Blue text (how very seventies) giving us an apposite time period and setting, a fade to black as the longest second imaginable plays out, then boom; a massive note plays and giant logo fills the screen. It's been almost forty years since Star Wars quite literally burst onto cinema screens, and in that time it's become one of the great modern myths - a story that transcends all the games, TV shows, comics, toys, lunchboxes and, yes, movies to become legend in its own right. There may have been slight dips in cultural dominance at points (the late eighties were a barren landscape of Ewok adventures and post-prequels things looked to have spiralled into over-cynicism), but Star Wars has never stopped being beloved - even if Disney hadn't bought up Lucasfilm in 2012, promising a whole new run of films (including the long-hyped sequel trilogy and a bevy of spin-offs), we'd have still been bemoaning endless Special Edition changes and debating tantalising minutiae. Now the Force has awakened, though, the future of Star Wars is brighter than Tatooine at midday, with a new movie planned for every year through to 2019 (and that's saying nothing of all the requisite tie-in materials). But, of the films released so far, which ones still hold up and which were clearly born of merchandising opportunities? Let's find out.
