ST Is the sequel trilogy more anticipated than the prequel trilogy?

Darth vader as a boy and a young obi-won vs. luke, leia , han (the same characters from the originals)

Not even close... The ST wins hands down. When Star Wars fans see these characters again for the first time in 30 years, on the silver screen...the sense of nostalgia will be enough to make them cry in their soda cups.

When we were kids..we always dreamed of the next star wars movie... The next meaning episode 7.. now we're finally getting it.

Cant wait

 

Are you crazy? Of course the Prequel Trilogy was more anticipated.

I know, I remember it.

When the Star Wars teaser came up on American television, circa 1998, everything stopped, every major news program as well as whatever internet outlet (internet was still extremely rudimentary) had it.

I personally am waiting for this trilogy far more hyped up, but Phantom Menace shook the world in an era when you couldn't go viral on the net.

We had to VHS tape the trailer and watch it over and over and over again.

 

No. Not even close. The prequels were new Star Wars! The first new Star Wars in decades! Written and directed by George Lucas himself! Yeah, we knew how they would end, but that wasn't the point. We would see young Obi-Wan, and young Anakin, and Artoo and Threepio would be back! Perhaps most exciting is that we would see the young Emperor (played by the same actor!) and his manipulations of Anakin into Vader, I mean, what's not to love! I refer, obviously, to the pre-Episode I excitement. After it was released things were different.

People are excited for Episode VII, but it's not close. A sequel to Return of the Jedi is exciting at first glance, but is old Han Solo and Luke Skywalker *really* exciting? Old non-Jedi Leia? A Disney "Star Wars" movie with Finn and Rey?

Don't get me wrong, new Star Wars is tremendously exciting, but it's not the same as it was.

 

I agree the PT was more anticipated.

 

Let's see what it's like in a year's time.

 

Right now it isn't close. Things are different....the entertainment industry, shorter news cycles and most importanly the internet.

I'm curious to see what things will be like next fall. I like how they are promoting things so far, but will trading in nostalgia pay off or might it backfire. I loved the way they did the reveal today, but too much of that sort of thing could feel quaint if not balanced out.

 

The internet is a hugely significant engine that drives anticipation these days. There's no comparison between the scale & reach of it in 1998-99 compared to now. I'd say the ST is generating a far wider & broader degree of anticipation. Maybe the PT reached "higher" levels of anticipation with some people but the ST is more anticipated overall. The world record no of hits on an 88 second teaser is evidence of that.

 

to general audiences Id say yeah maybe...but not to me.

Grew up as a kid in the 90's and 1st saw SW on TV on USA Network....but I always caught different episodes at different points in the movies over a span of couple of years...but I liked what I saw so much that eventually I had to buy the box set to get the whole story.....I was more of an outside kid who played more sports an things...and then probably Nintendo came next, so blowing most of my B-Day money for some movies was rare for me. But Im glad I made the investment in SW....

Anywho, I wore those VHSs out over the years and enjoyed when the special editions came out as well(Minus Han not shooting 1st). Every time Id make a run through the trilogy I always wanted to see how Vader got put in that suit....and how/why the empire were able to defeat the Jedi. Even with Vaders help, it always seemed really hard for me to believe that the great Jedi could have been wiped out like that...to the point of just Obi-Wan and Yoda.

I thought the ending to the OT just always felt naturally finished to me....full and satisfying so my mind always tended to wonder what came before not after. Had the OT ended differently I might be more excited to see a new trilogy outdo it. I still hope it does....but really there isn't this need for me to see a new trilogy. There was this need/want to for me...for the PT

 

I can only speak for myself, and the answer is my anticipation for the ST is tenfold what it was for the PT. Why? Because I thought the ST was never going to be made. I thought the OT and PT were it. Just those six films for the rest of my life. Then the ST was confirmed. I'm going to get to see the heroes of my childhood side by side with a new generation on the big screen. Once again new Star Wars films will be in my life. The anticipation I felt for the PT, while quite intense, doesn't even come close to equaling the anticipation and joy that now consumes me.

 

So how many songs were written for The Force Awakens?

 

I believe EP1 was by far the most anticipated and people were the most excited. Just the fact that the movies started at episode 4 for all those years was so intriguing. I mean we're very excited now, but back then it was the return of Star Wars when there were no new movies for a very long time, and we really thought it was going to be amazing.

Now, if you look at it from the perspective of the sheer amount of Star Wars fans there is now compared to back then, there are MORE PEOPLE excited for EP7 than EP1, and some are very very excited, however, I still think EP1 was a bigger deal for the individual fan.

 

Come on Weird Al! You're UP! You can do it!

...Oops. Double post.

 

You ask that as if TFA has already been & gone. There's still a year until it's release. The Weird Al song was out just months before TPM.
Anyway, of more importance than spoof songs is the fact that TFA's teaser has chalked up a record number of views. Even fan made versions of it have been viewed more than most actual trailers.

