bluetoast

Basically I'm talking about the period between a little after Jedi and up to the re-release of the original movies on VHS ("for the last time"), right before the whole Shadows of the Empire media blitz and the Special Editions came out.

I know that the CBS/FOX videos came out in the late 80's, and the nerdy books were still coming out, and maybe a re-release of the movies. But did the hype taper off after Jedi was out of theaters? It seems like a revisionist thing that people really expected prequels during this time (especially as opposed to sequels), but I know Lucas publicly talked about the idea of them in 1990.

PatD

I'm not sure, I was caught up with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and to a lesser extent Deep Space Nine and Voyager during a significant part of that.

My Other Self

Well, I was always a fan in the late 80s/early 90s before the re-releases. I didn't really know anyone else that was, though. Then again, I don't really know anyone in real life that is, either.

I don't recall the abundance of merchandise, though. I think it was 1995 when the "Power of the Force" line of action figures were released, and I recall going to Toys "R" Us and collecting them. I didn't have any of the figures from the 80s since I wasn't born until 1986.

Paul_SD

After Jedi it was yesterdays news for about ten years. Too many other properties were new and exciting (for kids) ike Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters and then Batman, TMNT and Power Rangers...
It got a little bump in '87 because of the anniversary year, but I don't think the Marvel Comics were still getting published at that point.
The Zhan series of books were the first time I heard people excitedly talking about new SW material. That seemed to coincide with the resurgence before the release of the SEs.

But that's just the way I remember. I wasn't really looking for new SW stuff in the wake of Jedi.

Jcheckel

From what I remember, toys, books and other merchandising pretty much died off around 85. Things started to pick up in 91 with Dark Horse's Dark Empire, then things exploded with the Zahn books in 92.

JasonF

That's more or less my recollection. But I also remember that in the early 90s, when stuff like the Dark Horse comics and the Zahn books and games like X-Wing and Rebel Assault started coming out, people my age (late teens) went pretty nuts for them. Not everyone our age, of course, but there was a lot of pent up demand for Star Wars stuff.

And I remember in my first year of college (1992-1993), we got our hands on a projector that could take an input from a VCR and did a marathon of all three movies in one night. That doesn't seem so exciting these days of home theaters, but back then, we were used to watching on a 19" CRT, so it was amazing to see these films projected to 6 feet high on the wall.

The Antipodean

Less of it. I was 12 when Jedi came out and while the action figures and Marvel comics continued on for a few years after, by about 1987 or 88 it felt like Star Wars was "done." Remember, kids, this was in the misty pre-internet age and fandom wasn't quite so overt, even home video releases were pretty darn sporadic in the 1980s, so until around 1997 or so Star Wars kind of became a "cult" thing for most of the avid fans who were a bit more obsessed than the general public. I know some people read the books/comics that continued on the stories but it was definitely the most fallow the SW franchise has ever been.

But the interesting thing was that in 1997 when the special editions came out it was like a huge pent-up demand just EXPLODED -- everyone I knew suddenly remembered how much they loved SW as kids and I remember a huge group of us (I was just out of college by then) went to a theatre for the Special Edition opening and it was like a carnival -- suddenly it was cool to admit you were a Star Wars geek again.

Michael Corvin

This exactly. Followed by Super Star Wars on SNES('92) and Kenner's relaunch of the action figure line in '95. I'd say Dark Empire, Zahn, Kenner & the video games are the four pillars that put SW back on the map.

SW was basically dead between Jedi and Dark Empire.

hasslein

That was the incubation period where original fans were allowed to breed and double the size of the cult.

PhantomStranger

Nonsense, Star Wars was still a huge presence in the culture after the Original Trilogy ended. There is a reason people were so excited to see it re-released in 1997. It basically became a cherished part of the culture, from the continuing presence of the toys to the hopes we'd get another movie.

Artman

This. I played the hell out of those Super SW games. (beat them again the night they became available on the Wii) In the mid-late 80's for me it was the Droids / Ewoks cartoons, and cassette tape books that kept SW going for me.

Once I found out about the new action figures in 95... and the VHS "one last time" releases (who could've guessed they really weren't lying!") I was hooked. "Just when I thought I was out.... they pull me back in!"

Josh-da-man

Star Wars, as a franchise, was pretty much dead after "Return of the Jedi" came out.

The only Star Wars merchandise that was really available was the Marvel Comics series, and that ended around 1985 or 1986 due to a lack of interest.

Star Wars still had fans during that time, but there wasn't any kind of organization or merchandizing push going on.

And then, there was basically nothing until around 1992 when Dark Horse released their "Dark Empire" series and Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" novel came out. That really opened up the floodgates, though, and Dark Horse started churning out Star Wars comic books right and left, more and more novels followed, video games were made, "Shadows of the Empire," and, ultimately, the release of the Special Editions in 1997.

dan30oly

The Star Wars franchise was dead until George Lucas was able to create a new iconic film for release in 1999 creating new iconic characters, the likes of which no one had previously imagined before.

No one who had seen the OOT had imagined Anakin Skywalker as a young boy.
That was a genius idea.

