Discussion POLL! Which is a bigger deal, Episode I or Episode VII?

Episode 1, no question. There was such a massive layoff between 83-99. So much self generated hype.

Does episode 7 won't be as successful? No, it could very be more successful. I mean it should be just from inflation alone. But if there is really positive word of mouth; it will do monster business.

 

No way is Episode 7 a bigger deal than Episode 1 was. Many aspects of fan anticipation and hype were ushered in by Episode 1 that movie fan bases have followed ever since. Downloading movie trailers online was STARTED by the first TPM trailer. Also camping out for movies was started with Episode 1. Now friggin Twilight fans do it! It probably doesn't hurt that Episode 1 was THE most anticipated movie of all time. Its hype was unparalleled to anything we have witnessed before it or since or that the world will witness again for movie releases.

 

I am tied, both have caused everyone to go absolutely crazy over star wars again.

 

I went with Episode VII. For one thing, the announcement was totally out of the blue. Nobody in the general public had the slightest inkling that the announcement would happen, and when it did, it crashed the JCF. Plus, the news appeals to a broader group of people since it involves the direct continuation the beloved classic films and not just the continuation of the story as a whole. Even casual fans were surely floored when they heard that the story of Luke, Leia and Han was going to be continued.

 

The Easiest way to answer is this:

Was Episode I going to eventually be made?
Regardless of the 16 year layoff between ROTJ & TPM ... Yes, GL was eventually going to make it. The ONLY question was when.

Was Episode VII going to eventually be made?
Regardless of the PT's success (or lack thereof), the odds were so vastly against VII-IX (or any other stand-alone SW film for that matter) that the answer to that is ... No.
GL had said so many (what seems like) thousands of times "No other SW film will be made. There is no more story to tell." that even the most die-hard SW fans had accepted that as reality. ROTS was the end of SW on film ... or so we thought. By agreeing to sell LFL and allow SW films to be made by others, GL single-handedly convinced me to Never say Never again. I seriously thought the odds of me winning the Powerball Lottery a dozen times were better than another SW film being made with GL's consent.

When something is going to happen (no matter how cool or how long it takes) it is always less of a "Big Deal" that something that was thought to be never going to happen.
The "Bigger Deal?"
Answer is Star Wars: Episode VII.

 

Was looking forward to seeing Darth Vader in his black mechanical suit ass-kicking prime... bummer.

Now looking forward to seeing Luke Skywalker in his Jedi Master (not Knight) prime.... hopeful.

 

I'd say Ep I. I think that was when Lucas decided "there would be more SW" - after the probes that were TT Tand the EU in the early 90's. I think this is where he really started to work on his material again - and while he at some point came to the conclusion he was finished making SW movies, I just have a feeling he's had the idea of retiring and handing over the material for a long time as well. Thus, TCW followed "only" three years after ROTS - I think it's ok to say that the ball's been rolling ever since he decided about the PT.

 

I voted Episode VII for two reasons:
1) because it's a big deal right now which is kind of overshadowing events of 1999
2) because we could kind of reverse engineer the events of the prequels; the future possibilites of Star Wars is endless

 

For me it would be Episode I. Though I was equally thrilled with both announcements, you have to remember or imagine what it was like to be a Star Wars fan between 1984-1994. Aside from the Zahn books and a few kickass PC games, Star Wars seemed like a relic of another time. Only the geeks like me and my friends still obsessed about it and watched the movies over and over again on VHS. But alas there was only so much you could talk about with just 3 movies as canon. I remember when Super Star Wars and its sequels came out for the Super Nintendo and I was flooded with nostalgia, then movies like Clerks let me know that there were people like me out there who still worshiped the Holy Trilogy. Even the new Power of the Force toys stirred up new emotions.

But with the announcement of the Special Editions and the plan to begin the Prequels that slow fire that had been burning in me was suddenly a nuclear explosion. I devoured all the information about the movie, started actually using the internet to find scoops which led me to places like Aint It Cool News, and subscribed to Star Wars Insider. I was lucky enough to have Celebration I in my hometown and went every day. I remember seeing the tone poem promos and getting misty eyed, and the summer of '99 I saw TPM a half dozen times. I never knew it was considered a bad movie until I heard rumblings on the internet, but I never cared because I loved the movie. The next 6 years included even more excitement for me and seeing ROTS almost broke my heart because I was convinced that was the last time I would see a new Star Wars movie in my lifetime. I was just happy to have 6 movies to obsess over instead of just 3.

