Anchorhead said:

doubleKO said:

I agreed with S_Matt about this, not from the point of view of what was or wasn't originally intended but whether it works for the climax of a fantasy story.

I think if the change had been handled differently it would have worked better (at least for me). It's still deep enough in Empire and worked well enough. By the time Return was released the series had lost a lot of its harshness.

In Star Wars we had burned bodies, mass murder (Alderaan), torture, severed arms lying on the floor, untrustworthy hired pilot, etc. Those elements were either castrated or g-rated as the series progressed and I think that hurt the OT overall. There was real danger in Star Wars. The lack of of any real danger in Return made me want to walk out of the theater in 1983.

For me, the change didn't work. For a most others, it worked well and still does.

I take your points.

Personal perception of the movies does depend on the chronological order that you experienced them in aswell as the age that you had at that point in time.

I do envy you for having been there at the beginning!

I did not see SW in 77' but I saw it back to back with ESB in 81'(aged 6).To this day ,the best cinematic experience ever(coupled with Superman 1and 2 back to back not long after).

SW blew my socks off and ESB made sure that they stayed blown off!!--LOL!

So personally for me SW and ESB are inextricably intertwined.

As for Jedi:

We had the Rancour eating a gamorean guard,Jabba being strangled by Leia, Implied murder of Botham spies,Ewoks being killed(Ok not on any grand scale),the death of Yoda which is as touching as anything seen in any of the 3 films and the bad guy ultimately dying (both Vader and Palpatine).

So there is stuff there.