Glad everybody seems to like "Big Galaxy" - that's always been the thing that differentiates "Star Wars" before Vader says those four little words from what came after, I think, and it's the thing that I continue to miss the most about the early days. The wide-open-ness of "Star Wars" was one of its most appealing traits back in the day - I felt like I had seen one story from "A Galaxy Far, Far Away", but that there could be almost limitless other stories set against that backdrop.

After those four words in ESB, the galaxy started shrinking like mad, a process that continued with every new chapter. What we are left with is a galaxy barely big enough to contain the one story that Lucas eventually decided to tell. Even the misnamed "Expanded Universe" has failed to make the galaxy feel big in any meaningful way, with the same group of heroes constantly saving the day, and secondary characters being identified solely by their pipe tobacco (a particularly ridiculous example from "Heir to the Empire").