 

In fact, "The Saga Begins" was released over a month after TPM.

 

Finally someone gets it.

It's what I've been saying. The big 3 are back...your favorite childhood story can now continue where it left off. We've all dreamed about it when we were kids....and now it's here. Better late than neve.

The PT was cool...and we were all excited to an extent for a new Star Wars movie, but going back in time??? There was something odd about it...and we already know how the story ended anyway.

 

Oh yeah, that's true. Probably bcs it revealed the entire plot! Sorry JediKnightWax but you haven't made a very compelling point.

 

I know that everyone around my age (mid-30s to mid-40s) who grew up on SW, Ep7 is the movie we all dreamed of seeing.

 

I'm still astonished that you thought my post was serious.

 

Sorry, I may have mistaken you for a rabid PT defender.

 

One of my kids was introduced to SW though Lego Star Wars, another was introduced through Angry Birds: Star Wars. Lol

 

I think it's not... but it's certainly getting there with all the secrecy and badass (and unexpected) announcements.

 

It's funny, but growing up I never once considered adventures beyond ROTJ. As far as I was concerned that was the end of the story and no need for more. The prequels made sense to me because there were clearly these three movies that were supposed to have happened first, but I never expected anything beyond those. And to be honest, I was perfectly happy to have a completed saga. The six movies work quite well for me as a whole. So really I'm excited only because I'm a much bigger fan than I was before the prequels, and I can't help being curious.

But before TPM there was a sense of boundless optimism and excitement that the story would finally be completed and for the first time in my memorable lifetime (born in '79) there was a new Star Wars movie. And even as a casual fan, the marketing blitz for that movie hooked me hard and hit all the right notes to get me as excited as I think it could ever be possible for me to be. And when I saw it at midnight, it was the single greatest film experience of my life, and I've always likened the crowd's reaction to a Beatles concert. I would have never guessed from that screening that anybody in the world wasn't as blown away by it as we were that night. I've never had an experience close to it before or since. And it was that experience that made me the fan I am today. But I know I'll never have the same experience again, so I don't even dare to hope for that this time around. That was a very different time under very different circumstances. However, it will be very interesting for me to see how the marketing is handled under Disney, because LF had to scale back a lot after TPM, and I think Disney can handle scaling it back up a bit. One thing is for sure, Star Wars is still the event film of all event films, and that's heartwarming to see. It will be a sad day indeed when that stops being the case.

 

I think honestly the peak of Star Wars' popularity was in the 1990s around the time of the Special Edition re-issues and the hype leading up to Episode I.

You have to understand back then, Star Wars had reached a mythic, untouchable level of fame. There was no Lord of the Rings or Matrix or Harry Potter or anything like that. What you had were things like Independence Day which riffed on Star Wars. And Lucas was a reclusive, mysterious genius.

The thing too is you had two generations -- the original generation of fans who saw the movies in theaters, but you also had a younger generation that had watched the movies on VHS and it had become this huge thing.

After the 80s, when I think Star Wars become oversaturated and kinda faded a bit by the mid part of the decade, Star Wars came back with a vengeance in the 90s with things like the Zahn novels, the Super Star Wars video games, new waves of toys, and just a general assimilation into the "cool" pop culture. "The Force" and other Star Wars references made it into things like rap music lyrics and Saturday Night Live skits. MTV debuted Duel of the Fates on a video show usually reserved for music videos.

And that's also why the backlash to the Phantom Menace was so extreme. People built the hype up to ridiculous levels, just like the impending year 2000, people wanted something bordering on almost a religious experience.

Sequel trilogy? Not even close. There's interest and hope for sure, but this is nothing like 1996, 1997, 1998 ... those years where the excitement was building to ridiculous levels. It was *magic*. In those days if anyone dared say anything negative about Lucas they would get eaten alive, haha, how things have changed.

 

Do you think the prequels should have been released in the early 90s then in the millennium another trilogy?

 

I remember reading Star Wars Insider, and the stuff on 90's Stargate magazine, and prequel trilogy sounded so so so sooo good. Back then nerds had control of Star Wars fandom, everybody wasn't behaving like "oh wow, I love star wars too, and that little robot huh? I just love R3-PO2."

When you went to your high school classroom reading the bantam EU books, you were looked upon like some extradimensional creature. Then the Special Editions paved the way for the prequels becoming mainstream. Nowadays Star Wars (by the current generation) is recognized by Hayden Christensen or the name Sheev, not the 15 years of drought the OT had. In 97, Star Wars symbolized the stuff Hollywood movies couldn't do, the effects and the whole ILM magic. However now its a widespread assembly-line industry of CGI, churned and outsourced, recycled and repeated. GoTG showed an unrelated franchise could get the Star Wars feel (a little bit), so now Star Wars is much less unique than it was unequivocally assumed to be in late 90s.