Dude, you don't know what you are talking about. You have this weird tendancy to define words on your own terms, and unfortunately, language doesn't work that way. And no, that is not a personal opinion of my, language seriously doesn't work that way. Non debatable. "Fad" can be defined as "a short lived fashion, something that is embraced very enthusiastically for a short time."
"Pop culture" is something that has ingrained itself into a culture.
And no, we are not debating semantics now, you just like to define words however the hell you choose and categorize things as you see them (i.e. "Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are not classics).
negative one said:
i'm canadian/american [was in canada during 77, and in america during 80->present]
yes, 'star wars' the movie was a 'fad'.....
'star wars' pop culture wise only manifested itself much later, it's hard to see it's presence
until 'return of the jedi' and much much later than that..
i don't consider a few references here and there to be indicative of a larger sign of significance,
other figures such as 'the terminator', 'rambo' etc, are also just as popular in speech.....
just because a movie makes a lot of money doesnt' signify much : see 'titantic', 'dark knight' etc..
it's actually the merchandising which remains much more significant... i think i mentioned
that the series has generated some US$20 billion in revenue, which is something the
movies will never be able to generate...
"'Star Wars' popculture wise only manifested itself much later, it's hard to see it's presence until 'return of the jedi' and much much later than that..."
Where did you come up with that? You are almost arguing aginst yourself. First you say it was only popular for a while, then died out, just like all fads do. Then you flip it and say that it was not until after the films died out that they became pop culture? Again, reality is not to be redinfined by one persons perspective, you may live in your own world, but in the world the rest of us live in, SW was VERY much in popular culture right out of '77, and was compounded by the sequels. Just because its merchandising died down a bit (if you can really a constant array of best selling video games, comics, more than one fan magazine dedicated to the series was in wide circulation during the time you say there was a big drought. Maybe the market wasn't flooded with SW crap there for a while, but a "drought" is no small exaggeration. During those slow years there was a huge market for used figures, since they were no longer availible in retail stores. Which proves my point about the loyalty of fans, to the real fans, it never died. Just because it died for you, doesn't mean it died for the rest of us.
As for you saying a few references here and there mean nothing, and Terminator and Rambo also recieving similar treatment. You obviously missed the whole concept of "Pop Culture", Star Wars, Rambo, and Terminator, are all big parts in American popular culture. Just about everyone knows the phrase "Come with me if you want to live!" or "Hasta la vista baby", even if they haven't seen the Terminator films. In America, from '77 till present, just about everyone knew/knows the phrase "May the force be with you!"
Again, it doesn't matter whether or not you consider these things to mean anything or not, because the fact of the matter is, these things are deeply ingrained in American pop culture. In your own little world, maybe not, in the real work, yes.
And yes, Titanic and the Dark Knight were fads, nobody gives a care about Titanic anymore, and nobody other than Batman fans will care much about Dark Knight before long. They are not ingrained into pop culture, Batman most certainly is, but the Dark Knight as a film is not.
Anyway, this whole pointless sidetrack you have taken us on was me making the point that Lucas didn't make the new films for the fans, he made them for the hoards who will treat it as a fad, and that I do not believe they will stand the test of time, as the OOT has. The only reason Lucas was able to resurrect the OT in 1997 was because it wasn't a fan, it had never died, the fans had kept it alive. If it was a fad, there would not have been a market for books or video games based off of it 20 years later. The whole point was, SW still had a huge fan base before the prequels or the SE were released. This site is proof of that! A group of fans who want the original versions, the version they grew up with preserved, shows they were fans before the SE.