The VHS Corner: My Childhood Star Wars VHS Collection (1990s and early 2000s)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing alright. Welcome to another edition of The VHS Corner. Today I'm going to be talking about my childhood Star Wars VHS collection, which primarily consists of boxsets. So let's get right into it and travel A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away.

The first Star Wars related VHS tape I ever got was The Star Wars Trilogy Animated Collection: Ewoks Volume 1, which contained two episodes of Ewoks (1985-1986), Episode 1, "The Cries of the Trees" and Episode 6, "The Tree of Light". I don't remember exactly who got it for me, but I think it was Nana, and I got it sometime after we moved to the log house in 1993, with the tape having been released in 1990. Unfortunately, either the top loading VCR my siblings and I had in our upstairs playroom/hangout spot was really crappy or the tape was second hand because we didn't have this tape for very long because it got destroyed by the VCR not too long after we got the tape. It had to have been the tape because the VCR didn't do it with any other tape we owned, except for one Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends VHS that we had, which I'll get into another time, but not with any other tape we had. Both Ewoks and Droids, along with the action figures given to me by a nurse I had at the hospital, and Star Wars: Dark Empire #3, were my first exposure to Star Wars. And it would not be the last either.

Only a year or two later, my dad got the 1995 Star Wars Trilogy VHS boxset for Christmas. Up until this point I hadn't seen any of the Star Wars movies, so this boxset was my introduction to the Original Trilogy. It was also my introduction to both director/writer/producer George Lucas, and film historian Leonard Maltin because on each tape in this boxset, which were also sold individually by the way, there was an interview that Maltin conducted with George. Each part of the interview focused on a movie in the trilogy, including how George came to work with people like John Williams and Frank Oz. The interview on the Return of the Jedi tape is a little bit longer though because George talks about the future of the franchise. This is where I first heard about the Special Editions, which were only a little over a year away from being released to theatres, as well as the Prequel Trilogy, which George had started working on. 

When this interview was done, in either late 1994 or very early 1995, George was planning on writing all three prequel movies at once, which would cut down on how long it would take for him to make the three films. I don't actually know how long it took for George to decide to make the prequels in the same fashion as he'd made the first three films in the '70s and '80s, with work on the script for Episode II not starting until after Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) had been released to theatres and George had gone on vacation with his kids once all the press stuff for the movie had wrapped up. Which is why I feel that The Phantom Menace is the most creative and strongest film in the Prequel Trilogy since George was working on the script for the movie from 1994 until the movie began filming in June, 1997 once all three films in the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition had been released in theatres and the press from that had ended.

This boxset is in my personal collection today. It's not the original copy that my dad owned but another one that I found in 2019 at a local convention. I think if you were born between 1986 and 1992 this boxset was your first introduction to Star Wars too. I actually don't know anyone in my age group who had any of the earlier VHS releases of the trilogy when they were growing up. I feel like people born between 1980 and 1985 did though. And I mean I know people who were born after 1992 that didn't see the Star Wars movies until the Special Editions had come out in theatres and on home video.

The next tape in the collection was in fact the VHS release of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, which was released in 2000, nearly a year after the movie's theatrical release. There's a preview for the Official Star Wars Website on it and that's it. My dad also owned this tape. I don't think he bought it the day it came out, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that long after that that he got it. I was excited to watch it again because I'd already seen it twice in theatres back in 1999. I also own this tape in my collection yet again.

The next Star Wars VHS tapes I owned was the Star Wars Trilogy boxset from 2000. This was the final VHS release for the Original Trilogy. I don't know if the tapes were released separately as they had been for the 1995 and 1997 boxsets but the designs of the cassette boxes matched the VHS case design for The Phantom Menace, including the removal of any mention of the Special Editions on the packaging, even though the version of each movie used on the tapes are the Special Editions. While the tape for A New Hope has a short featurette before the movie on the making of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), which wasn't due to come out for another year and a half or so by the time this boxset came out, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi just have a new promo for the Official Star Wars Website. 

The final Star Wars VHS that I owned when I was a kid was the Star Wars Saga Video Pack boxset, which was simply just the VHS releases for The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones packaged together. The tapes are exactly the same as their individual releases from 2000 and 2002 respectively, with Episode I containing the same promo for the Official Star Wars Website, and Episode II containing the featurette Star Wars Connections: With C-3PO and R2-D2, which is a recap of the entire Star Wars Saga up to that point narrated by Anthony Daniels as C-3PO couched as recording a historical document for Luke, at the beginning, and the deleted scenes, which were also on the DVD release of the movie, after the movie. The featurette at the beginning is not canon, but might've been prior to the release of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), which revealed that Threepio had had his memory wiped at the end of the movie, probably so he wouldn't accidentally reveal to Leia that Darth Vader was her father, her mother was dead, and she had a secret twin brother being hidden on Tatooine. I got this boxset for my 16th birthday, along with the boxset for the Original Trilogy, and the TV/VCR combo set that I got from my uncle. So these tapes were some of the first VHS releases I got specifically for my TV/VCR combo set which was in my bedroom. 

That my friends is my entire childhood Star Wars VHS collection. I hope you enjoyed this look at it. I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about today until I got up this morning. I had several options to choose from too. I'll be back with some kind of comic book review later this week, probably tomorrow. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.