TGM

the demand was always there. Lucas was burnt out from Star Wars for the longest time. That's why we didn't get more movies sooner than we did.

RocShemp

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Guru Askew

As someone who was born in 1981 with no older siblings to give me residual '77 nerd feels I can say that nobody gave a crap out Star Wars before the "faces" release. The amp-up to the prequels is actually fascinating in its own way because you see LucasFilm rebuilding their empire piece by piece. They didn't come out swinging with a new Star Wars film in 1999.

Again, just excuses for killing the brand. It's funny how he's the hack to end all hacks when it comes to the PT until you address the nadir of the franchise and then he's the artist tortured and tormented by how to properly present his masterpiece.

However, there was still a lot of Star Wars media outside the movies.

Two flops. Droids only lasted a single season and Ewoks only two. The merch was an epic flop.

The Super Star Wars games were well-received as much for being high-quality games as they were for being SW games. It's not like it was in the PT days when SW games were practically their own genre. And the PC games fall into the same sweet spot of being inexpensive productions that cater to the die-hards as...

Probably the ultimate revisionism. The bar is simply so lo on sci-fi and fantasy novels that success isn't really that remarkable. It's the fish-in-a-barrel effect where the SW loyalists were largely the uber-nerds reading genre novels. It's still absurd to suggest that some nerds reading the Thrawn trilogy in the early 90s is an example of a successful series.

Same thing: you follow your audience and find that you can peddle your faux blockbuster to them on the cheap. I doubt Lucas was bragging to Spielberg about how many issues Dark Empire was selling when Spielberg was rolling around on his pile of JP money.

It's not much when you put it in the context of a decade. And yes, you can trade it all to Jedi. Lucas made the call to use his trilogy-ender as a backdoor pilot for his Care Bears-meet-Tolkein merchandising concept. Lucas is the one who OK'd shitty animated shows after the original Power of the Force line tanked because people didn't want Star Wars toys at the time without some kind of media tie-in. Jedi is a classic example of a meaningless and forgettable a movie everyone saw. The sudden disinterest in all things Star Wars is a better gauge of the world's reaction to that movie than the strong box office performance, and like it or not the world has collectively said "yes please" to just about every spinoff you can think of in the 16 years since TPM came out.

I don't believe it's an exaggeration to say that the Star Wars brand was 20 times stronger 5 years after "Revenge of the Sith" than it was 10 years after "Return of the Jedi."

Brack

But which movies do they like more? I bet the majority of SW fans and the general population alike enjoy the OT over the PT. And just because some cartoons on cable have done fine doesn't mean the "world" cares about them, but if they do it's because the Clone Wars was actually interesting or engaging enough to last several seasons, while those shows in the 80s and the Ewok movies were terrible. Jedi had nothing to do with what came later. And now that we know there's going to be no more prequels, there is excitement about the new movies.

Mike86

At the idea that the merchandise was an epic flop. Yeah, that's why companies kept churning out anything and everything Star Wars for years after Return of the Jedi and up to the Prequel Trilogy. Star Wars as a brand is easily one of the most successful film franchises ever, not sure what you're on to think otherwise. The cartoons were shitty and were flops yes, but that's because they overall weren't very engaging, and I will admit very aimed towards young kids. Those are hardly representative of the strength of the brand as a whole though.

mcnabb

I actually think you are correct on this matter, but that's just more of a fact that Lucasfilm didn't understand the market for SW in the late 80's (and many things in our society were just different then they are now), as they could have easily milked it then like they are doing now.

I can say this because I saw the original in 1977, so I saw every peak and valley of the franchise. WE all wanted more SW movies after 1983, (I wanted the ST and many of my friends wanted the PT first). I remember being really depressed after reading that there weren't going to be anymore SW movies made (I believe it was around 1987?).

It wasn't until the first Thrawn Novel in 1991, that Lucasfilm realized that there was still a market for SW. I am not an EU reader, but I still remember many of my friends loving the Thrawn Trilogy, as it was a bestseller.

