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Waiting for Episode VII during the lean years (1984-1998)

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My first experience with Star Wars was seeing "The Empire Strikes Back" in the movie theater in 1980. I remember being very excited when I found out my parents were taking me to see the movie, my curiosity for the Star Wars universe being piqued from playing with another kid's Star Wars action figures. I remember really liking the movie, the scenes that stuck with me was the battle with the AT-ATs, Luke encountering Vader in the Dagobah Cave, Han getting frozen and of course, "Luke, I am your father". I really liked the movie then, but I was very bummed out at the end because the "good guys" lost. Of course I was pleased when all of those loose ends were nicely tied by the time "Return of the Jedi" came out. Being a little older by then, I noticed the "Episode VI" in the opening crawl thinking "Wow! Were there 3 other Star Wars movies that came out before the original Star Wars? The next year (1984), I watched the original Star Wars for the first time when it was aired on network TV. I made sure to pay very close attention to the opening crawl for the words "Episode IV". I asked around and no one knew what the hell I was talking about when I said that Star Wars is actually part four in the series. Everyone basically called me an idiot, lol. It wasn't until about 3 years later when someone made me VHS copies of the original trilogy on one 6-hour tape that i was finally vindicated and had physical proof about the whole IV, V, VI thing.

So, I just made the assumption that Episode IV (it's secondary title being "A New Hope"), was actually the first movie that was made and that the series of Star Wars movies would be made in a non-linear fashion. Noticing that the release dates of the 3 movies (1977, 1980, 1983), I was slightly disappointed when Episode VII didn't come in 1986, 1989, 1992, etc.

Those "lean years" built up a lot of anticipation in me for the next Star Wars movie. I scoured newspapers, magazines, bought countless comic books to satisfy my appetite for any information on upcoming Star Wars movies. I sat bored watching those horrible Ewoks live-action made for TV movies. I recall a Mad Magazine feature called "The Star Wars Log" giving some humorous speculation about future episodes in the 12-part "Star Wars Saga -- Part I" (to be completed in 2014, lol):

STAR WARS LOG from Mad Magazine circa 1981 (reprinted in 1988)

With each passing year, and with no new Star Wars in sight, I yearned more and more. I even remember dreaming about watching Episode VII in the movie theater then waking up in a cold sweat, disappointed that it wasn't real. If you must know, in my dream version of ep. 7, the Rebel Alliance destroys the last holdout in the Empire--20th century planet Earth (yeah, I know it contradicts "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..." but most dreams basically have the logic of a David Lynch film). I was actually one of the pilots in a Rebel squadron and I heartily destroyed my home planet. At the end of this ep. 7, Han and Luke infiltrate a prison colony to obtain information on a new threat and they get captured and it ends in a cliffhanger. The freaky part is that a couple of years later, I dreamed up Episode VIII (and I remember the subtitle: "Where Free Men Have Lived and Died!") where Han and Luke break out of said prison colony.

So you see, I really liked Star Wars (to the point where I was having a series of recurring dreams about future episodes!!)

Imagine how it was like for me when I found out through my college's computer terminal (connected to the then-young Internet) in 1994 when I found out that Episodes I, II and III were in the works. I even went to see "Star Wars: The Special Edition" on opening night (I hated the changes, so I refused to see the other two SEs, but I incorrectly assumed that these were just "special" and that the OOT would still be considered "official" ). When I downloaded the first bootleg trailer for "The Phantom Menace", I was elated. Finally, after 16 long, excruciating years, we were getting a new, official, Star Wars adventure.

When May 1999 rolled around, I read the first reviews that were coming out. Most of them were mixed, but I just assumed that it might be rust on George Lucas' part and that the new movie was still Star Wars. If it was halfway as good as the original trilogy, I would be satisfied.

I've only watched "The Phantom Menace" once in the theater. I. Could. Not. Believe. That. I. Waited. Sixteen. F*cken. Years. For. This. Piece. Of. SH*T.

