re: .

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oh how I wish I could have seen these movies on the big screen.

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Well, since that was my generation's "coming of age" - film-wise, I can tell you it was magical. People clapped and cheered at the end in 1977. People left and immediately got in line for tickets to see it again. The average television set in the U.S. was probably a 21" tube model, with a few 25s out there, a few custom bigger, and a handful of projectors. There just weren't surround sound systems in home theaters at that point. For that matter, "home theaters" didn't really exist in any appreciable numbers, outside of the very wealthy. Elvis Presley would famously rent out the entire cinema at midnight to watch a film with his posse.

So, I can say, with no exaggeration that blueboy's position that Star Wars (not Empire) was a seminal film in the history of the medium - that much is definitely true. There are 2 film periods - before Star Wars and after. It completely changed the way all action-oriented films (not just Space Opera/SciFi/Fantasy films, but virtually all big budget action films) were produced, cast, filmed, marketed (co-marketed) and promoted. The serial as the rule, not the exception started with this film. Just a number of things, co-branding, product partnerships, toys, all of those modern practices trace to this film (for good and bad).

And it was that visual/aural spectacle of the first film that started it all.

(Doesn't change the fact that Empire is the better film, from purely an art/literary standpoint, but also a grand spectacle in its own right. It is merely a darker more reality-grounded story, with more emotional response for the average viewer.)