, because all the other kids had them, so i finally got to see who did what in the movie! One or two lucky families had a top loading VHS recorder or a betamax, and had taped it, and could see it over and over again!

Good times !

I get the same excitement when there is what we call a film night and were watching something 1980s or Star Wars cause I'm only twelve and I adore the 80s and Star wars I can imagine us having the same reaction

This was the first time i saw SW. ❤️

I really enjoyed the HBO theme - I haven't hear it in many decades (yet knew it by heart). Thanks...

OMG, that movie The Man Who Saw Tomorrow freaked me and my friends the Hell out. We grew up through the 80s with this hidden fear of WWIII, Jesus, I remember us being like 8 years old discussing the reality of nuclear war As for HBO, we had it pre-cable. Little box that we had to switch ONE of the RF boxes to channel 3 (the other was Coleco). And kids would come over just to look through the cool “HBO Guide” that always had a pic of the big movie of the month on the cover. I collected those covers for years, and then one day they were just thrown away. Honestly haven’t thought about any of this in years. It was a HUGE deal. Young people today, by no fault of their own, can never really understand...

And the kicker was we had to watch it on our giant 19 inch, single speaker living room tvs! Kids today dont know how great they have it...with everything being available on demand and 60inch tvs with suround sound speaker systems. Feels like im from the stone age....ha!

For some reason, UK TV back in the day had a real aversion to playing A New Hope. Watched Empire and Jedi many times when I was young but I never got to see the very first one till those picture / sound remasterings in the early 90s (in the blue VHS box). I wasn't disappointed ... Well, actually no 1 thing did, I never got to see the T-16 Sky Hopper in action unless I played Rebel Assault lol.

No! Not just you. Part of the reason I remember this so well is that my birthday is on February 2nd, so I got to see Star Wars again right around my birthday. Something that you didn't mention was that anytime that original "HBO Feature Presentation" Stinger aired, you knew something major was coming up. And it definitely doesn't mean as much now, what with streaming services, video-on-demand, and near immediate Blu-ray and DVD releases of films. I personally had only seen Star Wars once prior to that, in the theaters in 1977. So seeing it again was a complete and total treat.

I too was freaked out by that Orson Wells movie as a kid.

I remember hoping the bus would not come that day as it was playing at 8am. I saw the HBO intro and the bus came. It was a long day for me too. But at 8pm my whole family watch Star Wars together that night. I sat on the floor with my Darth Vader collectors case and figures. It was a great night.

I also remember seeing this Herbie Hancock music video on HBO all the time at my friends house between movies.I can still remember it had robots dancing in it!

I was too young but I do remember watching EMPIRE AND ROTJ on HBO

People don’t realize how hard it was to see Star Wars back then. I remember seeing it at the drive in when I was really young. I don’t remember if I saw Star Wars on HBO but I definitely saw Empire for the first time on HBO. It was years before I got to see Return of the Jedi. I wanted to see it in the theater but my mom wouldn’t let me because earlier that year I saw ET with my aunt and uncle and it gave me night terrors. I kept seeing his heart beating in my dreams! I remember my dad tried to sign up to rent videos at Rite Aid but you needed a credit card and didn’t have one so we had to leave without renting Jedi. Then we were going to watch it at Cub Scouts but I caught chicken pox and couldn’t go. Anyone else remember HBO video jukebox between movies?

Hell yeah I remember!! I was 13 at the time and love star wars!! It's a lifestyle for me!! HBO was the shit back then!! Great video, really enjoy your channel!! 👍

You bring such great memories back

The hbo opening is classic ! And who could ever forget hbo gave us hardware wars !!!

I was lucky we had a Novabeam video projector a 84 inch screen and a 12 foot sat dish

I was excited for it! I watched every time I could

I remember for a short time in the early 80's we had "ON TV cable box" it's like HBO. The competitor to ON cable company was Select TV cable company. Later on when premium cable companies came out my parents was being cheap. All I had was local channels including whatever my antenna can pick up. For the most part we rented VHS tapes for blockbuster movies.

