Star Wars: The Special Edition, 1995?

[Kurgan]

Been awhile but I thought I'd throw out a question: a former classmate of mine persistently claimed that the Special Editions (at least the SE of the first Star Wars) was shown in select theater(s) before 1997. Is there any evidence for this?

I guess it would help to know when the cuts were actually completed. I know I didn't see them before Jan 31st 1997 (and the subsequent "official" release dates of the others, Feb 21 and March 14 if memory serves) so I'm not claiming any special knowledge here. I'm sure the response is going to be general skepticism, that's fine, I just wondered if anybody else heard differently. I mean they do test screenings of other movies, but I don't know about these, if they even needed any.

[Galvatron]

He must be confusing the SEs with the final VHS release of the unaltered remastered editions. I seriously doubt the SEs were ready to be even test screened a whole two years before their official release.

[Darth Nostril]

My copies of the unaltered remastered VHS are labelled 'Digitally Remastered Widescreen Special Edition'. That may be where the confusion lies.

[Gandalf]

Indeed. There are people who insist that when they saw the film in 1977, that there were the deleted scenes and the "Episode IV" header.

Star Wars has so many incremental changes and rereleases that such memory problems aren't surprising.

[Tychu]

I also swear that during my viewing of Episode I, there was a planet core scene with magma and such.
It most likely was a coloring mistake in the Commack MultiCinema copy of the movie since no one else but one friend (who saw it on a different night) remembers seeing it.