There was no stage of fanboy denialism on my part. I knew what I saw was a big turkey rolling right before my eyes. What we were witnessing was George Lucas suffering from severe artistic and creative senility.

Anyway, just like Comic Book Guy, I vented my hatred for TPM on the internet and I was subsequently flamed to death by fanboy apologists. I remember their talking points very well:

"There was no way that the new Star Wars movie could live up to everyone's expectations"
"Give it a chance. The first movie was not supposed to be as good, it introduced the context of the story, etc."
"The lightsaber duel is the best of the entire series!!!"
"The pod race was absolutely awesome"
"There were many subtle nuances that were more sophisticated than the original trilogy."
"The movie is actually good if you can ignore what Jar Jar is doing."
"The Phantom Menace is the highest grossing movie in the franchise. Can millions of fans be wrong?"

Ugh. I got the impression that the fanboy apologists were actually paid hacks planted by Lucasfilm on the internet. Maybe they were paid, but I think in retrospect, it was just a simple case of denial on their part. I even resorted to not-so-subtle trolling to get my point across:

My response to fanboys complaining about the delayed Phantom Menace DVD release
Phantom Menace is better than Lord of the Rings movie
Did Han Solo really shoot Greedo first in ANH?
My "review" of the 2004 DVD set

"The easiest way to destroy a cause is by becoming it's most excessive advocate" -- Nietzsche (quoted from memory).

As for "Attack of the Clones", I hated it even more than TPM, but I actually liked "Revenge of the Sith".

So... how was it like for you guys when you waited for a new Star Wars movie during '84-'98?
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Now to get a few things off of my chest. I'm sick and tired of you racist
homophobes who don't like Jar Jar Binks. Star Wars is about poltical
correctness, diverisity and multiculturalism, and if you got a problem with
that: sod off you stupid wanker! You deserve to be branded and imprisoned
because you are a hate speech criminal. Jar Jar haters are no better than
the "forces of darkness" that the visionary Lucas has spoken out against.

I have a question for you Jar Jar haters: if everyone hates Jar Jar so much
then how come TPM is the highest grossing Star Wars movie of all time? Can
millions of true Star Wars fans be wrong?

The truth is Jar Jar Binks and TPM make ANH and ESB look like shit, OK? Jar
Jar is a much more interesting and more inclusive character than that
mysoginist Han Solo. His fans are typical male chauvinist anti-choice pigs who voted
for the right-wing racist cowboy George Bush. If you don't like Jar Jar
then you are not a true Star Wars fan. Racists like you deserve to be
stripped of your civil rights. I believe in freedom of speech but hate
speech like this should be banned and its practicioners should be imprisoned
for life.


lol
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Originally posted by: cador
My "review" of the 2004 DVD set


We TRUE Star Wars fans will enjoy and relish the changes that George Lucas
has made to the upcoming Star Wars DVD set while you cynical "Han shoots
first" fundamentalist extremists stilll wallow in your hatred. We
appreciate what Lucas has and still does, why can't you?


To which someone replied: "Shutup, fag!" -- LOL

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Well...

Welcome to the boards!

My appetite for further episodes has also been taken away by the PT. Not satisfied. Just taken away.

If another creative team took the job on for Luca$hFilm and all Luca$h got to do was provide the basic story, I think I may become interested. Either that, or maybe we should all start trying to get George and Marcia back together...
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I waited during those 16 years anxiously, but not too anxiously. I spent the later 80s watching the movies on VHS, but I only really "got" into the mythological and dramatic end of it when I "rediscovered" the trilogy in the early 90s. That's when I realized that when Lucas got around to finishing the story, it was gonna kick major ass.

Alas that was not the case.

I was at the midnight show of each of the prequels and greeted each with equal enthusiasm despite all the negativity towards them. I remember sitting in the theater for TPM, knowing full well that I was not about to see anything like the OT. It would be the same universe, but different. So I can say that I didn't have half the expectations that most people did. And walking out, I thought the movie was pretty damn good. It was watching it repeatedly on DVD where the movie starts to get lame. It and the other prequels don't hold up after multiple viewings like the OT does.

