Thanks to the alphabetic character archive of an old scifi mag , we can get a coup d’oeil into how the nascent Star Wars fandom reacted to the shake - ups of The Empire Strikes Back . Perhaps unsurprisingly , the reactions were mixed .
Back in the pre - internet days , it was n’t as easy to pull the wholeOld Man Yells at Cloudroutine when a piece of pop culture had you down . For many scifi fans , powder store were the way to go . book like Starlog had missive column where they release words straightaway from the fans , giving readers a glimpse into the dark , riotous mind of fandom . They were a pugnacious equivalent to internet forums , fundamentally , with less meme and more civilised salutation .
Fortunately for us , Starlog is digitally archived on archive.org , and the writers at A Critical Hit were genial enough to hoard some of the responses to The Empire Strikes Back in Starlog ’s 1980 offspring . How did fans react to the twist and turns of the film , and peculiarly the revelation that Luke Skywalker ’s dear old dad was Darth frickin ’ Vader ?
Well , there ’s demurrer , of course , good manners of one Robert L. Beedy - Scarola :
Is Luke concern to Vader ? Most call back so now that Vader came right out and say it . Well , I say , do you believe everything you hear ? Vader may have lied just to draft Luke to his side . Vader would then dispose of Luke once he got what he wanted .
Dissatisfaction , too , via Sean Bernard :
I know they require to leave something to settle in the other sequels , but they left a trivial too much . For instance , Han Solo ’s predicament . The movie should not have stop until Han was either killed by Boba Fett or Jabba or rescue by Lando Calrissian or Chewbacca , the former , preferably . Also , the circumstances of Bespin is not tell . Was it taken by Lando ’s troop , taken by Imperial troops or destroyed by Vader ? I care Lando Calrissian and Billy Dee Williams was very respectable play the part .
You ’re right about Lando , Sean . You ’re ripe about Lando .
And , of course , there was merchant marine .
Quoth one Carol Kane :
C’m on Leia , why do n’t you take a smell around ? Ca n’t you see what Luke is up against ? You could have a “ nice guy ” like him . Instead , you are turning your back on him . block that it was Luke that saved you from consume your atoms scattered throughout the galaxy . blank out that it was Luke , and not Han Solo , that wanted you rescue from the Death Star custody area . But you do n’t need to remember all that , Leia . As long as hot - lips Han is around , who need Luke anyway ?
H - raging - lips Han ? I see . Also , can you suppose what the internet would have been like if it had been around when Return of the Jedi came out and drop that ship in the most clumsy way imaginable ? Twitter would ’ve been unusable for a month .
I really like this coup d’oeil into fandom history — there ’s even more atthe link — for the way it shows how our fandom , for all its difference , is n’t that changed in centre from what came before . It ’s also comforting , in some strange way , to sleep together that the backlash to The Last Jedi is n’t unprecedented . Though , fortuitously , Starlog does n’t record much of the shouting .
[ A Critical Hit ]
disneyEmpire Strikes BackLUCASFILMStar war
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