[starbase63]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

Episode IV: A New Hope was always in the opening crawl, but it wasn't considered a part of the original title of the movie when it first came out. It was just titled Star Wars.

I never got used to calling it A New Hope, it just sounds wrong to me. The original film is just Star Wars to me.

Sorry Cap, as sam mentioned, the "Episode IV: A New Hope" wasn't added until later. In fact, I think it was the re-release just prior to TESB's release. I remember there even being news articles asking "What's this 'Episode IV' thing in Star Wars?" They mainly did it to prime audiences for the fact TESB's crawl began with "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back."