[Devout Catalyst]

Yeah, I tend to agree that ANH stands on its own (although I hate calling it that; to me it will always be plain old Star Wars). At the time, it was anyone's guess whether the movie would flop, so the story had to be self-contained. One of the few things that hinted at the possibility of a sequel in the original SW was the shot of Vader's TIE hurtling off into space.

When it was first released, I considered ESB to be a separate adventure in the SW universe which happened to feature familiar characters and some new ones. Of course, to my 8-year-old self, any new Star Wars was welcome, but since Star Wars didn't end with a cliffhanger, The Empire Strikes Back seemed like a brand new story to me.

Of course, by the end of Empire, it was pretty clear that the story was going to be continued, and by that time everyone knew Lucas was making a trilogy.

But I tend to think of the original Star Wars as its own movie, followed by the duology of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

This post has been edited by Devout Catalyst: 30 May 2005 - 09:47 PM

[Failureboy2]

I think there's an important lesson to be learned from the PT, which is that sometimes the people we herald as geniuses don't really deserve it.

I just spent Memorial Day weekend watching the new Star Wars DVD set, and after watching the interviews it's more clear to me than ever that Lucas is a bag of wind. He just goes on and on and on about Kurosawa and Flash Gordon and Greek Mythology and "archetypes" and blah blah blah, and you get the impression that he has no creative energy of his own - just knowledge about shit that other people have made.

What was the question again?