The original Star Wars: TIE Fighter was one of the first computer games I played as a teenager. The funny thing is, I had absolutely no idea what Star Wars was, but somehow I still thought the game was really cool and played it for quite a while.
I was 7 or 8 in the early 90s in Texas before I heard about Star Wars. I was playing play sword fighting with my dad, when he mentioned my broom handle looked like a lightsaber, I was like “what’s that?” My dad then proceeded to delight me with the story. It would be about 6 months later when an aunt lent us a VHS player that I would get to see it.
I grew up in the 90s, and when the special editions came out in '97, it was the kind of thing that only those of us with nostalgic dads actually went to see.
I only saw Empire at the time, don't think I saw the rest of the trilogy until shortly before the prequels came out.