Wow CO, that post of your above is scary for me to read, because I could have written exactly the same thing! I couldn't agree with you more. I too am really overwhelmingly a Star Wars '77 fan. I too saw it in '77 (at age 6) and loved every minute of it--to me it is a perfect film, and still my favorite. When ESB came out, I was as in to it as the next fan, and I might even concede that technically (from a filmmaking POV) it is the superior film; but (and an important but) storywise, it is merely the first half of a film whose second half is RotJ which to me is a pretty damn bad film. And I never bought the Vader redemption thing in the first place. In the end, all of the important information of the saga (accept for Vader's redemption) is contained in the original; the rest of the saga is largely dottig "i"s and crossing "t"s and spelling out everything for those who didn't have enough imagination to appreciate the original (my opionion, obviously). For me the original Star Wars has held up--when I watch it I still get that feeling I had as a kid. The rest of the "saga" feels largely like another formulaic franchise cash cow. To return to the original topic of this thread, this is why I fear the TV show, nothing lends itself to formulaic franchise cash cows more than serial episodic cinematic spin-off TV shows.