How popular was Star Wars when Episode 1 came out in 1999?

Pretty damn popular, until people watched it of course.

massively popular, the lego sets were bad ass

I saw it in theaters. I started out excited and immediately felt betrayed by the lack of any real excitement or story.

it was pretty popular. i'm old and I was in high school when it came out and me and my friends went to the midnight showing of it on release night. It was fun staying up late on a school night. It was pretty popular but it was recognized a shitty movie.

That's the difference between then and now. We were all happy and didn't care if it was shit. people of all ages were seeing it back then

>Merchants purchase robot army to fight tariffs
>Empire purchase clone army
>Palpatine manipulates low IQ alien to use someone else's senate power
>Vote gives him emergency powers
>Becomes Emperor
>proxy way engages
Based but boring as fuck

it was so popular the main kid actor went mad never to be seen in the movies again

I was working at Taco Bell at the time. Got a free early showing. Based... until I saw it.

You can never go home.

Don’t remember, I smoked a lot of pot back then... I do remember the dreamcast game.

I was kid when the prequels came out so I loved them, but I watched Revenge of the Sith on TNT a few weeks ago and it was still pretty gud. They've definitely improved since the Disney abominations.

It's amazing that those machines are still on location selling sodas in 2019. There's another one in front of a firehouse.

Very popular.

The first trailer for Phantom Menace was the most downloaded video off the internet for a very long time. I think that record held until Youtube came out.

And it took almost an hour to download with my 56k modem.

>now THIS iS poD rACing

That was an amazing movie, 1000x better than any of the garbage reboots Disney has shat out in recent years.

why did i laugh at this stupid post?

I was a little kid and I loved it. Jar Jar Binks was my favorite character I thought he was so funny.
I wasn't very popular as a kid..

it wasnt

Hype was big. I mean double fucking light saber. Movie was full of boring shit and over the top cringe humor. The fight at the end was tight and the beginning was ok too.The games it spawnes were not bad at all. The biggest turd was episode 2. 1 was nearly a masterpiece compared to that. The new Disney ones are on the same level as 2 though. Absolute Disney-Schmutz.

I was 20 and it was a big deal - in other countries

The MSM said Japan had camped out for a week to be the first to see it in theatres - I live in New Orleans and it was just "packed" theaters the first week, just a popular movie weekend, no lines

Social media hadn't been conceived yet, the internet was wild west, people didn't know about kikes and msm manipulation yet. If that sounds outlandish? Consider this: television was analog and nobody in this country had more than 57 channels, absolutely all of them shit.

remember those little jar jar sticky tongue things?

it was the second coming of jesus. i had the queen amidala shampoo.

super popular. it was impossible to meet anyone alive back then who didn't see it in theaters. back then ppl actually all went to the theaters. now, not so much.

Massive. I remember my mum taking me when it released for my birthday. Got a heeeeap of toys too, they came with little platform chip things they could stand on. I had sooooo many Phantom Menace toys its insane.

Like waiting for an angel to descend from heaven, instead we got jar jar

I'm getting the Pedo vibe from Star Wars. Ever wondered why "the boy is too old"? I mean they say it in the old trilogy and the prequels.

kek, that 50 year old is prime to start special forces training.

I saw it as an elementary school kid and was severely disappointed, never watched star wars again

It was a fucking forced meme. There wasn't shit else going on at the time and the internet wasn't as big of a thing. It was pushed on every platform and everyone bandwagoned. Completely pozzed

...More time has passed since Episode 1 and now than time between Return of the Jedi and Episode 1.

This movie literally saved the Lego company from going bankrupt.

There was a lot of hype and (white) people actually had disposable income and young kids to spend it on. Media is so saturated with marketing right now, but I remember the lead up to this movie being wild. It was advertising on another level for its day and time. You couldn't go through the day without seeing merch or promotional shit everywhere. Radio? Check. Gas station? Check. Taco Bell? Check. Dudes slept outside of theaters just to get a chance to buy tickets. Massive letdown when the movie was a turd and the toys were a flop. Kinda felt like being thirsty with the ocean around you. If you we're young enough, the adrenaline rush was enough of a reward and you din't even know what a "shitty movie" was anyways. Comtech chips/readers were badass though. Opening sequence on the Trade Federation ship/ Qui-Gon cutting through the blast door is still kino.

Accurate

Pretty pretty

>The Matrix came out 20 years ago

s-shut up, user )-:

>tfw more time has passed since GTA Vice City than between 1986 and when the game was released

People were super hyped after the Darth Maul teaser. It went downhill from there once it came out. Still popular, but not OT cult status. The current trilogy is a steaming dog turd in comparison.

This. I think the games were actually significantly better than the film and most of what people remember.

I still like the pre-Phantom Menace games the best though. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II/ Mysteries of the Sith were both amazing.

I was a kid when the original trilogy came out. Everything has been a disappointment since then. In the 80's, humanity had a bright future. It was an awesome time. Now everything is vulgar, cynical, and shallow. Everything!

Star Wars is dumb and gay. It's a children's movie. But, it did give us this, which is the maybe the greatest thing to ever air on television. Smigel is an evil kike, but sometimes kikes are funny.

youtube.com/watch?v=1RGohIKxc9M

This sums up everything.

Even if you were racist back then, you somehow "knew" things would shape up and everything would smooth out. No. Nothing got "smoothed" out. It hurts.

I think that it was Jingle All the Way that got him.

The Earth moved that night. Film, media rollouts, merchandise, were never the same after that

>Be Gen Y Star Wars fan
>1997
>Star Wars special editions
>Wowee.png
>Excitement for Episode I off charts
>1999
>I liked it
>See it again
>Um, it's not bad
>See it again
>Rethink my fandom
>Get rid of all Star Wars merch
>I am free

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how did star wars survive the prequel movies but a few disney wars movie later its dying

the pod racing game for the n64 was based af. they should remake it