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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2024

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  • More than I realized. As a kid, my favorite of the original trilogy was ROTJ. It had everything - an opening where the heroes got vengeance on a big slug, there was a dramatic-looking Death Star, speeder bikes, and force lightning.

    My father told me (years later), how much some folks hated it for some of the same things. Rehashing the Death Star, Han accidentally killing Boba Fett (this hyped up bounty hunter that in the previous movie was clever and even mouthed off to Vader himself), Ewoks being cuddly teddy bears with janky traps, Leia being yet another Skywalker out of nowhere…basically, a lot of the same goofy shit people railed on George for in the prequels (myself included: since these conversations with my dad came up because I was a teenager complaining about Jar Jar, Yoda ping ponging around, etc.).

    Later I saw that plenty of folks complained about ESB being moodier, the “No, I am your father” being a twist out of nowhere and dramatically undermining Obi-Wan’s character by his being dishonest. Some of the same “canon-breaking” retcons that we all complain about today.

    Granted…I still love ROTJ despite its flaws, and while I never enjoyed the prequels as much as a lot of folks, I find them endearing in an odd kind of way. The Sequel Trilogy less so, but there’s a few bright spots.

    Basically, I wonder what the reception of the movies would have been if we had the internet then, and especially if we had engagement-based algorithms driving things, which does such a great job of amplifying hate.