Empire is obviously the film that's held in the highest regard among movie goers these days, and the evidence clearly lies in movie ranking lists done on several sites on the internet.

Some examples:

IMDb: Empire is ranked 11th all-time, Star Wars 17th all-time

Rate your music top movies list: Empire is ranked #42 all-time, Star Wars isn't even in the top 100 (it's ranked #101 to be exact).

Everyone's a critic top movies list: Empire is ranked #25 all-time, Star Wars is ranked #34 all-time

These are just numerous examples of the fact that Empire is held in higher regard than SW these days.

However, I've been told by older fans that wasn't always the case, and they are right. Back in the day the original Star Wars was ranked #1 all-time on IMDb, where as Empire wasn't even in the top 30!. I've also looked at various older polls and lists of the SW films being ranked, and Star Wars was generally ranked higher. My question is, why the change of opinion? Back in the day SW was considered the crowning achievement of the original trilogy, but these days Empire is king. Anyone know why the opinions on both films have changed so drastically over the last 10-15 years?