Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
It still completely boggles my mind how ESB was considered the undernourished sibling of the Star Wars Trilogy back in its day. I just can't even wrap my mind around it. Now it's the holy grail of the entire Star Wars saga how it should be. It was my favorite as a kid, and it's my favorite now. What was wrong with people in 1980?!

Gaffer, you have to take in context that fans didn't know if there were necessarily more movies after ESB, and many at the time didn't like the cliffhanger ending.

A sequel back then was not routine like today, i.e. Spiderman, X-Men, Harry Potter, even the prequels. Now when a movie is made, as long as it does well at the box office, you know it is a franchise, and more are to come in the future.

Walking out of ESB in 1980, it was nothing like SW, and fans were not expecting that. Now many fans liked it, cause it did gross 200 million, but many fans didn't love it like they do now till after ROTJ, and finally saw it as a middle act in a three act play. After viewing the trilogy as a whole after ROTJ, the cliffhanger ending is great as it leads right into ROTJ, but in 1980, you kinda feel cheated.

If fans saw ESB in 2005, and saw a cliffhanger ending, they would begin anticipating the next sequel in 2-3 years, and the internet rumors would begin.

As much as I love ESB, I think it set fans up for the way we are today, awaiting the next ESB..... SW & ESB are so great as a 1-2 punch for the saga, in all honesty, how many more classics could Lucas have made with the saga? Most sagas start to suck right after the original, or the quality drops with each sequel. ESB was able to keep that level of quality, and do one better than SW, and for ROTJ and the PT, that is a tough act to follow.

If ESB had been a good sequel, but not great, I really think I wouldn't be here on these boards today, and just be a SW '77 fan, and think of the rest of the movies as entertaining but doesn't compare to the original. ESB is the only sequel in movie history that compares to the original, and that is has been the achilles heal for SW fans since 1980, cause we have been waiting and waiting for that next ESB.