was this the single greatest cinematic event to have been alive for?

No. There was hype, but far from the most ever. The film on its own is mediocre.

The third Indiana Jones, the third back to the future, the third Lord of the rings, all had much more hype over their release.

Episode one also had way more hype over its release than Return of the Jedi.

Bbl

Nah, the poster who said even The Phantom Menace had more hype was spot on. Of course, that's not saying TPM was good. It was a huge disappointment but it was a greater event than this.

In 1999, advertisements for films were unlike anything in 1983, the internet was starting to really take off, the original trilogy special editions had been released all over the cinemas in 97 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original, so you had adults enjoying all of that nostalgia (of course some were disappointed with the changes) while kids were experiencing them for the first time knowing that a new trilogy was on it's way.

TPM was mediocre but the hype around it was incredible.

I did love it, I didn’t even mind the Ewoks and they were clearly just a ploy to make toy money.

But from a year earlier we got First Blood which is easily one of the top ten best action movies of the 1980s.

It took 12 responses before someone mentions the Ewoks?

As soon as I found out about the Ewoks, I lost interest.

What about the finale to the lord of the rings saga? This one got many Oscars and was more acclaimed than the SW end of the first trilogy.

Empire Strikes Back was much more anticipated.

It was a great time to be an 8 year old.
I would not go as far as saying "single greatest cinematic event", but we were very excited for it to come out.
There was a lot of talk. There were all these weird tie-ins (my mum made a bank account for me, we got a poster with characters missing, and we only got the character stickers to stick on the poster when we put money in the account).
The local movie theater showed Empire, which I hadn't seen yet, so I got a chance to finally see it.

as far as "the single greatest cinematic event to have been alive for" goes, ET was the year before. Now, that was huge!