It was a great time to be alive!

in my country (germany) we had to wait until 1990 for the first tv run of Star Wars on Sat1. but it was the entire trilogy at once

it's true Junkman, some won't understand the pure joy and excitement of this era

I didn't get HBO til early 1991 when I was 19 but I remember the HBO theme intro. Wish I had HBO when STAR WARS premiered. Plus I remember the once a year showing of THE WIZARD OF OZ. If you missed it too bad. Lol. Unless someone recorded it. Thanks for posting. Awesome.

I remember seeing Empire Strikes back at the drive in theatre.

I think i remember this

i remember when HBO had star wars on there. first was hardware wars then star wars came on right after it. memories . i also remember every time hard ware wars came on tv i was like don't tell me star wars is coming on next.

HOLY COW, THIS VIDEO TRANSPORTED ME RIGHT BACK TO 13 YEARS OLD!!! The hits just keep on coming from you, JM. outstanding!!

Back in the early 2000s when I was a kid the only way I could watch Star Wars (A New Hope) was on Thanksgiving, they would show it on a channel called WGN. They did this about every year on the same day. So I understand your excitement.

We didn't have cable then and when we did get cable I never remember Star Wars on cable until recently and I can't remember seeing Star Wars or where I was but empire and Jedi I remember going to the movies and seeing specials on regular TV for Jedi but I had all the toys and I think someone must have recorded Star Wars because I do remember having a copy of it. Same with the other 2 a few years later. these movies were my childhood as I have a brittle bone disease so I spent my childhood inside due to always having broken bones. so this franchise really helped me through my childhood from the movies toys etc.

My dad has already rented the first rental CBS-Fox version, and had figured out how to bootleg VHS at that time (we had SW, Superman, ST TMP, Close Encounters, Alien, etc. ). When he successfully copied Star Wars, he put our 25” tube TV in the front window and we watched it on our porch. It was like a drive in. The whole neighborhood showed up. We should’ve sold popcorn and hot dogs

Back then, we had HBO, Cinemax, TMC, and Prism. Prism was a channel for the Philadelphia region. The Man Who Saw Tomorrow was a fasinating film. I would be cool to watch now so we can see how close the movie was when it came to predicting the future. Star Wars, Heavy Metal, Starcade, MTV are the show that ruled the household back in those days.

The HBO guide was my favorite

Didn't have cable growing up so had to wait until it was on VHS.

15 Seconds in and I went back to growing up when cable tv boomed.... we had the Movie Channel and HBO..... I remember that voice for the intro.... crazy. When JEDI came out on VHS I played sick to stay home. I don't remember how I did it, but I was able to convince my father to go down the local Video Store and pick me up a copy. I watched it 3 times that day.

The night before the premiere, I fell off my bed and my right eye slammed against the bed rail. Within seconds my eye started to swell shut. The next morning I stayed home from kindergarten. What I didn't know was that HBO was going to show Star Wars around 10am ahead of the evening premiere. I'd seen ESB at the theater but this was my first time seeing the one that started it all. That May ROTJ would come out. The accident that caused a swollen eye forever created an incredibly fond memory. 1983...what a year!

I'm sure I watched it a ton on there. We had cable but only basic, but the cable company used cheap blocks to keep ppl from picking up the pay channels. Power surges would burn them out. We had free hbo and the others quite a bit back then. It helped my love for movies a lot.

Great video! Most people today have no idea how exciting it was to wait for something like that to come on TV.

May The Force Be With You! STAR WARS! On HBO!

I remember seeing it in the little hbo booklet you would get with your cable bill arch month. We could not afford the fancy cable at that time, think we had just basic. Two years later when vcr’s were big, I was first able to see ROTJ as I could not see it in the theatre, again tough times.

