People say how "I am your father" blew them away in their youth, and I've heard and read this countless times. But I myself don't remember it at all.
Could've been due to the fact that I saw ESB AFTER ROTJ. That would definitely have been a spoiler.
It totally blew me away, I probably did something totally embarrassing in my theater seat. Gasped like a stunned trout or shrieked or something equally stupid.
Of course when I discussed the film with my nerdy friends at school, they all scoffed and said they'd seen it coming and I was an idiot if I'd been surprised.
I saw it so long ago I don't remember but I must have liked it a lot. Cause I recently found a Spider-Man coloring book from when I was a kid where it has a picture of Dr. Doom chasing Spider-Man. I had put a word ballon to Dr. Doom saying, "I am your father!
Spider-Man, I am your father!"
I saw it in the theater and don't recall whether I heard about it beforehand or not, or what was my reaction or those of the people with me or audience.
shareMost people just assumed it was a lie so not many people were genuinely shocked or surprised
shareI just thought Vader was lying, because he'd do anything to turn Luke to the dark side...
shareI remember the big question was simply "is Vader telling the truth?" If one instantly believed Vader then it would have more of an impact I'm guessing. For me, I had to think about it.
I mulled it over and decided he was telling the truth.
Similar to when I saw Andy Kaufman getting slapped by Lawler on the Letterman show, I had to mull that one over too . . . . "Is this a stunt or real? It IS Kaufman after all . . " I decided it was staged.
Got the guess right in both instances. Hardly impressive I know, but sometimes you just get lucky.
I already knew before i saw it
shareI didn't believe it because it didn't make much sense. In the first movie Vader wasn't yet established as this uber-villain. He was just a powerful henchman to Peter Cushing's character. His role was bumped up for the second movie but it seemed a huge stretch that Ben's old enemy also had this connection to Luke. To me it seemed like a plot development thrown in just for its shock value.
For me, the big surprise was the reveal that there was 'another' who also could help save the Resistance. I was amped for three years to learn who it was only to learn that SURPRISE! it's just the other main character from the first two movies. My reaction was somewhere between disappointment and 'ewww' when I thought of the kissing scenes between them and Luke's original infatuation with Leiea.