The announcement of EP VII is definitely the icing on the cake, but for me the cake will always be the prequel announcement even if the movies aren't as universally loved. Now my biggest fear is that Star Wars will go from being a special event movie to being over-saturated, but we will see how it goes.

 

That's pretty much my only fear about it. I really don't want an abundance of movies to take away the fun of it all. Hopefully they don't rush release movies in the future.

Seeing Star Wars is special, and nothing comes close to seeing the Prequel Trilogy in the theaters. I just hope these movies will be able to replicate just a small amount of that excitement.

 

Episode 1 for me, no doubt about it. For the story of Darth Vader was about to be revealed and the golden age of the Jedi Order was to be seen. This was huge. after the tremendous success of the orginal trilogy the prequel story by George Lucas was finally there.

I am hopeful and excited about Episode IV but probably not as much as I would have been for Episode I. Perhaps because I am a bit anxious of what the fate of the EU is going to be with regard of this new trilogy and because Star Wars is experiencing a change of guard, under a new ruler which is now Disney. It is a new era and as fan I want to be reassured that SW is goin to remain SW. It doesn't look bad so far. The news of Abrams as director came as a surprise to me which give credibility to Lucasfilm and it's president Kathleen Kennedy, now under the corporate umbrella of Disney.

 

Well said.

 

Episode I. Most of the forum members on this site are probably too young to remember just how highly respected Lucas and Star Wars were back then. They were almost mythical figures. Now Lucas is one of the most maligned and vilified figures in history, and Star Wars is generally regarded with cynicism and contempt. Obviously I don't hold those veiws, but that is the verdict in the court of public opinion.

Episode VII has already been tarred with the same brush by people who don't understand that Lucas is barely involved, and that it's being made in a way similar to ESB and RotJ. If my coworkers are anything to go by, they simply assumed (when they heard the news) that more "crappy" prequels were on the way. They don't even know that Episode VII is going to be a sequel to RotJ and that this new trilogy will probably have more in common with the OT than the PT. I suspect this won't change until the public finally understands what Episode VII will entail, i.e. the OT cast returning, etc.

Once that first teaser trailer hits, I suspect the hype will finally explode, and match or exceed the hype for Episode I. As for now, it seems people are too confused (unless you're a fan who's keeping up with the news) about Episode VII to really get into the Star Wars spirit.

 

Initially I was going to say a tie, then I thought with Luke and crew back, we never ever thought we would see that.
And the internet is much more robust than it was back in the mid-nineties. It will be a better experience.
A comment was made that the internet blew up with excitement the week Episode VII was announced.

In the end I voted VII, but it wasn't by much.

 

After "Return of the Jedi," I didn't think there would ever be another Star Wars movie. After about 1984 or 1985, my focus went away from "Star Wars" for a few years and my interests switched over to "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" since those were the two biggest boys' toy collections at the time. I occasionally watched the trilogy when it was broadcast on TV, but that was about it for a while. Then, in 1991, when I read "Heir to the Empire," the Star Wars fanatic in me resurfaced and never went into hibernation ever again. So, yes, I thought it was HUGE when the news came out that the prequels would be made.

However . . . if it's true that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and/or Harrison Ford are going to appear in Episode VII, then this is a bigger deal than Episode I coming out. Announcing that a new Star Wars movie is coming out is one thing, but putting these three in the movie would be huge, huge, huge.

Think about it from my point of view: The last time I saw Mark Hamill playing Luke Skywalker in a new Star Wars movie, I was 10 years old. In 2015, I will turn 42. That's how long I've waited to see Mark play the part of Luke again. The prequels were huge, yes, but we're talking about the people who started it all when we talk about people like Hamill, Fisher, and Ford. So, for me, Episode VII is a bigger deal by far, and it will get bigger the closer we get to the release date.