We still didn't have cable but I remember us all going to my aunts house to watch it

Hey junk man... You evoked serious emotions about something that I forgot all about... sorry but I can't stop writing about it because it was such a wonderful time in my life... When that feature presentation screen came on the TV before a movie... Our eyes were glued to the TV with anticipation and excitement. Especially when it was a movie that we really wanted to watch... Thank you, because I may never remember this if it wasn't for your video... Officer and a gentleman... Sucked... But I watched it anyway 😄

C3PO is all gold on the thumbnail.

Man you must have felt what I felt when star wars marathons happened on TNT.Nothing else would matter when when when my grandpa told me star wars was on tv

Hi junkman, I believe here in Germany it wasn't until the 90s when Star Wars was shown on TV. I totally understand your excitement as a kid every time you were able to see the movies. I even got excited when I got to see them on VHS at a friend's house in bootleg-quality.

I recorded it on cassette When it came on regular tv

I know just how you feel I was six years old when it came out on HBO and then saw Jedi that summer with my dad , brother, and my uncle not even seeing the empire strikes back and goin what happened to luke he has gotten real good fast but like you said we didn't have the home video market yet but when I did see empire everything made sense and to me it's the best in the trilogy for story

Awesome Junkman!

Great vid that Junkman! That must have been frustrating waiting for Star Wars to air on HBO after a hard day of school in the 80's!

The man who saw tommorow! I was just looking for that on the internet!

I remember that day as it was an event like the SuperBowl. (My mom went food shopping that night and said it was a ghostland as everyone was probably home watching Star Wars). We are so spoiled now as movies are released Digitally/BluRay after a few months, as we had to wait almost 6 years for Star Wars to come to Cable! I was 5 years old in ‘77, so I vaguely remembered the movie in the theater other than I know I loved it. I was sort of scared that night in 1983 cause i kept thinking there was a chance that my hype after all those years was wrong? Within 5 minutes, I was sucked in that world again and it was clear why I loved the movie. Back in those days, HBO would play their hit movies 3 times a day. I would watch parts of it before school, catch it again after school and than in primetime. I probably watched it 150 times alone in 1983. I would hear those 20th Century Fox drums and yell to my brother, “Star Warrrrrrssss issss onnnnnnnn!!!!!”

This is a great video, Junkman. I like that you thought to share the excitement and nostalgia with us. Your passion for Star Wars really shows through.

i remember watching it on HBO when i was little, but i thought now that it was on before Empire and Return of the Jedi came out

My house didnt have cable.But the neighbors did.They had a antenna specifically for HBO.I remember seeing SW a bunch of times at their house.And Porky's.Seemed like Porky's was always on!..We also had a scrambled cable like channel called WHT.They showed SW.But it was scrambled.But I would sit there trying watching it!.

Every Christmas in Ireland with out fail I would sit up an watch Star Wars

Happy memories ☺ junk man I remember the premier of star wars on TV 📺 I was 4 and my dad put me in front of the TV didn't no whot he wonted me to watch but Al the family was in there so i thought must be something good on didn't no nothing about star wars don't no why that douse seam strange I had not none about it by 4 it was 1983 different times any how I didn't so starwars comes on I see this big ass star destroyer come across the screen and the rest is history I was blown away ☺ now as come from the UK there was no cable TV at this time we only had 4 stations so there was only one showing the seven o'clock one it's was showed every Christmas after that for years

I remember the way everyone would get hyped up over movies on TV. Great video. Only you left off the best part of the HBO Feature Presentation intro, the fly through of the city.

I remember seeing Star Wars a bunch of times on HBO that summer. It was amazing at the time. I think Flash Gordan was playing as well but that I might of been a different summer. People dont remember HBO played that movie over and over and over back then.

TCM just ran it last week no commercial s

Man this brought back more memories than anything ive seen in years

I was in the 3rd grade then. I was lucky enough to catch the chicken pox a few days after the first of the month. Almost two straight weeks I watched star wars three to four times a day. It never got old and I rarely noticed the chicken pox

i remember seeing it on tv in ireland around the same time and then went the cinema to see jedi (before empire ).i thought luke was a robot when he was shot in the hand.

Saying that' it's hard catching Star Wars on TV now!