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Jim Van Nest: Here's the rub about this whole 3D thing...Star Wars, as a series, is a great vehicle for a 3D treatment. I admit, I'm tempted to see them. The problem with this is that Lucas has robbed Star Wars fans blind with all of the other treatments that were completely useless. I think what a lot of fans are probably thinking is, "Sure, you stole my money with the better quality VHS tapes. And then you bent me over for the "Special Editions." And I even fell for the DVD release. I felt dumb buying the movies for the fifth time on Blu Ray, but come on, it's the best right? Despite the fact that I've now given you close to $1,000 of my money for the same frickin' movies...3D is the way they were meant to be seen, so I guess I'll pony up $15 more."

Add in the fact that, at their core, the Star Wars films are kid flicks...and Phantom Menace was released 13 years ago. There's an entire new generation of kids to take to the theater to see the Star Wars saga. So, honestly, I'm not shocked at all that it brought in another $20 million plus.

Shalimar Sahota: I think it was around the time the Special Editions of the original trilogy were released on VHS and I recall watching an advert telling me something like, "You haven't seen Star Wars till you've seen it in widescreen." Then it's, "high definition," and now, "3D." Jim kinda beat me to it and because of that reasoning, one half of me is surprised to see it spill over $20 million, for I thought that the fans have already consumed the same film numerous times already. Surely they aren't going to be swayed to watch it again in 3D? The other half of me recognizes that these are Star Wars fans and they'll eat up everything Lucas puts out. However, it's also conceivable that a lot of fans now have children and simply want them to experience Star Wars on the big screen. The worry is that Lucas will find some way to convince Spielberg to convert Indiana Jones into 3D as well.

Brett Beach: I don't buy the "way it was meant to be seen" argument, except outside of the simple fact of seeing a film in a theater, which in a reversal of my entire life to date (!), I am becoming less and less bullish about. I have read a lot of the analysis over the decades as to why the series has such a draw, and retains a large number of people who are willing to upgrade to the next level of refurbishment (can an in-home hologram version of the film be far off?) And I think there must be something primal and unexplainable at the heart of it all. Davy Crockett was a fad in the 1950s for a brief window of time but has never been subject to renewals and revivals. Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles keep on rolling but do the thirtysomethings feel this nostalgic pull for these insititutions from their height in the 1990s? I don't begrudge viewers anything that brings magic into their hearts, but if all thoughts of Star Wars were to be wiped permanently from my mind, there would be no loss from where I stand now. Lucas gave us one universe. All the filmmakers that I love have given us multitudes.

Reagen Sulewski: The reason why Star Wars remains special to people is that it redefined what movies were about, and I don't say that as a super fan. Together with Jaws, they remade what people wanted to see. Now, as with anything, that tends to go to pot until you get films like Phantom Menace, but similar to my point on Journey 2 The Horribly Titled Franchise, it keeps that special treatment because people want it to be special.

Interestingly enough, this is less than half of what Star Wars got in the opening weekend of its 1997 re-release, adjusted for inflation ($61 million). You could blame this some on people not feeling the need to head to the theaters as much anymore, but isn't that the whole point of 3D - to give them something they can't get in the home theater experience? I don't think Star Wars fatigue is the whole of the problem either, though it probably factors in. A movie should not have more versions than an operating system.

Max Braden: I've never really begrudged the money Lucas has made for the ongoing tinkering. I tend to believe he's a perfectionist and keeps seeing advances in technology as a means to get closer to the image in his head that he can't quite get right on the screen. And I never felt like he tricked people into buying the various versions of the same product; I was always pretty clear on the minimal changes advertised for each one. But this time... the ads were throwing in clips of Episode IV, which made me think that we were getting the whole series rereleased in 3D. Bait aside, I remember standing in line in 1997 for the first Special Edition rerelease, and it was the longest movie line I had seen since Return of the Jedi (and I can't recall a line as long since then, even for Avatar). You've got a familiar product for many, and we have a tendency to forget, despite our possible weariness of a series, that there's always an audience out there that hasn't yet seen any of these movies. $22 million doesn't surprise me in that light.

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