How has YOUR view of Star Wars changed over time?

My story, case in point.

In primary school I adored Jar-Jar. Now that I look back on this I think I must have been clinically insane. I now advocate all forms of Jar-Jar torture. So my first interprtation of Star Wars was very different from my current one. I thought Senator Palpatine was so nice.

When I was 13 I watched all the movies again and was horrified by my ignorace! HOW had Chewie and Jar-Jar been my favourite characters when there was the EMPEROR to worship? HOW had I not appreciated the subtle nuances that indicate Palpatine's true motives? HOW HAD I MISSED THIS?

Ah - how we change!

 

The only real change I've had is I went from liking Boba Fett to thinking he's completely overrated. I however has always preferred the Force Sensitive characters and had Vader be one of my favorites.

 

Probably the biggest change I had was from liking Yoda's sometimes backwards speech in the OT, to hating its overuse in the PT. Now when I hear it I just get annoyed.

 

Well,when I saw TPM for the first time I liked young Anakin,but now I hate that annoing kid.For the line:,,Iam person and my name is Anakin" I would kick him in a face.

 

When I first saw ANH, back in 1977, I liked Luke, thought Obi-wan was a useless old man, was scared of Vader, and thought Solo was the coolest. As the rest of the trilogy unfolded, I remained a Solo fan. Fett was cool but the whole Dagobah plot bored me. Luke was whiney, as we all know, and I always wondered if Obi-wan could be a blue glowie than why couldn't he help Luke. That and I really didn't care for the Jedi. As I grew and matured my opions changed. Now Obi-wan is one of my favs, I understand the characterazation of Luke, Vader is the ultimate baddie, my hero some days, Fett has turned into a fanboys wetdream, Solo is still the coolest, and the Jedi rock.

 

I have found that the galaxy far, far away has become an all too familiar place to me. I miss that mysterious feeling from long ago, when I hadn't watched these movies 10 zillion times. It was a new, unknown, mysterious, exciting place to be in. It's not like that anymore.
The familiarity might have to do with the prequels, because they show us all these fantastic places and all these fantastic events and very little is left to our imagination.
I can always dream about the Sith War that took place 1000 years prior to TPM, but it's not as exciting as it was to imagine what the Galactic Capital or the Clone Wars were like.

The flipside of this, though, is that I have come to appreciate the depth of the story to a much higher degree. Because of the PT, I now understand much more about the OT and the depth of characters like Obi-Wan and Yoda.

Do I think the trade was worth it? Yes! If I want to go wild with my imagination on a good fantasy story, there are other places I can do that.
It was fun to do it with Star Wars, though!



Imagination - it's wonderful
/LM

 

I agree with Lars, after watching the first two prequels, then rewatching the OT acouple times, I feel more depth with the story. When I see Obi-won, I know what he has gone through (aside from Ep3) to get to where he is in ANH. BEfore the prequels I didnt really care whether he fought in the clone wars or how good of a jedi he was. Also I laugh when the governors make fun of the jedi "religion" in the conference room as if its been hundreds of years since their extinction. I always thought as a kid that there were only like 10 jedi and that it was a religion that one had to have faith in, rather than how I see it now as it is a way of life that one has to train hard to do. In the prequels I also get to see Yoda shine alittle more since he was only in the OT for like 20 min total.

 

I was born in 1972, so I grew up on the Original Trilogy. My only change is that I love ESB alot more than ROTJ now. Back in the mid 80's, as a teenager, I absolutely loved ROTJ, feeling ESB was too dark. As I got older, I started to love ESB, and while I still really like ROTJ, I do see the kiddy aspect of it. In 1985, I would rank them: 1. ANH 2. ROTJ 3. ESB. In 2005: 1. ESB 2. ANH 3. ROTJ. Though I can still watch all 5 Star Wars movies and never get sick of them.

 

My view has certainly changed. I understand the whole story much more now, and absolutely love and appreciate it. Knowing what happens to Anakin and basically that Luke does everything right just makes me admire him so much. Obi-Wan and Yoda are amazing too. It's just such a good story with such depth and lessons to learn. I'm definitely a better person for being exposed to these movies.

