When Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, before it was begrudgingly referred to as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, fans couldn’t get enough of George Lucas’ sci-fi opera. It quickly became the highest grossing movie of all time. The same thing happened with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which trumped Avatar‘s previous domestic box office record by nearly $200 million. There’s a big difference between Star Wars fans in 1977 and Star Wars fans in 2016, though, besides the latter owning a Tauntaun sleeping bag: almost immediately after The Force Awakens was released, it was illegally distributed online, and a few months after that, legally available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Disney Movies Anywhere. The original Star Wars didn’t come out on VHS and Betamax until 1982; the film also made its TV debut on HBO that year.
Five years! It took five years, or right before Return of the Jedi, for millions of fans to watch their favorite movie outside of a theater. (Unless you owned the Super 8 edition.) Thankfully, that’s no longer an issue. The Force Awakens will make its TV premiere on Starz on Sept. 10, less than a year after it came out.
“No greater fandom has ever existed than the Star Wars fans, and we are thrilled to be the exclusive home of The Force Awakens,” Chris Albrecht, President and CEO of Starz, said in a press release. “We are offering a variety of ways for fans and subscribers to watch – on the Starz networks, on demand, by streaming or download on the Starz App, or through an Amazon Prime Starz subscription. We want to make the movie as accessible as the fans’ appetites for what is truly one of the greatest franchises of all time.”
Not everyone is happy about this development.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens premieres on Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. EST.
