Anchorhead said:

imperialscum said:

Time of release had little to do with anything.

I saw it 2 decades after its release and yet I fell in love with it just as much as people back in late 70's

when I first watched it I loved it just as much as people who watched it at release

With all due respect, those aren't statements you get to make for other people. Particularly those of us who were there. Time of release had a great deal to do with the cultural impact. Plenty of articles have addressed it in detail.

Regarding being just as moved by it as people were in the 1970s: That's not a quantifiable statement, nor one for you to make so definitively. You were clearly moved by it or you wouldn't be on a Star wars board ten years later, but you don't get to speak for other fans' level of emotional impact.

First of all I was clearly speaking only for myself. All I did was a comparison "just as much us people in 70's" which is not speaking for anyone but just comparing my appreciation of Star Wars to someone else. A lot of people back then went to see it in theatres multiple times which is (in my book at least) an indication that they loved the film a lot. Just like me (OT being my top 3 favourite films of all time). And I did not go into any detailed emotional feelings of anyone. It was a matter of love or hate stance which can be observed with just a little common sense. I do hope you won't argue that they hated the film so much that they went to see it 5 times.

My argument was that the historic context of release might have had a minor influence on its success but the key factor was the product itself. If the historic context (Vietnam war, Nixon etc.) was of any major role in its popularity then why on earth was received just as well in Europe and Japan and why has it been continuously gaining fans for over 30 years?

Actually the only relevant historic context was that it was a revolutionary film in cinematic sense and that it changed the industry and influenced so many films and film makers to this day. Actually that's not even an influence of historic context but more like an impact the film had on cinematic history. Therefore hypothetical questions like "what if Star Wars was released today?" is as dumb as " what if Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published today?".