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Empire used to really scare me as a kid.

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Definitely the freakiest film out of the trilogy. There were a lot of shock images I used to enjoy/hide behind the sofa for. The parts that used to terrify me were of course on Dagobah. Namely the cave and Lukes face under the mask.

Was I wuss or did anyone else get freaked out by it?

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I remember being surprised that Vader was in the cave for sure. And then I got a bit freaked out that it was Luke. Not sure I understood the symbolism until my teens.

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Vader was very menacing in that film and it was very scary to me as well.

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It is kind of funny looking at films you watched as a kid as an adult. I remember watching Empire Strikes Back as a kid being kind of a stressful event. Every time I watched that movie I'd squirm the whole way through. There is so much going on, and throughout the whole film you swing from one danger to another and it hardly ever lets us. I remember the part with Yoda acting all goofy being a nice moment to take a breath and have a little laugh.

One of my friends excitedly bought Star Wars when it was first released on DVD so his young daughters could watch it, I think the oldest of them was about eight or nine at the time. Before starting A New Hope, he warned them before hand that it was kind of scary at parts (he recalled his younger brother running out of the theater with tears in his eyes during Vader's first appearance on the Tantive IV back in '77). After the film was finished, he asked them, "Did you like the movie? You didn't get scared did you?" only to receive the response, "Dad, that movie wasn't scary at all! It was actually kind of lame." Needless to say, they never watched the other two movies and he was slightly heartbroken about the whole thing.

I guess kids are so used to seeing stuff like this now, it doesn't come off anywhere near the way it did to many of us when we first saw these movies.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Didn't like ESB all that much until I got older.  I preferred ANH and ROTJ back then.

All I really want is each film as it was originally seen and heard in theaters; no fixes, corrections, "improvements" or modifications necessary.

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I loved the movies as a kid, but I remember back in '97 being terrified with the shot showing the Wampa missing his arm. Had my parents tell me when it was over. I think I was more squeamish than anything, I don't recall being afraid of much else.

 

I also remember having a lot of lines/parts which didn't make any sense to me as a kid make complete sense after watching them a few years later. Sort of a revelation.

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Glad I was not the only one, there were a lot of other images in that film, which were not scary as such, but were somewhat of a shock/disturbing.

The shot of vaders head, unhelmeted

Hans Torture and then freezing, especially when the slab hits the ground.

I also read somewhere that Bossk toys used to scare kids in the stores, I was surprised by this, especially because I thought the original vintage figure looked kind of hilarious compared to the actual alien.  That's just me though.

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First time I saw the movie I was 8 but it didn't scare me at all, actually. I just loved the movies. Dagobah scenes bored me, though.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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I was nine when I first saw it.  Can't say it ever scared me.  It was always my favorite from the very first time, but I've always loved narratives that really amp up the danger for the characters, and I felt that Empire always pushed the series in the right direction for that.  Unfortunately, it did seem to scare a lot of children back in 1980, which was reflected in a drop in popularity from the first film, which prompted Lucas to go in a more "kid-friendly" direction with the successive films.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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This may be the silliest reason for not liking a movie, but I was four. It was around Thanksgiving, and it was the first time I was watching ESB. I don't know if it was a TV dinner or something actually palatable, but one of the side dishes included stuffing - I hate stuffing, at least when it's not stuffed in something. And thus, I forever associated Empire with the horrible food - until about 3 years ago.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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bkev said:

This may be the silliest reason for not liking a movie, but I ...associated Empire with the horrible food...

Oh...ummm, no...that's not a silly reason........................................... O_o

 

 

And I LOVE stuffing...it's soo filling...;)

Star Wars Episode XXX: Erica Strikes Back

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          If you want Nice, go to France

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My cousin hated ESB when we were wee (he is a couple of years younger than me). He thought it was a bit rubbish that the Falcon kept breaking down and that nobody would listen to Threepio because he was a robot (well he was seven years old).

I remembered being upstairs on the bus home still buzzing and saying to him that I don't know how I can wait three years to find out what happens next.

We both freaked out a bit with the bloody arm in ANH but this one had Tauntaun guts and Luke got his hand cut off and that Wampa jumping out almost made me lose my mint choc-ice. Trying to figure out what the front of Vader's face was like from the back was a nightmare inducing affair. I was also kind of weirded out by Lobot as I thought his headphones must be screwed into his skull (like a Cyberman...I hadn't actually seen any Cybermen in Doctor Who but I had read about them and seen photographs and they alone gave me nightmares because they weren't just robots, the humanoids in The Black Hole had the same effect.).

Three years later he was the one buzzing, he actually thought it was great that Han could kill Boba Fett without being able to see him and there was me (13 years old and already a jade) saying it was allllright but it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.

He thought I was nuts but we both agreed we couldn't wait three years for the next one...pfffffh.