This is how me and my friends watched this at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey in 1987

First of all, watching this when it was released in Nov, 1986 was NOT an option for us airmen stationed at a small, relatively unknown Air Base in the southeastern part of Turkey, next to the Syrian border. What was an option was to go to the small Stars & Stripes bookstore(and I mean, small) near the flightline and buy a Starlog mag and they may have even sold the Star Trek IV novelization. Also, I do remember we had a big exercise in early December, they stuck me at the end of the flightline as a door guard but the cool part was another guy was sitting right next to me and at first we just cracked jokes but then we 'commandeered' a small radio and I remember giving out a loud groan when Armed Forces Radio mentioned the big movies for the Holiday season; Star Trek IV, Three Amigo's, The Golden Child, and Heartbreak Ridge. Since we were really in Asia it meant that all the other Air Bases in Europe would get these movies first and after a few months we would eventually get the well used film canisters at the end of their lifetime.
Flash to a few months later(Mar or April)... Me and my best friend Chuck are at the Incirlik Base Theater to finally see Star Trek IV. Man, that theater was full, I remember the excitement of the whole crowd with the lights up right before the start. It seemed everyone on that base was there that night! About 10-20 minutes into the movie, the scene where the Klingon Bird of Prey takes off like a harrier fighter jet the film just stopped..what the heck??!! surprisingly the entire theater kept from rioting, everybody just took it in stride. The film started going BACKWARDS as the part time amateur projectionist did their very best to get the highly anticipated Star Trek IV back in action. Then the film started going forward again..a huge array of "YaY!!!! and applause from the Incirlik crowd!!! As the Klingon harrier started to take off it stopped yet again, then backwards again..and finally the coup de grace.. the theater lights went on and we heard the projectionist from above yell to us he was sorry the worn out film's a mess and that nights viewing(and all subsequent viewings throughout the week) were cancelled.
Obviously, it was a bummer but we took it a lot better than would be expected. We lived in our own, strange little world over there in S.E. Turkey and we simply took the good with the bad. As much as me and Chuck were HUGE Star Trek fans I think we were actually laughing pretty hard that night. Ah, the good ole' times!