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Reminded me of one of those Chinese dragons you see at New Years celebrations

Well, not really, he looked like he was made of molded plastic, and wasn't much fun to watch.

Yes, I saw all three of the original films in theaters, back when they were new. I'm old.

Like much of the original trilogy...it just worked. It seemed to fit, it seemed to be an almost perfect solution to the character.
The X-wings and Tie-fighters just worked, they were great designs.
The Falcon just worked and fit the personality that ship needed to have perfectly.
The Star Destroyers worked.
The look and voice of Vader worked.
Mark Hamil as Luke worked.
Ford and Fischer worked as Han and Leia
The music was perfect
Yoda worked
Jabba worked
The sound of the light sabers worked
The sound of the Tie-fighters worked
Alec as old Obi-wan worked

Much of the stuff Lucas introduced and created for the original trilogy worked.

It's possible that audiences may have been distracted by slave girl / golden bikini Leia.

They could have painted Miss Piggy brown and stuck her up there - no one would have noticed...

In fact maybe they did - the Jabba we see now was a CGI amendment for the special edition.

LOOKS A LOT LIKE TWO OR THREE COUSINS OF MINE...LUCAS COULD HAVE SAVED HIMSELF A FEW BUCKS.

I was ten when I saw it in the theater and I thought he looked amazing. Yes, we knew he was a puppet just like Yoda but I was just captivated by the world in front of me to care.

At the time the most impressive aspect of the film was the flying through the forests. I remember seeing tons of pieces on how this was done.

it was cool that there were a few people inside of him