Tobar said:

SilverWook said:

Unlike TPM, most fans didn't want to come right out and badmouth the film.

I think this thread makes a pretty strong case for most everyone wanting to like TPM.

Of course, most of us did want to like TPM. In the case of Trek, it was not wanting to harm this thing fans had kept alive, and taken years to convince the powers that be there was a market for new material. There was no "franchise" as it's thought of now.

There were fewer outlets to vent one's spleen back in 1979. You had to stay angry enough to write a ranting letter to Starlog or Cinefantastique, and maybe it saw print a few months later, or not. Even if you had a typewriter, you still needed to lick a stamp.

With modern technology, there's no "cooling off" period anymore.