The PT isn't all bad though. It does have the magic in parts, but overall they fail on many levels. That leads me to believe that Star Wars was never all Lucas. It was him, Kurtz, Kirschner, Kasdan, the actors, etc. There are some truly unwatchable parts in the PT. The romance stuff, the Jar Jar stuff, etc....but there are some truly amazing moments like the end of AOTC (so much foreboding it hurts) or the temptation part in ROTS (Padme and Anakin staring at each other with that creepy music playing - magnificent scene) or lightsaber fight at the end of TPM. The PT HAS the goods....it just needed some adjustments....it needed someone to balance Lucas and his nonsense, that's all.

As for the SEs....I was going through a horrible breakup at the time, so I didn't really pay attention to the changes. I saw them in the theater and knew something wasn't right. It was a few years later when I watched them again that I knew this crap was dead wrong all the way through.
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I remember being kind of surprised that there were new movies coming out.
Sitting in the theatre seeing the Star Wars logo come up... pretty exciting.
First few scenes, a bit dodgy but the light sabres melting through the bridge door was cool! These Jedi were a bit stilted but showed signs of fun teamwork and kickassery.

And then shortly after that we met a certain floppy-eared alien, and I can't remember thinking anything after that ...
Darth Lucas: I am altering the trilogy. Pray I don't alter it further.
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I saw Star Wars in 1977 and a was a big fan through Empire 80, Return 83, towards the end of 84-85 when there wasnt alot happening in the S.W universe and my friends lost interest, my fandom kinda waned as me and my friends started going out, getting girlfriends etc, and getting in Horror and other films etc etc, but I still bought the VHS, went to the cinema for a showing and watched it on TV etc, though I wasnt as obessed as I was in the late 70s- early 80s, though an extra Episode was one thing that would have been welcome but it never came and I thought at the time it would only be the films from 77-83 we would ever see, I was in my early 20s when the SE came, I was really excited as to me it was the return of Star Wars, I took a day off work with a mate and we went to see it and enjoyed it, we didnt worry about changes it was just good to see Star Wars back at the Cinema, while this going on I started hearing all the hype about the new Star Wars films I was a bit excited after 16 years it had finally happened a new Star Wars film, so I saw a bit here and there and thought that looks good, but a couple of weeks before it opened here I got a pirate VHS off a mate and we sat down and watched it, we were abit dissapointed with it, so we decided we werent gonna go to the Cinema to see it, so we didnt go, After that I kinda lost interest for Episode 2 as I was getting older and thought I was past SW, but I went eventually a few weeks after it had opened and actually enjoyed it, then when ROTS opened I went first day and really liked it so I actually went a few times with various people...
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It was a long wait, and in the end I love the direction Lucas has gone with Star Wars.

All these complaints some have about lack of dimensionality in the characters, bad writing, horrible dialogue, overreliance on cutting edge effects at the expense of good storytelling, have been there since the first one was released back in '77.

It's just now we actually have some Star Wars fans who say that about the new ones.
Your focus determines your reality.
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I seriously hate when people try to drag the OT down to the PT's level.

1. the OT are classics.
2. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo, not gonna work.
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
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I dislike it when people act like the OT is exempt from critique, when it was criticized for the same things as the prequels.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: cador
My first experience with Star Wars was seeing "The Empire Strikes Back" in the movie theater in 1980. I remember being very excited when I found out my parents were taking me to see the movie, my curiosity for the Star Wars universe being piqued from playing with another kid's Star Wars action figures. I remember really liking the movie, the scenes that stuck with me was the battle with the AT-ATs, Luke encountering Vader in the Dagobah Cave, Han getting frozen and of course, "Luke, I am your father". I really liked the movie then, but I was very bummed out at the end because the "good guys" lost. Of course I was pleased when all of those loose ends were nicely tied by the time "Return of the Jedi" came out. Being a little older by then, I noticed the "Episode VI" in the opening crawl thinking "Wow! Were there 3 other Star Wars movies that came out before the original Star Wars? The next year (1984), I watched the original Star Wars for the first time when it was aired on network TV. I made sure to pay very close attention to the opening crawl for the words "Episode IV". I asked around and no one knew what the hell I was talking about when I said that Star Wars is actually part four in the series. Everyone basically called me an idiot, lol. It wasn't until about 3 years later when someone made me VHS copies of the original trilogy on one 6-hour tape that i was finally vindicated and had physical proof about the whole IV, V, VI thing.

