Which Star Wars movie is 'yours'?

I'm not talking about favorites here. I hope everybody gets what I mean by this, but it's basically: Which Star Wars movie did you attach yourself to, follow as they were making it, see in the theater, just connect to?

Mine was Episode 3. At the time I was 12 or 13 and I absolutely followed every new news story for it. It was the first movie I latched on to, I got the book, the comic, the video game, got some of the action figures, anything Episode 3 I got. This was when, for me, Star Wars became a hobby, a passion, something awesome for me. I followed Star Wars Insider's coverage of it, etc. I then saw it on opening night, the first opening night I'd ever gone to. Hopefully you get the idea.

And beacuse of all this, Episode 3 is very special to me. It's not necessary my favorite, but it's very special to me. I'm very possessive of it, and I just feel like it's mine.

So, which Star Wars movie is yours? Which did you attach to the most?

 

Return of the Jedi. I was 7 years old when it came out, and it was the first SW film I saw at the cinema. I had the sticker album, and the comic novelisation which I loved. Used to play ROTJ in the school playground as well

 

I don't have a favourite anyway! But "mine" would have to be Episode III as well. It was the only one I had the fortune to see in the cinema. I must have been 14 or 15, and I bought some special edition magazines at the time (which I still have) and before or after, I even did a Star Wars inspired thing in Art class (which I still have, as naff as it is!). I loved seeing that at the cinema. I'm so glad I got to see one, at least. Of course, i'm hoping for some future anniversary they might re-show them all at some cinema one day... I just watched Episode III again today. I cried so much

 

Because of the fun (and stress? ) I had on these boards I guess it has to be Episode III as well.

 

III here as well. I grew up on the OT, loved everything Star Wars, until 1999. I was thirteen and either I was spending more time thinking about girls, or Episode I just wasn't interesting to me, or both. I saw Episode II opening day after school, went home and thought very little of it. By the the time Episode III came out I had watched all the DVDs (mostly for the commentary_ and half-followed the developing saga in my mind. When I actually saw it, I bawled. I have no idea why. Maybe its because I never assumed that Darth Sidious was the Emperor. Maybe its because the political story was just horrific (and very real to me at the time). Maybe its because its one of the best Star Wars movies, and I was finally connecting the dots. I don't know. But it was THAT movie that brought me back to the theater. I started seeing Episode III for fun. I think I saw it five different times in at least three different theaters. I got back into the EU for the first time since Episode I, and I've grown to love the TPM era the most.
Since then, my interest in SW has waned. My friends and I all dismissed The Clone Wars without seeing it. Well, I was wrong about that too. It's amazing. Now that I'm over my PT-funk, I can get back into Star Wars.

 

Revenge Of The Sith, allso because it follows a theme that moves me personaly. So I followed the production and watched it in the cinema a couple of time

 

Like many here, I did not grace this planet with my holy presence during the OT releases, so I'm limited to three films. And the only candidate would be Revenge of the Sith.

Interesting thing: I was very nervous about this movie. I had defended TPM against the poor acting/dialogue charges--unable to see any discrepancy with what came before--yet to my horror, AOTC actually exhibited them. The '02-'05 period constituted ?the dark times? in my SW sojourn, where I gave serious thought to whether Lucas had lost his touch, and quite possibly his marbles. Nightmare visions of ROTJ danced through my head; I braced myself for failure.

Then the advance reviews started pouring in. And the consensus was not tacit approval, but one of genuine enthusiasm. ROTS was deemed the first SW movie since Empire to be firing on all cylinders. In the scant few days until release, my dread shifted to excitement. Couldn't wait.

On May 19th, the lights dimmed, the movie started, and by the time the first Anakin/Padme scene ended, I whispered to my friend, ?My God, Lucas did it! Everything's working!?

ROTS remains the most pleasant surprise I've had in a movie theater. And yeah, it's my surprise.

 

Strictly following the prompt, the only choice for me is Episode I. I was born after the OT, and after the disappointment of Episode I I didn't anticipate or follow II and III all that much. I went into II hoping Lucas might turn things around, but by the time III rolled into theaters I'd resigned myself to the hope that it would be more-or-less entertaining, which it was.

