Vaderisnothayden said:

It was always a children's story.

VINH, I have to respectfully disagree. SW77' and ESB were not MADE for children, they were essentially made for an older teenager audience that kids and adults can enjoy.

Lucas had NO idea that children like myself would latch onto it in 1977, or else he wouldn't have marketed to at Comic Con back in 1976. The demographic for that audience was teenage/early 20's comic/scifi geeks who were a niche audience. Lucas even said if the movie made 50 million he would have been happy.

What happen to SW was an utter phenomenon, and I have always stood by the success of the movie to the masses was the worse thing to happen to the series, because essentially Lucas tried to please everyone.

SW & ESB are true hard hitting scifi movies that are edgy, yet have a touch of humor, but really not TARGETED to kids. You don't have burning skeletons in a kids movie! You don't have Luke get his hand chopped off in a kids movie! Trust me, I watched alot of kids movies in the late 70's/early 80's, they were more in line with 'The Muppet Movie' and 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'.

You can see in the PT, and in some instances in ROTJ, that Lucas tried to please EVERYONE. You have Anakin burning up in ROTS on Mustafar which is clearly not for kids, yet you have a cheesy villain like General Grevious who is clearly made for kids. You have a cool villain like Darth Maul and then you have a character like Jar Jar Binks. The PT is all over the place.