So, I just made the assumption that Episode IV (it's secondary title being "A New Hope"), was actually the first movie that was made and that the series of Star Wars movies would be made in a non-linear fashion. Noticing that the release dates of the 3 movies (1977, 1980, 1983), I was slightly disappointed when Episode VII didn't come in 1986, 1989, 1992, etc.

Those "lean years" built up a lot of anticipation in me for the next Star Wars movie. I scoured newspapers, magazines, bought countless comic books to satisfy my appetite for any information on upcoming Star Wars movies. I sat bored watching those horrible Ewoks live-action made for TV movies. I recall a Mad Magazine feature called "The Star Wars Log" giving some humorous speculation about future episodes in the 12-part "Star Wars Saga -- Part I" (to be completed in 2014, lol):

STAR WARS LOG from Mad Magazine circa 1981 (reprinted in 1988)

With each passing year, and with no new Star Wars in sight, I yearned more and more. I even remember dreaming about watching Episode VII in the movie theater then waking up in a cold sweat, disappointed that it wasn't real. If you must know, in my dream version of ep. 7, the Rebel Alliance destroys the last holdout in the Empire--20th century planet Earth (yeah, I know it contradicts "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..." but most dreams basically have the logic of a David Lynch film). I was actually one of the pilots in a Rebel squadron and I heartily destroyed my home planet. At the end of this ep. 7, Han and Luke infiltrate a prison colony to obtain information on a new threat and they get captured and it ends in a cliffhanger. The freaky part is that a couple of years later, I dreamed up Episode VIII (and I remember the subtitle: "Where Free Men Have Lived and Died!") where Han and Luke break out of said prison colony.

So you see, I really liked Star Wars (to the point where I was having a series of recurring dreams about future episodes!!)

Imagine how it was like for me when I found out through my college's computer terminal (connected to the then-young Internet) in 1994 when I found out that Episodes I, II and III were in the works. I even went to see "Star Wars: The Special Edition" on opening night (I hated the changes, so I refused to see the other two SEs, but I incorrectly assumed that these were just "special" and that the OOT would still be considered "official" ). When I downloaded the first bootleg trailer for "The Phantom Menace", I was elated. Finally, after 16 long, excruciating years, we were getting a new, official, Star Wars adventure.

When May 1999 rolled around, I read the first reviews that were coming out. Most of them were mixed, but I just assumed that it might be rust on George Lucas' part and that the new movie was still Star Wars. If it was halfway as good as the original trilogy, I would be satisfied.

I've only watched "The Phantom Menace" once in the theater. I. Could. Not. Believe. That. I. Waited. Sixteen. F*cken. Years. For. This. Piece. Of. SH*T.

There was no stage of fanboy denialism on my part. I knew what I saw was a big turkey rolling right before my eyes. What we were witnessing was George Lucas suffering from severe artistic and creative senility.

Anyway, just like Comic Book Guy, I vented my hatred for TPM on the internet and I was subsequently flamed to death by fanboy apologists. I remember their talking points very well:

"There was no way that the new Star Wars movie could live up to everyone's expectations"
"Give it a chance. The first movie was not supposed to be as good, it introduced the context of the story, etc."
"The lightsaber duel is the best of the entire series!!!"
"The pod race was absolutely awesome"
"There were many subtle nuances that were more sophisticated than the original trilogy."
"The movie is actually good if you can ignore what Jar Jar is doing."
"The Phantom Menace is the highest grossing movie in the franchise. Can millions of fans be wrong?"