But I think each of the movies of the OT satisfy the spirit of the thread in their own ways.

RotJ - I grew up mostly watching just this one, because it was the only one we had a "real" tape of. The other two were, shall we say, "second generation", and they had a tendency to disappear into our storage room and become difficult to dig out. I have never stopped enjoying watching this movie.

TESB - The Wampa attack and the Tauntaun guts creeped me out when I was little, so I often wouldn't make it past that part. I actually watched the movie a good deal, but all that ever really stuck with me was the early Hoth stuff. But it led to something pretty awesome - when I was eight or so, long after I had watched the other two films in full many times, I finally stuck it out and really WATCHED. The last act went from a blur of "I am your father", carbonite, and Luke falling down a tube to really noticing the details and how awesome it all was. It was like getting NEW Star Wars somehow, and like a drug it made me want more. This was around the same time I discovered the Zahn books. Suddenly "Star Wars" went from three awesome movies whose story was over (ala Back to the Future) to a fantastic ongoing thing.

SW - To me, the image of the good guys running around the Death Star IS "Star Wars". It's got as much exuberance as the franchise has ever had, and it's not weighed down by the mythology of the later films. If I could only ever have one SW film, it would be this.

 

For me it is AOTC even though ROTS is my favorite. I think AOTC is by far the most underrated SW movie. The love story is misunderstood and unjustly maligned and I think it is a great love story, even though I will admit there are a few questionable lines of dialouge ("I wish I could wish my feelings away???????" : using the word GROW three times in three lines?) I like how all the scenes and the general plot really try to take thier time. It makes for a great climax at the end. I loved the look of the movie and the locations. I thought of it as a more visually beautifal version of ANH, set in more beautiful locations. I saw it more times in the theaters than any other SW movie. I think it is the SW that improves the most with repeat viewings. It gets better and better each time you see it, and I like its melancholy tone. And I consider ACROSS THE STARS to be John Williams' masterpiece.

 

For me, being born after the OT, it'd have to be one of the prequels. I anticipated all of them, going in costume to AOTC and ROTS, and following spoilers for all of them as well (remember millenniumfalcon.com?). The time before Episode III came out was pretty fun, and memorable.

But ultimately 'my' film must be Episode I. I remember streaming the trailer on my crappy dial-up, watching it over and over with my troupe of cousins, and immediately going outside (at night) with sticks to assume the roles of Quee-Gon (sic), Obi-Wan, Maul, and Sidious (though we didn't know who was who at that point). I remember getting bits of information on the Queen's ship, Watto, etc, as well as many fake but would-have-been-cool rumors. I don't remember piecing the story together before release, though since I listened to the soundtrack for about a solid month before the film came out I must have know what was coming. I remember being underwhelmed after seeing it in the theater - I didn't DISlike it so much as it didn't fit into what I expected from the description in the OT. Today, I appreciate many things about this movie that tie it to the 90s and the OT in ways the subsequent two films don't have - film grain, puppets, a Jedi who behaves like the Jedi in the OT, relatively low(er)-key CGI and camera moves... and even now, when I see production stills, or watch the trailer, I can feel what that time of anticipation and possibilities was like. (the summer the film came out was good too, if overly commercial - I remember hunting for the Pepsi cans with the characters on them)

 

Hey.. I completely agree! Believed I was the only one who had "feelings" for AOTC. It is funny how it can happen you know. I think it has much to do with the fact that i was at the perfect age when the movie hit the theaters(almost the same age as Anakin).
I to loved the "feel" of the movie. It was what captured me. It was really dreamy, and i loved it. Makes me nostalgic thinking about it.. Anyway, AOTC is the SW movie i have attached the most to. Even though its not the same as it used to be, like in my youth. But i definitely have an emotional conection to it.

And I consider ACROSS THE STARS to be John Williams' masterpiece.

QFT....

 

Hey thanks everyone for the brilliant answers. This is exactly what I was talking about!

Keep them coming!

 

Mine is ROTJ, hands down.

