Nerds like myself kept up with news about Star Wars, particularly a sequel. I remember reading that Lucas had ideas about subsequent movies, such as showing a flashback of how Obi-Wan Kenobi fought Darth Vader's dad on the edge of a volcano, and showing the Wookies' woodland home world, where he said they lived a lot like American Indians and he would show them playing drums and dancing around a fire.

We soon found that the sequel would be called "The Empire Strikes Back" (which I remember sounded really dumb to me) and they were filming parts of it in Norway to be on a snowy/icy planet. There had also been quite a bit of negative talk saying that in George Lucas's view, there were apparently no black people in the future. That was addressed with the hiring of the supposedly most handsome black leading man in show business at the time-- Billy Dee Williams-- as a new major character for the next movie.

In 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back came out, I was in high school and 15. I remember seeing that one in the afternoon right after our last exams in May, with my girlfriend at the time. She drove us there and was a little late, so we had to take the only seats left in the very front row. Another great flick, very entertaining. I remember the main discussion afterwards amongst a lot of our peers was whether or not Darth Vader was telling the truth or lying about being Luke's father.

The subsequent rip-off movies continued: such as Flash Gordon and Battle Beyond the Stars (basically The Magnificent Seven in space).

But the personal after effects post-movie were not so big to me, I was in high school and by that time into girls, cars, varsity sports and other stuff. I DO remember getting all the commemorative Star Wars glasses from Burger King that summer (which I still have).

When Return of the Jedi was coming out, I was finishing my freshman year of college. I looked forward to it, but more as a social thing than a major pop culture event. It came out right when I got home from that spring semester, and a large contingent of us (guys and gals) went and saw it at Lakeside Cinema, after having lunch and drinks at Spats in the Lakeside Mall (drinking age being 18 back then). Again, the movie was more of the same-- eye candy and fun to watch, but I felt ripped off re: the Ewoks. I knew from those earlier Lucas statements that this was supposed to be essentially the Wookie planet alluded to back after 1977, but figured they went with Ewoks for both (1) the cute factor, and marketing stuffed toys for kids, and (2) the cost factor-- 3 foot tall costumes are a lot less expensive than 7 foot costumes, and midget actors are a lot easier to come by than 7 foot Peter Mayhew types.