Ugh. I got the impression that the fanboy apologists were actually paid hacks planted by Lucasfilm on the internet. Maybe they were paid, but I think in retrospect, it was just a simple case of denial on their part. I even resorted to not-so-subtle trolling to get my point across:

My response to fanboys complaining about the delayed Phantom Menace DVD release
Phantom Menace is better than Lord of the Rings movie
Did Han Solo really shoot Greedo first in ANH?
My "review" of the 2004 DVD set

"The easiest way to destroy a cause is by becoming it's most excessive advocate" -- Nietzsche (quoted from memory).

As for "Attack of the Clones", I hated it even more than TPM, but I actually liked "Revenge of the Sith".

So... how was it like for you guys when you waited for a new Star Wars movie during '84-'98?


I know your pain!!!! Your words are so true for me because that's exactly how it was when I got started with star wars discussion on the internet back in 1999, the year the phantom would soon be released. I did read a few reviews, but back then who cares what some snobby critics think, right? Well after seeing the movie, there was a big change in star wars (yes the PT), probably one we never really have seen the end of yet, and the atmosphere of uncertainty in the star wars message board universe permeated the entire fanbase. It's true people were saying "well it's the first, and the first is never the best. Lucas was rusty." I didn't know what to really think either about this new trilogy and this midichlorian stuff. Turns out as I predicted it was all half assed ideas lucas just put in for no reason, but as fans of course we came up with a million ways of defending Lucas' genius at the time. "Yoda looks that way because he's in a morphing stage" or whatever crap someone was saying back then...

Well during the wait, I was just going to school, and when I got home I watched some star wars for the fun of it, and discussed stuff online at a great messageboard I no longer visit because you know sometimes a message board has this one pompous bully who spends all his time just insulting everyone who's not seeing things their way... I can't stand that shit. But yeah I learned a lot about star wars during the wait for TPM.

When the pt movies came out and I opened topics about jar jar sucking or midichlorians being pointless, it was FLAME CITY. I just got sick of discussing the PT with jackasses back then. And it's probably true. Someone wrote a huge dissertation on the greatness of Jar Jar when I wrote a topic about jar jar not being needed in episode 2. That guy had to be a studio plant.
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I dislike it when people act like the OT is exempt from critique, when it was criticized for the same things as the prequels.


Look moron.....all the criticism that the OT got back in the day was certainly warranted, but compared to the PT....the OT looks like a fucking masterpiece across the board. The OT is like Citizen Kane while the PT is like Killer Clowns From Outer Space....
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I don't know it seems failry comparable to me.
Your focus determines your reality.
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And that's just further proof that you have your head WAY up your ass....
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The OT is not exempt from critique (especially Return of the Jedi and the SE).

It's just a lot better than the PT.
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Originally posted by: THX
The OT is not exempt from critique (especially Return of the Jedi and the SE).

It's just a lot better than the PT.


I don't include the SEs......they don't exist to me anymore.



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It's actually sort of a myth that the original Star Wars got bad reveiws. Most of the most respected magazines like TIME, Newsweek, etc., gave it good reviews.

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You know...I agree.....it was so huge back then and everyone liked it that who would want to give it a bad rap.

I would like to see some actual press saying it's bad from back then.

All this crap about bad acting and such is hooey anyway. I don't think there's any bad acting at all. The whiny Luke stuff is crap anyway...cuz look at how Luke turned out in ROTJ. He was badASS, man!!! Maybe he was SUPPOSED to be whiny and all.

I just don't see bad acting at all in the OT. Nothing cringeworthy like in the PTs.
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New York Times 1977:
"STAR WARS: A film with comic-book characters, an unbelievable story, no political or social commentary, lousy acting, preposterous dialogue, and a ridiculously simplistic morality. In other words, a BAD MOVIE." Here's another one for Empire:'The Empire Strikes Back' Strikes a Bland Note
By VINCENT CANBY
The Force is with us but let's try to keep our heads. These things are certifiable: "The Empire Strikes Back," George Lucas's sequel to his "Star Wars," the biggest grossing motion picture of all time, has opened. On the basis of the early receipts, "The Empire Strikes Back" could make more money than any other movie in history, except, maybe, "Star Wars." It is the second film in a projected series that may last longer than the civilization that produced it.

