Yup. That's one of the cool things I liked about Empire. The first one was a good intro..the third..closure. But the second one had so many mysteries and interesting developments and new characters...the bounty hunters..introduction of yoda, the emperor, lando, the fact that vader's his dad.
There was just so many cool elements. I can't even imagine what it would be like to go back to the preinternet days and watching that movie and having to wait 3 years to find out what happened.

To me, all the various sets/setting in ESB make it so great. The huge differences between Hoth, Dagobah, Cloud City, Vader's stark white inner sanctum area, etc make this film so visually interesting and lend it a truly sprawling, epic feel.

Plus nothing cutesy... no ewoks or Jar Jar

Plus...Snowtroopers! And Tauntaun guts! Mostly Snowtroopers.

The Klansmen of the SW universe.

Yeah, we prefer uglier aliens. Especially when they look like they'd make a nice expensive dinner at a fine seafood restaurant. Pass the digitally enhanced melted butter!

There were many mail-in figure offers, starting with Boba Fett and including Admiral Snack Bar:

http://theswca.com/images-speci/mailaways/

When Boba arrived, it came with a little apologetic slip of paper that said if you were disappointed you could exchange it for any other figure.

I have a vivid memory of when my friend got his Bossk (we had no idea who it was going to be, it was a "mystery figure" with no picture) and brought it to the playground. We were floored. A lizard alien dressed like an X-Wing pilot!

I also remember writing a letter to Kenner asking them if they would ever sell replacement accessory packs, and they just sent me a full set of every accessory, free.

Ah, memories:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yU_6kuDFEEM

That music still haunts my dreams.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WPFW1SC_McY&feature=related

(Yes, once upon a time, Zuckuss was named 4-LOM and vice-versa.)

Speaking of SW memories, on the site that now houses Oracle's headquarters, "Marine World / Africa USA" once resided. Lucasfilm borrowed one of their elephants to be the Bantha in the original SW. The elephant's Bantha costume was displayed outdoors (as "Bantha Elephant" LOL) on an elephant-sized frame. It was pretty cool but it didn't exactly age well, being left outdoors like that. It came down before the park moved to a different location. I doubt if it survived. I miss clunky pre-CGI effects sometimes.

Nooooooo.....stop cutting the packaging!!!

The kid in the second commercial looks familiar...

I have fond memories of the 4-lom. Such a weird character.

Did anyone read the David Gerrold book "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" (I think that's what it was called) that came out between "Star Wars" and "Empire?" It introduced a sagely female character named Halla, and IIRC, included some romance between Han and Leia (who was not revealed to be anyone's sister.) I haven't read it since 1978 or whatever but as I recall it wasn't very good, and has probably long since been dismissed from the "official" Star Wars universe. It was the first of the "sequel" books though. Glad it wasn't considered for "Empire." One of my main memories of "Empire" was waiting in a HUGE line for four hours to see it at the Northpoint in SF. My friends and I didn't mind. Mom wasn't so crazy about the long wait.

I'm not sure if its the lack of computer graphics decades ago, but how did R2D2 lose it's ability to fly and all that craziness it could do in the first three episode movies?

Wasn't that Alan Dean Foster? (how many brain cells am I wasting holding on to that stupid tidbit?)

The flying R2D2 in "ROTS" was one of the stupidest of countless Stupid Lucas Tricks in the prequels. Maybe not as bad as Midichlorians or Jar-Jar's toilet jokes though. I think if they wanted him to be able to fly in 1977, they could have done a decent job without CGI. At that point they were still thinking more of the droids in "Slient Running" that inspired R2D2, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

R2 never flew and was never meant to fly.

Yes, mea culpa. As you can see it's been a long time since I've read '70s Science Fiction. Like ... since the '70s.

I think I donated those brain cells to useless Bantha Elephant trivia.

Yep....I remember that he also did the "Aliens" novelization ('rents wouldn't let me see it, so I had to read the blasted book).

I was watching some of those Kenner commercials. Shit. Great memories. The Death Star, Tatooine Escape Pod, Cantina and Hoth Playsets ruled. I seem to remember getting a ghetto Bespin cardboard playset you could only get through a catalog...maybe Penney's?