Star Wars. When it was first shown, was anyone so into the plot and drama that they actually gasped at that “I am your father” line? I guess it was supposed to be some dramatic reveal, but did anybody really care?
Good god yes. I was 12 years old and saw ESB the day it came out, and the entire theater was in shock at that line. Here’s this incredibly evil villain, fighting with the incredibly good hero whose father he murdered, and Vader reveals that he’s actually Luke’s father. Right after amputating his saber hand at that. I think everyone watching the movie felt as betrayed as Luke did.
I’m guessing the OP was an adult when Star Wars came out, because there was an entire generation who was like this in the theater when Empire came out.
I was guessing the other way - he’s young enough that he grew up in a culture where everyone knew Vader was Luke’s father, and it was no big deal.
Not just shocked, we were all convinced he was lying. After all, he’s the villain, why believe anything he says? There was also constant discussion on who The Emperor was, who Boba Fett was, and who the “another” Yoda spoke of could be. And all we had to discuss it with were our friends, or the letters page in Starlog magazine.
Who was more shocked? The audience in the Empire theaters witnessing the Vader reveal or the audience in the Jedi theaters realizing that Leia had frenched her brother?
I was 15 when ESB came out; I’d seen Star Wars at age 12, and was a huge SW fan from that point forward…and, thus, I was eagerly awaiting the sequel. Though I didn’t see it on opening day, I went with some friends maybe a week or so after it opened. The spoiler hadn’t yet been widely spread, and we were all absolutely shocked at Vader’s pronouncement.
I remember the four of us, riding our bicycles back home from the theater, debating whether we thought Vader was lying or not: we were all pretty sure that he was lying, in his effort to seduce Luke to the Dark Side.
Alan Dean Foster, the guy who wrote Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye was pretty shocked.
Did anyone back then ever discuss the cave on Dagobah? Like, why would there be a strong dark side presence on Dagobah, conveniently right next door to Yoda’s house? I get why it’s there thematically, but what were the in-world hypotheses you all conjectured back in 1980?
Right. It never occurred to me that there was emotional depth to a space opera that was essentially a big buck remake of the old Saturday serials.
Probably, but I don’t remember that coming up in my own discussions. I’m still not entirely clear what was going on with that cave, I think it’s deliberately ambiguous.
I assumed that Yoda built his house there because of the cave.
Why would he do that?
In Timothy Zahn’s EU novels, Luke had a theory that Yoda lived next to the cave because it helped hide him from the Emperor and Vader so they couldn’t detect him through the Force - like a positive & negative charge close to each other have a very weak electric field at a distance.
I think maybe you’re forgetting or at least greatly playing down the insanely huge cultural impact Star Wars had and how that carried over into anticipation for Empire.
We saw it on opening day at the theaters at the big Schaumburg mall. They had characters in stormtrooper costumes; it was a big deal. Yes, the audience gasped at that line.
Going back to work the next week, one of my coworkers days later said it was such an amazing movie. “Wow! I was surprised that Darth Vader was Luke’s father!” This was in front of a bunch of people who hadn’t have the chance to see the movie. They were pissed!
Thanks for that. IMHO, I was more interested in a circa 1980 explanation. Like what GuanoLad and kenobi_65 mentioned: how would a group of kids riding their bikes back home after seeing it be explaining it.
Honestly, we didn’t talk about the aspect of their being a Dark Side nexus near Yoda’s home; it never dawned on us that that was interesting or noteworthy. I chalk it up to being shallow 15-year-olds. 
As it was, we didn’t really understand the entire scene in the cave at that time, and we were actually surprised when Yoda scolded Luke for “your failure in the cave” – we thought he’d somehow triumphed over a shade of Vader or something.
Seeing a promo of the latest SW product made me wonder just how many movies and tv shows, and other media forms there are of that universe. I wiki-ed it and it was overwhelming.
I was the perfect age when Star Wars came out. I would have been completely shocked by the reveal if the asshole down the street didn’t spoil it for me. I had never heard the term spoiler yet but someone got me with one. Even without the surprise Empire was one of the best things that ever happened to me at the time.