I was 18 and getting ready to go to college in a few months – remember it like it was yesterday. Being old(ish) is not such a bad thing – I saw men walk on the Moon on live TV, I saw STAR WARS when it opened, and I bought comic books for 12 cents. Good times.

30th anniversary for a film that has been "fixed" since 2004.

I was 15, and my friends and I hid in the washroom after the show and then sneaked in with the next showing. For a couple of Saturdays in a row.

I remember a friend in junior primary had to kind of drill the idea into my head that there was going to be another Star Wars movie. I don't think I'd quite got my head around the idea of sequels and Star Wars was such a total experience, that there just wasn't room in my head for a continuance. And then we got Empire. – Spoiled. Fucking. Rotten.

You do know that's Harrison Ford voicing that trailer right?

"we that saw it"?

This trailer makes me sad because it reminds me of a time when trailers actually got people excited without resorting to giving half the movie away. Think of how much you DON'T see here: No Yoda, no AT-AT, no space slug, no Executor, very little of Bespin and Dagobah. So you got to discover all of that in the course of the film, giving it that much more impact. In this day and age, they'd be milking all of that. They'd probably even show Han in carbonite.

Incidentally, if you have Spike HD, they're going to be showing the original trilogy (special editions, I believe) in HD starting early Saturday afternoon.

While my brother and I were standing in line waiting to buy tickets during the first run of ESB, some jackass ahead of us was loudmouthing about how "Lando Calrissian gets his head cut off". It was fail. 😀

Amen, Steven A. Amen

I was 12, and Empire was the first film (and one of the few I ever got to see) on a full theatre screen. Watching those Star Destroyers slowly lurking past as the Falcon zipped through the asteroid field blew my little mind — and still does today.

I wasn't born yet, but I'll always love Empire the best. The saddest thing is talking to someone who calls themself a ST fan and citing Return of the Sith as their favorite movie.

/sigh

This movie truly is a bonafide CLASSIC on all levels and ushered in the whole "Cliffhanger" genre.. Back then, when you saw the end of EMPIRE, you were stuck waiting 3 years to see the next one and how it all fell together.. "Was he or wasn't he Lukes Father?" was a big deal back then.. We didn't have the internet to SPOIL everything.. We had STARLOG Magazine to throw out tidbits here and there that included the "Blue Harvest" gimick they used while filming JEDI in Arizona or something to that effect.. In the end, looking back on the whole thing now that I'm 44, I really wished George Lucas would've left well enough alone with all the tinkering bullshit.. I'd love to still have a VHS copy of EMPIRE that's unaltered before Lucas through CGI in it to make it less enjoyable and MORE noticeable to George.. Fuck

An original bootlegger, I saw it at the drive in my first time, took my cassette recorder and some extra batteries. I listened to that audio tape every night that year when I went to sleep. I can still do a pretty good Taun Taun imitation.

"This movie truly is a bonafide CLASSIC on all levels and ushered in the whole "Cliffhanger" genre…"

Actually, the cliffhanger was a staple of early serials (like Flash Gordon) of which the Star Wars films are but an homage. Lucas didn't invent it, he just brought it back. Take a gander at the old Buster Crabbe serials and it's plainly obvious what Lucas grew up on.

I miss the old Starlog. I remember staring for countless hours at the stills they'd publish for upcoming movies like Star Wars and The Thing and wondering at what they could be about.

Awesome!! I remember seeing that trailer in the theatre — this really takes me back.

Yes, those were good times — back when there was no Internet and hence no spoilers. Nowadays someone has already read a stolen script and posted about every single plot point months before the movie comes out.

ESB is the greatest Star Wars movie, and also the greatest sequel in movie history (although Wrath of Khan comes close). How is it so superior? Oh let us count the ways:
1) Vader is at his peak of evil awesomeness, killing two dudes with his force suffocation.
2) The Hoth snow battle!
3) The Millenium Falcon chase after the Hoth battle is epic, never to be equalled in any other SW movie. Asteroids!
4) Yoda was hilarious and compelling. And somehow Frank Oz was off his game in ROTJ. This movie has the best Yoda of them all.
5) All the settings in ESB were completely new. Every other SW sequel had at least one reused setting.
6) The revelation that Vader is Luke's father was easily the best plot twist in an otherwise uninventive series. ROTJ paled in comparison with the "twins" revelation.
7) The Empire theme is the coolest SW music of all. John Williams is the man and this film proves it.
8) The light saber duel in this one is surpassed only by the Darth Maul duel in TPM. Again, Vader simply ruled.
9) The Executor was the coolest ship in the entire Star Wars trilogy.
10) Boba Fett was excellent in this film. It's sad that Lucas went bat shit insane and decided to kill off his second most menacing character by having a blind Han Solo accidentally press some button on Fett's rocket pack. There's no such bs in ESB.
11) ESB had the best character development of all the SW films. As one dimensional as the characters all are, ESB made them the best they could possibly have been.

I'm sure I could go on and on. The point is that ESB is still fresh. When I watch the DVD three decades later, this film comes the closest to generating the original excitement I felt as a kid as I watched this masterpiece for the first time.

Lucas, you fool, it was all down hill from ESB.

I was 4 and this was the first movie I saw in a theater. What I remember most is the Hoth sequence and Yoda. I also remember being absolutely terrified when Luke walked into that tree/cave and confronts "Vision Vader" and hacks his head off. According to my Grandmother, who took me to see it, I was so excited for the movie to start that I was bouncing in my seat and that when it started I didn't move an inch. This movie changed my life. The cool thing about that is that I'm not the only one.

oddly enough, this flick was my introduction to star wars. I saw this, the first time in like the late 80's on showtime when they used to show the star wars movies but they only showed the last two. i didn't see new hope until it came to vhs in the original trilogy box set. i've only grown to appreciate it in time now having a firm grasp of the series. it changed the rules a had the heroes lose then added salt on they wound by blood relation. also i think it has the best score throughout the series.

Deadeye I agree with how close Khan and Empire rank in terms of great sequels, though I feel Khan was better. I saw all three of the original trilogy when they first came to theatres. I had the bubblegum cards for Empire, and I remember for Christmas one year my folks scrounged up enough money to buy me the AT-AT, so I know how David Oliver felt having such an awesome toy to play in the snow with. My only sad memory of that was my snowtrooper figure getting lost in the snow and having to wait until Spring to find it again…

LOVING the scene with Luke about to French the living shit out of Leia. (that'd be Leia his sister – funny that didn't make off the editing floor). And the chinless one SWEARS he had it "all planned out" from the beginning? Sure.