Another thing that has changed since ROTJ was the home video market. Yes, the Faces VHS/Laserdisk Release in 1994 was a huge hit, but thats more of the fact that people were starting to collect movies instead of just renting them. My family bought a VCR in 1985, and in all honesty, I didn't buy a VHS movie to own until The Faces Set in 1994. And that was a lightbulb went off in my head, "Oh yeah, I can buy the movies I love instead of waiting for them on cable or renting them!" To buy a movie on VHS in the 1980's, was around $75.00 so no one ever did it.

Video games were also different when ROTJ came out. The home video market crashed around 1983/84 after the Intellivision and Atari bubble hit. Only Nintendo revived the home video game market in the late 80's, and then we saw 3 great SW games for Super Nintendo in the early 90's.

As for the Clone Wars Cartoons, that is also an effect on the cable TV market compared to 1983. I was one of the few people in my neighborhood who had Cable TV in the early 80's, as most eventually had it by the mid 80's. Back then you had to pay for the Disney Channel, so I had the basic cable lineup plus HBO. So there really weren't that many options if Lucasfilm decided to make a SW cartoon other then Saturday Morning Cartoons. The only cartoon was the Ewoks/Droids, and I believe they were standalone episodes?

Which leads to my point in that Lucasfilm could have done EXACTLY what they are doing now with SW in 1985 and it would have been just as successful. If he made 7,8,9 in the late 80's, had cartoons, videogames, books, etc, they all would have been eaten up by SW fans. It just took them until the early 90's to realize that people weren't sick of SW.

thebunk

I do not even know where to start with this post but I will give it a try:

- The statement "You're aware of the fact that people have known there would eventually be an Episode I, II and III based on the episode numbering used on Empire and the original film in 1980 and 1981 respectively, right?". Really? You really want to argue that point? Years of no releases and Lucas being addiment that he was not making anymore films and his story was done was enough evidence that there was no more SW. Going by the episode numbers is not enough evidence, Jesus.


- You are trying to compare two different eras of the franchise; one where the series is wrapping up with no MAJOR media being targeted to the mainstream (i.e. EU Novels, Comics and DROIDS are not mainstream vehicles) to a hype machine reving up to a continuation of arguably the most successful and beloved film franchise of ALL TIME (sorry Trekkie fans). You just cannot compare the two, I am sorry. And if you really need examples of Star Wars related merchandise\media released after ROTJ vs. pre PM I can do that but at the end of the day, we all know you will not change your mind.


- The statement "Star Wars was a phenomenon and Empire and Jedi were simply solid hits and by the time Jedi rolled around the series was yesterday's news" is Exhibit A of Internet revisionism. ROTJ was a massive hit and was not a bookend for fan boys becuase we were bored with the series. That makes no sense. People at the time were screaming for anythign "major" that was Star Wars related (i.e. new films, TV series, etc.). Again, EU novels were targeted at a specific targer market whereas a new Star Wars film (ala Phantom Menace) had WIDE mainstream appeal. Also leading up to the new Trilogy you had the "faces\THX remasters" then the Special Editions (with a wide roll out).

Post Jedi, there was still a ton of interest but with no new movies\spin offs, you can only create the same amount of toys (or slightly different versions) so many times. The brand did not die but people started to move away becuase theere was nothing new. I love the OT but you can only watch it so many times.

mcnabb

Exactly.

Here is a breakdown of Return of the Jedi's weekly box office as it was in the top 3 weekly grossing movies ALL summer.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...=starwars6.htm

It was #1 for 7 of its first 8 weeks from May to mid July. Then it was either #2 or #3 in weekly boxoffice from mid July to mid August. It stayed in theaters until January.

To give some context on another big franchise at the time: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was released on July 1, 1984, and was out of the theaters by July 22.

Return of the Jedi was in theaters and making money for 7 months. That's how mammoth the SW brand was back then compared to anything else.

Guru Askew

Its easy to say this as a generalization but the blockbuster-grade merch volume absolutely wasn't there from '84-'94.

Basically the "faces" release and the Power of the Force line relaunch in '95 was the beginning of a comeback. Then you had Shadows of the Empire in '96 which was almost like a test run for a movie marketing campaign. The SE's in '97. The PT in '99.