 

To me, Star Wars isn't just anymore a plain simple Adventure,

but rather a "family saga" - or even more a saga about a certain person.

 

I love it more every year but I see its flaws & I see it more as "just a movie". My personal all time favorite movies, yes; movies I find very meaningful + visually/technically brilliant, yes: but still - they're just movies. ESB & AOTC have corny romantic dialogue that I personally disklike - but now I can see that it's just some fun stuff thrown in to make the stories more juicy. The same with the humor: 'nerf herder', Jar Jar etc. used to bug me - now I just kick back and enjoy it all. They're just movies!

Same with LOtRs. When they first came out I was bothered by all the story changes, the cheesier aspects of it (pushing whole long sequences into one color scale, bad fx like the zombie-like denizens of the Dead Marshes, dumb jokes etc). Now I look at it & say: wow, what a big, lavish, loving tribute to Tolkien! And they're fun too!

...just movies

 

I used to like Luke and be in love with Vader. Now I'm still in love with Vader but can't care less for Luke when I have Anakin. I suppose everything else is just about the same.

 

As a kid, I was more into the action/space/ships. I watched the Hoth battle and space battle of ROTJ countless times. As I got older I started to understand what the story was really about. When I started martial arts in high school I really began to listen to Yoda's words of wisdom, and started to see the "Dark Side" in everyday life. I realized that we are all an Anakin Skywalker on the inside, and that there are many more Darth Vaders and Palpatines in the world than there are Obi-Wans and Yodas. I know people that have only partially dedicated themselves to their training, and they are the ones who quit easily and often get into fights. I kind of see this as going to the Dark Side, and I like the prequels because they act alot like Anakin does in the prequels. He is too attached, he doesn't listen to his elders, he's too greedy and impatient, even though he means well. So, Star Wars has gone from just being my favorite "cool" movie as a child to being a movie which can help you to better yourself in life. All done!

 

Sithrising, I applaud you

 

My view of Star Wars has progressively changed with the release of each prequel film, which is natural. I am one of the people who were entralled and introduced to Star Wars via the Special Editions in 1997. I had a very distinct feel for the trilogy back then and loved it, though it has changed greatly as more of the backstory of Anakin Skywalker and Palpatine have been revealed in TPM, AOTC, and soon, ROTS. It's rather hard to describe in words. Regardless, I still have an overwhelming love for what we refer to now as a saga rather than a trilogy.

 

My view of Star Wars has changed quite radically over the years.

When I was about 7, I saw parts of all the OT movies one Christmas on Swedish TV, though I much more enjoyed playing in the snow with my brothers.

Early last year, I rented all of the OT movies after having played Knights of the Old Republic, and wasn't too impressed.

At the end of summer last year, I bought the Star Wars Trilogy DVD after getting interested in the Star Wars saga via games and websites. Watching them this time, I thought the movies were great, and now I watch at least one of the movies every month.

Quite a transition from uninterested to Star Wars fan, huh?

 

I hold Master_Starwalker look on Boba Fett, he used to be cool, until you could pick hiim apart and just point how superfluous he really was. For all i care, he could have just delivered Han and left forever.

ANH - I used to fast forward to the end battle but now i watch it and find something that i look at differently each time i do.

ESB - This movie was a real bore, and it still kinda is. it had a more adult, than child feel to it.

ROTJ - A good mesh of both elements. My favorite as a kid, and still my favorite today, and my opinion will hold true still in a few months time. Now, I understand the story below the fights and explosions

TPM - I was a little sad about this film, but it's grown on me, since I've taken to watching it from the Jedi/Sith perspective, and not through Anakin.

AOTC - Disappointed opening day, and disappointing today. Superfluous, the lot of it.

 

I have a whole lot more respect for Luke in ROTJ now. He was able
to defeat Vader and refuse to turn to the Dark Side without much training
at all. I have a feeling after ROTS and watching Anakin turn, it will
serve to underscore Luke's choice in ROTJ all that much more.

