WI Empire Strikes Back was really bad?

Another Star Wars thread but this one is different enough to be worth posting.

There have been "no Star Wars" threads, but what if "Star Wars" came out as the same move and to the same reception as IOTL, and then the sequel was done, and it was terrible. Does this have as big an impact on popular culture as no "Star Wars"?
 
i've wondered a bit about this. if it were, it would probably go down as being a bit like Batman Forever, being widely disliked (but not necessarily hated, in contrast to Batman & Robin) but successful enough to warrant a sequel. but who knows what effects a failure of Empire Strikes Back would have on Return of the Jedi?
 
i've wondered a bit about this. if it were, it would probably go down as being a bit like Batman Forever, being widely disliked (but not necessarily hated, in contrast to Batman & Robin) but successful enough to warrant a sequel. but who knows what effects a failure of Empire Strikes Back would have on Return of the Jedi?

I think by then there was enough momentum that Lucas would have closed out the IV, V, and VI trilogy. Regardless of how bad Episode V turned out to be, I think people would want to see loose ends tied up although it is possible things end with that with the whole trilogy kind of ending with a general view that it was a lot of squandered potential. I imagine in this universe, a popular topic on alternate history discussion threads would be what if the sequels to Stars Wars Episode IV had continued with the same level of success.
 
I think by then there was enough momentum that Lucas would have closed out the IV, V, and VI trilogy. Regardless of how bad Episode V turned out to be, I think people would want to see loose ends tied up although it is possible things end with that with the whole trilogy kind of ending with a general view that it was a lot of squandered potential. I imagine in this universe, a popular topic on alternate history discussion threads would be what if the sequels to Stars Wars Episode IV had continued with the same level of success.
it's also still entirely possible that a more distant sequel/prequel/spinoff/remake would be done later on with the idea of "doing it right". after all, the Donner Superman series got several poorly-received sequels and then much, much later they got another one, and then a remake. admittedly, Superman has much more of a legacy than Star Wars does both IOTL and ITTL, but i think the point is valid. it would probably be that there's more than one accepted canon of Star Wars ITTL similar to different adaptations of a character, where OTL's Original Trilogy is called the Lucas Trilogy and then, a couple decades later (let's say on the same timeframe as the Prequels) a remake is made where it's named after it's main director/creative input. but it probably wouldn't be nearly as prolific as IOTL without as big an expanded universe. characters mainly known from the EU/Legends such as Thrawn wouldn't exist.
 

samcster94

Banned
i've wondered a bit about this. if it were, it would probably go down as being a bit like Batman Forever, being widely disliked (but not necessarily hated, in contrast to Batman & Robin) but successful enough to warrant a sequel. but who knows what effects a failure of Empire Strikes Back would have on Return of the Jedi?
I think ROTJ would be made to fix the flaws this Empire had. This alt ROTJ would be Ewok-Free.
 
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