Like for many others, it's partly a question of age: it was the first one I actually remember seeing on the big screen on its original run - and the anticipation before I went to see it, I was so jealous of my friend who got the Luke Skywalker action figure before me and the black uniform was so cool, just blew me away. I'll never forget the pure boyish happiness I experienced when the Ewoks attacked to save the day and the heroes of their sticky spot. While age have changed my opinion about the Ewoks, I still consider it my favourite of the Saga, simply because it serves as as an excellent and epic ending of an excellent and epic space saga (really, endings are notoriously difficult to pull off, so many scifi/adventure movies are great...until a mediocre ending comes along to ruin the whole thing, so endings should not be underestimated). And you gotta lift your hat to the fact that the most epic (not the most well choreographed) fencing scene in the history of motion pictures occurs in a space saga (as opposed to medieval fantasy), nicely framed againt a space battle where we actually see commanders maneouvering capital ships (that doesn't happen in any other installment, alas).

 

Thank you, Danann

 

That is a very good question! Good idea, dc!
After pondering this for a couple of seconds, I arrive at the conclusion that Return of the Jedi is my Star Wars movie.

I was 3 years old when this film hit the cinemas for the first time, so I never had the chance to experience it then, but as I grew up, me and my older brothers would play with action figures and listen to Swedish audio tapes telling the stories of three great space adventure movies called "Stjärnornas Krig", "Rymdimperiet Slår Tillbaka" and "Jedins Återkomst".
Since the voices I heard on these tapes were Swedish, I just assumed that the films were from Sweden - but that's another story. My point is that the tapes and the action figures got me hooked on Star Wars. We had two versions of Luke - One from ANH, with a yellow(!) lightsaber built into his arm (I still think yellow is the coolest possible color for a lasersword). The other one was from ROTJ, with the all-black outfit and, I believe, a built-in blue lightsaber.
I loved both of those figures, but I was always partial to the black outfit - especially when considering the pictures of him in the ROTJ booklet that came with the audio tape. Black is, in my opinion, such a great color for sword wielding heroes (I wonder if I have ROTJ to thank for that). Luke also looked very cool battling Vader with his green lightsaber. Suffice it to say, Luke was my favorite character and his green lightsaber was my favorite from the trilogy.

I finally got to see these films in the early nineties and ROTJ probably remained my favorite (my memory is a bit foggy). Over the years, though, I have come to understand that many fans consider ROTJ to be the weakest of the OT episodes. Han should've been killed off, Ford wasn't into it a hundred percent, the ewoks sucked, the return of the Death Star was lame, yada yada yada.
I never stopped loving the movie, though. In fact, I feel very lucky to love this movie as much as I do, since so many fans (not necessarily the majority, but a vocal part of the fanbase)are having issues with it. My relationship with ROTJ feels like one of a kind and that makes it my Star Wars movie!





The return - it's great
/LM

 

Tuggback ftw...not...

 

The film formerly known as Star Wars.

Not only my first SW film, but my first film. Pretty hard to top that.

 

Revenge of the Sith. I remember recording the commercials on VHS and replaying them over and over again until the tape broke. I followed every news story, even if ROTS was only mentioned in a small portion. I checked TFN and SW.com every day for any updates on ROTS at all.

I ended up seeing ROTS 7 times in the theater and I loved it.

 

Probably TPM for me, even though it's not my favorite. That was one magical summer, and I had a blast.

I was 19 BTW.

 

Ah, that brings me back! Tuggback...
Are you Swedish by any chance, Danaan?





Chewie - he is Tugg
/LM

 

Yeah me too. And I was going through a bit of a quarter life crisis at the time,so I was able to empathise with him. That's why I was able to tolerate the anti-hero slant that Lucas decided to go with.

 

Yup. Listened to those same audietapes endlessly. Though I only had ESB and ROTJ...

 

Cool
That's funny, 'cause I still have the TESB and ROTJ tapes, but the ANH one has disappeared. Too bad - I really feel like listening to it sometimes





Listening - it's entertaining
/LM

 

Revenge of the Sith for me. I was just getting back into Star Wars by watching the other five films so I followed EP III until it hit the big screen. I got to see it on the big screen too, and what a magical experience it was!

 

Return of the Jedi was my first Star Wars movie to see at the outdoor theater back in 1983. I was 3 years old of course and the stuff from the movie that got me interested were Jabba, the ewoks, the rancor, the sarlaac battle and the final duel, and the biker scouts