Question about official movie release dates versus personal experience

Cafe Society
1

Hi. This is my first post here, and it’s a bit of an oddball question. I’m wondering if it’s possible that the officially listed release dates for past movies is based on the various awards rather than when they actually came out. I’m curious, as my personal memory of a specific and verifiable event (the new york city blackout of '76) includes having just watched a major movie (star wars) during its premier period. Since the official listing on Star Wars is that it came out in '77, this has troubled me for years.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

2

I remember seeing it in the summer before I started high school - 1977.

AFAIK, it was still in production in 1976.

3

Which is still no help to me as I distinctly remember seeing it that night, in '76. I had just left the Palace theater, and was waiting for the bus when the city went dark. The only other time I could have seen a Star Wars movie in NYC was in December '79, and I don’t think Empire was in premier then. I think you can why this perplexes me so…

4

I think you’re misremembering the time. Like I said, the movie hadn’t been completed by that time. In fact, they were still editing it weeks before its May 1977 premiere (Source: Star Wars Episode IV DVD).

Are you sure you aren’t remembering another movie?

5

I think you’re misremembering the date of the blackout, not the movie. There was a blackout in New York and other areas on July 13, 1977 not 1976.

6

Dewey Finn is right. The New York blackout happened during the summer of 1977. (Unless New York was having blackouts every year.) The blackout is part of the story in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam and also covered in Jonathan Mahler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning.

As for what I thought this thread would be about: I remember when Independence Day was being advertised, I believe the original release date was supposed to be July 4. (Independence Day, how clever!) I think it ended up getting moved up to July 2. If I’m not mistaken, it may even have been moved up to July 3, before trying to hype it more, the studio then moved it up to July 2. Not a bad marketing technique.