Gaffer Tape said:
I do always find it odd the assertion that kids will love ROTJ and then grow out of it, or even Anchorhead's comment that kids won't notice the tonal shift as much since ROTJ was more focused towards them. At 9, I always found ROTJ to be a lesser film than the previous two. It always felt lighter and fluffier. It always felt somewhat tired to me. That's obviously not a judgment. I just always found it interesting. What's also interesting to me is that I always thought I was the only person who found Empire the superior film of the two. All of my friends growing up thought ROTJ was the best of the trilogy, and it was only when I started posting here that I found others that agreed with me. I guess that just means I was one of the few children who wasn't put off by the darker elements. Or maybe that 9 is just getting so close to the dividing line that it becomes a bit blurry. There were certainly film franchises I saw when I was younger (4-6) where I was put off by an installment I felt was darker and scarier.
Gaffer, I think I have stated here before my total love for Jedi in '83 as a 10 year old, and also how turned off I was at ESB in '80 as a 7 year old kid.
I remember walking out of ESB totally shocked at the dark turn the sequel took. I didn't hate it because it was still SW, but it was my least favorite til around high school.
I remember walking out of Jedi on cloud nine. I can still remember driving home with 2 older brothers just thinking that was better then the original. I remember being utterly obssessed with the Jabba sequence, as I remember watching the PBS special that summer on how they created Jabba and all the creatures. I loved the Obiwan/Luke talk on Dagobah as it was magical to me to see Obiwan almost as a person summing up the last 6 years of our lives. The ending was great too, and never thought about more SW movies as that was closure to me. I can't remember even thinking back then about prequels or a sequel trilogy, as that part of my life was over.
When I changed was I believe I was in 11th grade during Presidents Day Weekend and SciFi played the trilogy. Watched SW and still loved it, watch ESB....and it was like a total revelation of how fucking great this movie is and what was I thinking? Then Jedi came on and it started to hit me of all the stuff people complain about.
And nothing about the movies have changed since I was in highschool :)