Watto and Jar Jar was movie magic on screen.

The chemistry between a 15 (?) year old queen and a 6 year old child wasn't at all controversial the way Lucas portrayed it.

However, the less said about the podrace the better.

Guru Askew

It really was in a sad state between ROTJ and the '95 rereleases, no matter what anyone says. The video games were good but there were plenty of good games around back then on PC and SNES. Aside from that you had two failed animated shows, two awful Ewoks telefilms and a bunch of comics and paperbacks, and it doesn't take much to get the die-hard nerds into comics and cheap sci-fi paperbacks.

Shadows was really a turning point because they used marketing to make it an event vs. just counting on an ever-dwindling audience.

Supermallet

What's funny is that looking back, Dark Empire was almost as bad as the prequels, and the Timothy Zahn books were just ho-hum, and they were basically the best of a bad bunch. However, since SW fans were starved for new material, we ate it up.

Dr. DVD

I think it was the Zahn stuff that started to re-kindle the interest, then in '95 we had the re-issues and news of the S.E.s, then after that it exploded.

Rob V

How these two fine gentlemen didn't get nominated for an Oscar is beyond me.

There was always SW mania or a want for more SW material but the internet was in its infancy in the early 90's and we really only had the books and some decent video games... now it's almost too saturated. My daughter mentioned that popular Disney online game (Club Penguin) is getting a SW over-haul... is that necessary?

Oliver Clothesoff

I was a senior in high school when the first Zahn book was released - my friends and I went nuts for it. We were Star Wars maniacs and had been salivating for any new material, but outside of us I don't think there was much interest. But I went to school with a bunch of kids who made fun of me in 6th grade for having a GI Joe collection and reading Batman comic books...

BrewCrew

Well there was interest during this time period but definitely no mania because there wasn't enough new stuff that came out before the Zahn stuff and Dark Empire and the new stuff that came out was Ewok crap. Around 1990 the original trilogy was released as a box set and that was pretty popular and I would have viewing with friends but it was pretty slim pickings. I remember going to KB and Toys R Us in 1989 and even 1990 and seeing old ROTJ/POTF figures that never sold. Apparently the Rancor Keeper wasn't real popular.

wishbone

A friend's brother showed us some Star Wars toys (B-wing, Y-wing, etc.) he bought at yard sales in the early '90s. I imagine stuff like that would be a rarity at yard sales today.

Michael Corvin

I got an army of Royal Guards because they were so cheap at that point.

I remember Suncoast also had a line of 9" vinyl figures (I have most of them) but don't recall the year those started popping up. I want to say around the time of the OT VHS release.

I bought anything and everything I could get my hands on during that down time. I think Star Wars Micro Machines hit around DE and Zahn's trilogy. I have a bunch of the Star Wars Bendems too. I think those predated the Kenner relaunch. They are hideous.

GoldenJCJ

I spent those years enjoying the trilogy and wearing out all the Star Wars toys I had (which was a shit ton). I took them out of the original packaging, enjoyed the hell out of them and never regretted it! I also spent a lot of time talking possible sequels with my friends. I never got into the books but as a boy I remember buying the OOT on VHS (individual releases) and planning "sick" days from school so I could watch the. All back-to-back-to-back, I believed I was the only one who ever thought to watch them one after the other like that!

Looking back on it, it was definitely a "be careful what you wish for..." situation. Imagining what a sequel/prequel would be like was infinitely better than what we actually got ( regardless of the movie magic Watto and Jar Jar would eventually create :roll eyes.

milo bloom

85-95, not so much. I was born in 74, so of course I grew up with the trilogy, all the toys, read along books, clothes, etc. It did taper off. I remember the toys being marked down to clearance prices, there were no books or anything. During these years my interest in Star Trek rocketed, as TNG was on TV (also books, comics, toys) and there were several of the TOS movies released also. I still had tapes of the SW trilogy, and watched them on a fairly frequent basis alongside the Star Trek, but among any friends that were into that kind of thing, Trek was the thing. Star Wars had already had its time in the sun.


But the Zhan trilogy was a massive thing. All kinds of new toys, books, etc. And I was into all of it. I actually didn't discover Dark Empire till a few years later, but I loved it then and I love it now. I have the TPBs, the sourcebook, the audio drama and several of the action figures. I never camped out for any of the movies, but if they made a direct to DVD animated version of the DE trilogy, I would camp outside of Best Buy to buy it first day.


ETA: the thought of prequels never, ever crossed my mind until the day they announced they were making them. I was well aware of ANH being the 4 episode in the story, but I simply didn't care to know the story. I wanted sequels, and I maintain to this day it would have been better for Lucas to have done the sequels first while Hamill,Fisher,Ford,et al, were a little younger and then do the prequels since they required recasting anyways. That day the sequels were announced, I had an incredible feeling in my heart, one I hadn't had for Star Wars since the OT.

Why So Blu?

Nope. The internets changed all of that.

Mabuse

Was there still Star Wars mania between 1985-1995?

I don't know if "mania" is the right word, but that is when star wars was cool. Before the prequels and the new generation of fans made it worse than Trek.