 

I think so, yes. There was a period, after the release of AotC, where I didn't watch any of the movies for quite a while. I love all five movies, and there are very, very few things in the saga that I don't like or that annoy me - for some reason, I just left it alone for a little bit. Then when the RotS information really started coming out, and the OT was released on DVD, I started watching them again - and I now see the saga in a very different way to how I did back in 1998, or in 2002. I suppose I see how the whole arc fits together, how the prophecy is fulfilled, the story of Anakin and Luke's importance - everything is in a different, wider perspective for me now.

 

Sithrising, that was one of my favorite posts of all time on the boards, and though I'm not a Martial Artist I do see some of the things you described.

 

for some reason i find some moments of the OT extremely difficult to watch. the digital effects of the newer movies sort of belittled the older. have a horribly difficult time watching Empire strikes back, but at the same have new apprecation for a new hope, so it's 'all good' also the phantom menace ripened with time - in summation...some of the movies reacted differently with time.

 

Well, I have always found STAR WARS to be amazingly and extremely enjoyable, an escape, a journey, a joyride.

One of the many, many, many great things about STAR WARS is that I continue to learn new and different things about STAR WARS. There is so much to STAR WARS and so much to take in. I've been into STAR WARS since even before the first time I saw the movie STAR WARS in 1977 and I continue to learn more and more about it.

 

Let's see.

Well, having seen countless films over the years, it's only become eaiser and easier to see the flimic influences on the SW flicks, particularly the easlier ones, where the studied debt to classic cinema is more forceful. It's also easier to admire the original Star Wars's achievements in editing, establishing sci-fi tone, pacing, and story economy, all of which should've won Lucas or the film the main Oscar.

Having lived with Jedi over the long gap between SW films, I learned to adjust to SW as a franchise occasionally slightly slanted towards younger audiences, and so I wasn't the least bit surprised or disappointed by Menace.

Having grown increasingly uninterested in and unimpressed by the ever-blossoming sci-fi/comic book/fantasy media surge, I have grown to reluctantly accept that these new films were destined to become rife with the sort of world-building minutae and "complicated" sci-fi political hugger-mugger that has grown so depressingly popular with the fan-boy base. Part of Star Wars's original power was that it had originally eschewed much of that sort of detailing, excessive use of nomenclature, and background exposition. It's hard for me to tune out, but it can be done. Oh well, at least nobody's modulating any EPS conduits while they play with their Sith holocrons next to a midichlorian-deprived Tusken Raider in the Galactic Senate.

Having watched the vast majority of movies aimed at the youth market denegrate into orgies of violence, grim death, hyper editing, and ironic detachments, GL's ability to remain fairly well grounded in straight forward film style and old fashioned restraint have been a source of mild inspiration.

That's what come to mind right away.

 

Movie wise, there has not been much of a change. The biggest change is that I'm more into the fantasy side instead of the military aspect. Also Star Wars is no longer my main fandom anymore(Alien took that spot)

EU wise, I've gone from a hardcore completist to a borderline purist. Too many of the novels don't feel like Star Wars to me, mainly do to the lack of the fantasy feel. Some of the works are good. Take the Knights of the Old Republic games for example. Great epic fantasy adventure that feels like the movies, not the trashy hard sci-fi put out by authors like Zahn, Stackpole, and Allston.

Overall, I feel I'm more of a SW fan right now that I've been before.

 

I was a fan of Star Trek, and always loved seeing ship battles... which drew me to Star Wars when I heard someone say a Super Star Destroyer could defeat the Enterprise. Of course, being a Trekkie, I was outraged, and thought "hell no!" So I decided to do my research... and got lost in the story. The Rebel Blockade Runner in ANH being pursued by the Star Destroyer made me squeal like a little teeny-bopper.

But instead of letting Star Wars go the route Star Trek did, and become nothing but technical aspects, I just payed attention to the story. I found I enjoyed it more that way, which then aided me in enjoying Star Trek once again. Thank you, Star Wars!