 

Knowing that Luke, Leia and Han are returning.....Episode VII all the way. Star Wars is about to be redeemed.

 

As disappointed as I was with Episode I, I selected it in this poll. The announcement in the mid-nineties that SW was coming back after a decade and a half of nothing, right when we thought SW was dying a slow death... was BLOW_YOUR_MIND awesome.

The Episode VII news is also sensational, but the vibe is different. SW was still very much alive, and I think the feeling a year ago was that new films were somewhere on the horizon, but we couldn't predict when. I thought we would have to wait until GL kicked the proverbial bucket to get more films. Then the sale to Disney happened, then the announcement of more films happened, then the hiring of Arndt and Abrams happened... It's a whirlwind, and a very exciting one for sure, but I knew for a while that we hadn't seen the last of SW in cinematic form.

 

If Episode VII is a bigger deal, it's because of the whole package of the announcement: Suddenly Lucasfilm was sold to Disney and suddenly there would be an Episode VII along with more movies. The future is more uncertain, and it's reported all over the place in this modern internet that's bigger than it was in 1999. Still, once a movie comes out, it's just one of many. Avatar was the only huge blockbuster that conquered the box office and culture for months since Titanic. It's hard to perceive TPM as a bigger deal in retrospect because of the general reaction to it, but even then I was drawn into everything about this new STAR WARS stuff. Padawan, official information about Sith, Jedi Council, Naboo, Darth becoming a title, etcetera. Still, it was in the shadow of the fluke success of Titanic and it felt odd to be in the atmosphere of a new STAR WARS movie yet it wasn't universally liked. Even in quick-moving 1999, it stayed in the theaters for a few months. I barely saw anything else in theaters that year.

 

I'm not sure.. I mean I remember the Episode 1 announcement and I had hype for sure being there was a 16 years between movies. I also remember saying episode 1-3 would be cool but I really wanted to see 7-9. Yeah SW was dead for most of the 80's and part of the 90's but it started to gain popularity again after the SE releases and the new Hasbro toys were released. Now fast forward to 2012 and I was completely shock to hear the news of Episode 7. It took days to settle in and realize this is really happening. Plus we have no idea what the story will be who will be the leading Sith the leading Jedi? Where episode 1 we new Anakin and Obi-wan will be the lead roles and Palatine will become Emperor. no surprises we new who dies and who lived. Hmm okay I'll say episode 7 .

 

TPM was the most anticipated movie in history and also the biggest disappointment. No movie will ever disappoint audiences again the way TPM did.

The ST is a chance for a fresh start but audiences have been burned by the epic disappointment of the PT.

 

In my estimation Episode I was a bigger deal. It had been 16 years since there had been a Star Wars movie. The franchise looked all but dead. The ramp up for it was colossal with the SEs, toys, etc.

This time around we still have toys and we have TCW which has kept it alive (though not to the extent of the films).

But which am I more excited about? I'm actually (surprisingly) more excited this time. Not knowing what is coming at all is mesmerizing. The idea of Star Wars for eternity is very compelling (though I'm kind of mad I'll miss some after I die).

 

Erm...., both news were great to me! In the days when everyone thinks SW is gone for good and suddenly, Lucas said okie dokie, he is making 3 more! It was a fun decade.

After the PT, there was a lot of talks, promises and KOTOR even by Lucas himself. The CG cartoons were realised but everything else sort of remain... dormant. And Lucas said in an interview that he ain't gonna be making no more coz the fans want to kick his nuts for the PT. I thought we won't be seeing more SW movies in this lifetime and suddenly, the Disney announcements.

And like what you guys said, ST story is totally unknown. Making it more exciting, while that is true. I recalled during PT times. I asked the same questions (not here tho) and I was, at that time, as excited as I am now!

What about a spin off Fett movie? Once announced, I will think its a pretty big deal as well! I can't speak for everyone but there cannot be enough of SW movies for me.

 

i was very young (6/7) by the time Episode 1 was announced, i only got to noticed it, like one year before the release date, i got excited to go see, and then i saw it...

I would say Episode VII to me, was totally not expecting new SW movies coming anytime soon, and with new blood, i'm really looking forward to it