Confession: When I went to see "The Empire Strikes Back" I found myself glancing at my watch almost as often as I did when I was sitting through a truly terrible movie called "The Island."

The Empire Strikes Back" is not a truly terrible movie. It's a nice movie. It's not, by any means, as nice as "Star Wars." It's not as fresh and funny and surprising and witty, but it is nice and inoffensive and, in a way that no one associated with it need be ashamed of, it's also silly. Attending to it is a lot like reading the middle of a comic book. It is amusing in fitful patches but you're likely to find more beauty, suspense, discipline, craft and art when watching a New York harbor pilot bring the Queen Elizabeth 2 into her Hudson River berth, which is what "The Empire Strikes Back" most reminds me of. It's a big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.

Gone from "The Empire Strikes Back" are those associations that so enchanted us in "Star Wars," reminders of everything from the Passion of Jesus and the stories of Beowulf and King Arthur to those of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the Oz books, Buck Rogers and Peanuts. Strictly speaking, "The Empire Strikes Back" isn't even a complete narrative. It has no beginning or end, being simply another chapter in a serial that appears to be continuing not onward and upward but sideways. How, then, to review it?

The fact that I am here at this minute facing a reproachful typewriter and attempting to get a fix on "The Empire Strikes Back" is, perhaps, proof of something I've been suspecting for some time now. That is, that there is more nonsense being written, spoken and rumored about movies today than about any of the other so-called popular arts except rock music. The Force is with us, indeed, and a lot of it is hot air.

Ordinarily when one reviews a movie one attempts to tell a little something about the story. It's a measure of my mixed feelings about "The Empire Strikes Back" that I'm not at all sure that I understand the plot. That was actually one of the more charming conceits of "Star Wars," which began with a long, intensely complicated message about who was doing what to whom in the galactic confrontations we were about to witness and which, when we did see them, looked sort of like a game of neighborhood hide-and-seek at the Hayden Planetarium. One didn't worry about its politics. One only had to distinguish the good persons from the bad. This is pretty much the way one is supposed to feel about "The Empire Strikes Back," but one's impulse to know, to understand, cannot be arrested indefinitely without doing psychic damage or, worse, without risking boredom.

This much about "The Empire Strikes Back" I do understand: When the movie begins, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and their gang are hanging out on a cold, snowy planet where soldiers ride patrols on animals that look like ostrich-kangaroos, where there are white-furred animals that are not polar bears and where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) almost freezes to death.

Under the command of Darth Vader, the forces of the Empire attack, employing planes, missiles and some awfully inefficient tanks that have the shape of armor-plated camels. Somehow Han Solo and Princess Leia escape. At that point Luke Skywalker flies off to find Yoda, a guru who will teach him more about the Force, Yoda being the successor to Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi (Alec Guinness), the "Star Wars" guru who was immolated in that movie but whose shade turns up from time to time in the new movie for what looks to have been about three weeks of work.

As Han Solo and Princess Leia wrestle with the forces of darkness and those of a new character played by Billy Dee Williams, an unreliable fellow who has future sainthood written all over him, Luke Skywalker finds his guru, Yoda, a small, delightful, Muppet-like troll created and operated by Frank Oz of the Muppet Show. Eventually these two stories come together for still another blazing display of special effects that, after approximately two hours, leave Han Solo, Leia and Luke no better off than they were at the beginning.

I'm not as bothered by the film's lack of resolution as I am about my suspicion that I really don't care. After one has one's fill of the special effects and after one identifies the source of the facetious banter that passes for wit between Han Solo and Leia (it's straight out of B-picture comedies of the 30's), there isn't a great deal for the eye or the mind to focus on. Ford, as cheerfully nondescript as one could wish a comic strip hero to be, and Miss Fisher, as sexlessly pretty as the base of a porcelain lamp, become (is it rude to say?) tiresome. One finally looks around them, even through them, at the decor. If Miss Fisher does much more of this sort of thing, she's going to wind up with the Vera Hruba Ralston Lifetime Achievement Award.

