Anybody could tell that as soon as they started watching it. It was fine for what it was, and I don't know anyone who thought it was, or needed to be, deep and serious. I guess Harlan Ellison was just being Harlan Ellison.
I’d bet Ellison thought, deep down, as Lucas both won his intended audience and most of the world in one film, that Lucas had not “paid his dues” in any meaningful way. Here’s a guy who took all of the hardware and far-flung worlds of science fiction and put them in a fantasy story that would generate staggering sums of money and good will. Whose characters would become iconic and even mythic overnight. Ellison grasped. Lucas spun.
Who gives a Schiff what an envious nobody says ?
“I don’t know anyone who thought it was, or needed to be, deep and serious”
I was astounded my 2001.
I had some naive anticipation that Star Wars would be similar.
instead, it was a goofy cartoon.