Mike86

That may be when it came back in full force but the brand has always been alive and well in some capacity since it came out. The faces release I agree was a big deal because it was the first time probably that a lot of casual fans were able to own them since the original VHS releases were likely too expensive and only the most hardcore fans bought them. Still though while some demand may have died off, which is fairly natural for any brand, especially when new product (aka films) aren't released there's always been Star Wars merchandise and as far as I can tell it sold to some extent or it wouldn't have continued being made. Let alone enough where people would care about it years later.

stvn1974

The two Ewok TV movies were better than the Anakin Adventures that were the prequels.

Draven

I would like to point out that the Thrawn trilogy of books sold 15 million copies. It was an extremely successful series.

Sean O'Hara

Heir to the Empire hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and all the books held spots on the list for months at a time. That's not just a success by the low standards of SF publishing, but by publishing in general.

Of course it was a decline from 1983 when the novelization of Return of the Jedi was the #1 bestselling novel of the entire year. Quite an accomplishment for a tie-in novel to a moderately successful film.

Guru Askew

So I'll concede this point: it's inaccurate to single '95 out as the true comeback year. I would not not be foolish enough to argue that HttE's success in 1991 did not get the ball rolling. I'm sure the release of that book was a big factor in the faces release and relaunch of Kenner's toy line.

That said: it's splitting hairs because it still leaves 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989 as a desolate wasteland. Now that's 7 years of a 38-year franchise (which is still a substantial chunk) but back then it was 7 years of a 13-year franchise and that's dismal. More than half of the life of the brand spent on plush Ewoks and a 4th-rate Marvel comic and abysmal animated cartoons. More than half the life of the brand where toys from failed spinoffs collected dust on clearance shelves. Does anyone remember the toys that came out when Kenner lost the rights before '95? The only Star Wars toys I remember seeing in store shelves were those pitiful bendy figures that some no-name company was offering.

Star Wars was yesterday's news for several years and a big part of that was the Jedi backlash. The perception that it was a weak ending was very real. I never doubted that it was a hit at the box office. There are several financial hits that aren't sequelized because the powers-that-be were smart enough to realize the demand wasn't there. Burton's Apes. The AvP movies. Batman & Robin. All profitable movies but all movies with serious problems.

As I mentioned before: the story that Star Wars has been an unstoppable juggernaut for 38 years is a better story AND it's shorter too. It just doesn't ring true. There aren't facts and figures that gauge disinterest in something or a preference for other properties but we all know that kids weren't bringing Star Wars lunchboxes to school and playing with Star Wars toys in 1987 and I actiallu think things would have been different had the final (at the time) film held up better in retrospect. But the movie itself is kiddie-oriented and cheap-looking and reuses several elements from prior films.

Lucas made a financially-successful movie that did not leave people dying for more.

stvn1974

The VHS sets of the OT were huge sellers. Jedi was not hated by most people at the time of it's release. If people didn't care for Star Wars anymore then the 1997 releases wouldn't have been so popular. The reason the series wasn't continued was that it ended with Jedi. That was the story that Lucas wanted to tell and he owned it. Now if Fox had owned Star Wars 100% then they probably would have kept making movies. We would be expecting Episode 24 this year.

The hatred/dislike of Jedi is revisionism. It reminds me of all the people who claim that their favorite Beastie Boys album has always been Paul's Boutique. The fact that only 12 people bought it before Check Your Head was released slipped their mind.

mcnabb

Return of the Jedi backlash had nothing to do with why the franchise took a hiatus in the mid/late 80's. Most kids my age (I was 10 years old at the time) LOVED Jedi in 1983, it was only when we started watching it on Cable and VHS in the early 90's is when we re-evaluated Jedi and Empire and Empire became everyone's favorite. Don't get me wrong, there were older fans who didn't like Jedi at the time, but TRUST ME, there was no backlash in 1983.

I can't stress enough how we wanted more SW films after 1983. The talk about the Sequel Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was going on til the mid 80's when we finally came to the realization that it wasn't happening.

As for action figures, you have to remember that nobody thought they had any value back then. My mom threw out all of my SW action figures in 1984, and I could have cared less at the time. Come to find out in the mid 90's that they actually had some value, so many people like me who have kept them or would have kept collecting. That is a big reason why there weren't a demand for them, or Lucas not realizing that there was a market for them in the mid 80's to keep producing.

thebunk

Well lets be a bit more specific.