The other performers are no better or worse, being similarly limited by the not-super material. Hamill may one day become a real movie star, an identifiable personality, but right now it's difficult to remember what he looks like. Even the appeal of those immensely popular robots, C-3PO and R2-D2, starts to run out.

In this context it's no wonder that Oz's contribution, the rubbery little Yoda with the pointy ears and his old-man's frieze of wispy hair, is the hit of the movie. But even he can be taken only in small doses, possibly because the lines of wisdom he must speak sound as if they should be sung to a tune by Jimmy Van Heusen.

I'm also puzzled by the praise that some of my colleagues have heaped on the work of Irvin Kershner, whom Lucas, who directed "Star Wars" and who is the executive producer of this one, hired to direct "The Empire Strikes Back." Perhaps my colleagues have information denied to those of us who have to judge the movie by what is on the screen. Did Kershner oversee the screenplay, too? Did he do the special effects? After working tirelessly with Miss Fisher to get those special nuances of utter blandness, did he edit the film? Who, exactly, did what in this movie? I cannot tell, and even a certain knowledge of Kershner's past work ("Eyes of Laura Mars," "The Return of a Man Called Horse," "Loving") gives me no hints about the extent of his contributions to this movie. "The Empire Strikes Back" is about as personal as a Christmas card from a bank.

I assume that Lucas supervised the entire production and made the major decisions or, at least, approved of them. It looks like a movie that was directed at a distance. At this point the adventures of Luke, Leia and Han Solo appear to be a self-sustaining organism, beyond criticism except on a corporate level.
The -real- myth is that the prequels had a higher percentage of bad reviews: Critical Consensus:
"Star Wars" prequels actually better reviewed than the originals.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Ok, that's ONE review for SW and ONE for ESB. Show me the rest of the horrible reviews.

Here's an excerpt from the TIME Magazine review from 5/30/77:

"A universe of plenty—as audiences can discover beginning this week in Star Wars, a grand and glorious film that may well be the smash hit of 1977, and certainly is the best movie of the year so far. Star Wars is a combination of Flash Gordon, The Wizard of Oz, the Errol Flynn swashbucklers of the '30s and '40s and almost every western ever screened....."

Whole review here.

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If you can find all the reviews from back then, I'll show you which ones were bad.

Did you look at the rotton tomatoes link?

I was just showing examples of reviews for the OT that sound suspiciously similar to the negative reviews you see for the PT.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I dislike it when people act like the OT is exempt from critique, when it was criticized for the same things as the prequels.


The OT is looked at through the Rosiest of Rose-Tinted glasses.

They’re great flicks and I love ‘em to death… but people forget shit like Carrie Fisher going in and out of British accents during the same scene. If that stuff happened in the PT you wouldn’t hear the end of it.

Nevertheless, Hamill and Fisher are akin to Brando and Streep apparently.
"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Didn't Siskel and Ebert originally give Star Wars a really bad review? Then, once it was breaking records, they gave ESB a glowing review. And I think today they say Star Wars was a wonderful movie.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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Originally posted by: JediRandy
The OT is looked at through the Rosiest of Rose-Tinted glasses.


I don't think that's true at all. I think the difference is that while the dialog and acting was bad in the OT, it's worlds better than the acting in the PT. I remember an interview or commentary in the past few years where Harrison Ford was filming a scene in ESB and the director said it was great and he said "Was the effect great or was I great?" He was not happy unless the acting was great. Unlike today where Lucas just figured he'd fix everything in post. And that's coming from a man that once said "A special effect without a story is just a special effect".
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Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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You know....I LOVE the OT, no matter what anyone says.

And I HATE the PT, no matter what anyone says.

That's really all that needs to be said....what I like, others may not like and what they like, I may not like. It's all up to the individual. Arguing this is over and over again is getting retarded.