Ah, right on. I saw SW and ESB when they came out and Jedi never had the quite same impact on me save for a huge crush I had on Carrie at the time and the awesome battle at the end. I went through a phase when I was pretty disgusted with it after I heard about how much bigger the story was supposed to be but randomly enough the grim finale of RO helped me to just embrace ROTJ once and for all. Now I love the ease of which the characters achieved their goals and find the cheesy celebration to be a much appreciated payoff after RO/SW/ESB.
I first discovered
Star Wars going into the newsagent on the way home from infant school, as I always did to pick up the local paper for my parents.
There were a lot of kids inside and there was excitement over a new comic book...
I had no idea what Star Wars was but I got caught up with the excitement and did a rash thing and spent the newspaper money on the comic.
When I got home I was told off for not buying the paper. It was a tough time economically for my parents, so I was filled with so much guilt. I felt ashamed to read the comic, but I was fascinated by it. And completely hooked.
I eventually found a copy of the novel in a jumble sale, so I had colour photos to pore over.
With ESB I bought the novel through the school's book club, but didn't get to see the film in the cinema. Around that time I bought my first Kenner figure, Hammerhead, from the local toy shop that also did video rentals - back when videos cost their weight in gold.
The next day at school I swapped Hammerhead with a kid for a Vader and a Tusken Raider, because two figures seemed a better deal than one.
By 1983 things had turned round economically. The Early 1980s recession forced my parents to make a changes, and they went self-employed.
So the money was coming in and I got to see ROTJ at the cinema. This was my golden age for
Star Wars. All the toys and the elaborate displays in the department stores like Debenhams, with TVs playing footage from the film, and a guy dressed as Darth Vader signing autographs. Unfortunately it wasn't Dave Prowse as he signed them 'Darth Vader'.
It had been reported in the Eagle comic in the early '80s that Lucas was going to make a total of nine
Star Wars films. So I waited. And I waited. Reading and re-reading the EU novels, studying West End Games' SW RPG. And I waited some more.
Until 1999.
And...what did you do George? All those years for
that?
We entered the period that Obi-Wan might've called the "dark times".
Well, until the end of ROTS and the emergence of Vader again.
Compared to the Prequels TFA and TLJ feel like a return to form. Along with RO they have in them elements that bring me back to the films and the early EU.
But storywise the ST has gone off in a tangent with Han/Leia/Kylo that's at odds with where I wanted George's 7, 8 and 9 to go.