First of all, other then a wiki page with no source links, I cannot seem to find any other mention of this though I will be honest, I googled for a few minutes.

Now lets assume that figure is correct. First of all, it says the combined series sold 15 million, which if you assumed that each person that bought one book, also bought the other 2 as well. Given that assumption, each book would have sold around 5 million copies.

Next (and again, cannot find any detailed information) the books were released in 1991, 1992 and 1993 respectively. So essentially they were all released over 20 years ago. If those figures are correct then the books took over 20 years to each sell 5 million.

Lastly, (and I preface this by saying that this is not a fair comparison), but ticket sales for the films were as follows:

- Star Wars: 162,827,328
- Empire: 95,078,587
- ROTJ: 92,994,057

So a little over 5% of Jedi tickets equated to the sale of each of the 3 books. Given that, do you think that books really kept the torching glowing bright for the franchise?


http://www.the-numbers.com/features/starwars.php

brayzie

Return of the Jedi is a fun movie. It's not as good The Empire Strikes Back but it has some great portions like the rescue of Han by Luke, and the final battle between Vader and Luke.

The flaws are the Ewoks which take up a big part of the movie, and the acting isn't as good as it was in the previous film.

Sean O'Hara

Yes, the late '80s were a Star Wars wasteland, but not because Jedi flopped and everyone hated it -- the Zahn novels wouldn't have been instant blockbusters if that were the case. Lucas got burned out during the production of Empire -- it went over budget, Kershner wouldn't listen to him and made the film far darker than Lucas wanted, and if it had been merely as successful as Jaws 2, Lucas would've lost his entire fortune -- and when it came time to do Jedi, he scaled everything back, hired a journeyman director he could control, and wrapped up the entire story in a single film. After that Lucas was content to sit back and produce disposable schlock like the Ewok films.


Dude, you were still shitting your pants when Jedi came out, and you expect us to give more credence to your analysis than the guys who actually remember opening weekend?

taffer

You can't really compare movie ticket sales to book sales.

500 billion trillion zillion people will go watch a Batman movie. Yet the Batman comics barely sell 100,000 copies per month.

The simple fact is that everyone loves movies, but yet few people actually like reading for fun. Reading for fun? is that nonsense. Who reads for fun?

The Thrawn trilogy was incredibly popular. Just because it didn't sell a zillion copies like the movies do means nothing. Comparing movie sales to book sales is comparing apples to oranges.

RichC2

A lot of people read for fun, but comics are still niche. I know a lot of people that follow the animated series, and movies, and everything else to do with comic book characters except read the comics.

Jedi being terrible as an overall consensus may be new, but rest assured some of us just never liked it.

thebunk

I agree with you that the popularity started to plateau and decline post Jedi but that was for all of the reasons that I and others mentioned up thread. Jedi did not cause that decline in popularity or interest and this is the type of revisionism I am talking about.

Is it the worst of the 3 OT? One can argue this (I likely prefer it to ANH in all honesty). Did it have the biggest shoes to fill in terms of following the best entry in the series (arguably yes). Was it perfect? Hell no.

All of that said, regardless of what you remember talking about on the playground in the mid 80s, it was not a big failure in fans eyes.

Draven

I was born in '76, so I'm right in the sweet spot for Star Wars. A big factor for me in the drop-off post-Jedi was simply growing up. I realize that there were plenty of adult fans too, but with no new movies coming out (and that was totally Lucas), it wasn't going to go anywhere beyond toys, comics and animated films and kids were growing out of it.

That "dead zone" was basically end of elementary into middle school for me...which is when I stopped playing with toys. Then when the rereleases started happening, I was in high school and college. Which is the perfect time to start getting back into something.

thebunk

Yes but few films are better then Empire. . . period (let alone sequals). Godfather 2 is the only other potential contender for best sequal of all time so it is unfair to compare Jedi (which yes, is a flawed film) to Empire.

thebunk

This is an on point post and I too was born in 76. Jedi has Leia in the gold bikini which awoken, um other interests in me.