Contemporary network news stories covering the releases of the original Star Wars films. Among other things, it puts the lie to the urban legends that the movies were not well regarded or “for kids only” (look at them crowds!). By the release of ROTJ, you have full on cosplay folks.
I was five when Star Wars first hit the screen. It’s not a lie. It was definitely for kids. If you were a kid, you were definitely into it. If you were a teenager you were mostly into it. If you were an adult, you might be into it, but mostly because your kids were into it.
Where I came from, most adults didn’t give much a passing interest to the films. Critical reviews for it only embraced the films well after the OT and the release of the Special Edition. The movies originally came out to mixed reviews, and the industry in Hollywood didn’t embrace them as they do now. You notice this in the clips you shared when they talk about how the films didn’t have any kind of moral message (you know as well as I, that they do).
There had to be a massive sea change in Hollywood to embrace Star Wars as a franchise, and that didn’t happen until those kids and teenage fans began to make movies.
