Star Wars (the original, before it was ever a trilogy) was on the cusp between toys to promote a movie and a movie to promote toys. Initially, it was just like any other movie ... then its marketing possibilities became obvious, and Star Wars "stuff" started to appear. To give you an idea of how little there was to begin with, at one point I owned almost all of it. When "all of it" is some comic books, a dozen action figures, some collectable cards (four sets to a box, no artificial scarcity there), and so on, that's not a very big deal. It was really with
Empire that the whole marketing thing took off like a rocket, and of course in
Jedi we got the Ewoks who were put in strictly for marketing purposes ... but even they didn't come close to
Phantom Menace in terms of the movie being nothing but an extended commercial for the toys, computer games, and other random stuff.
You have to wonder, though, what's going through the minds of parents who agree to buy licensed everything for their kids instead of asking them "Why do you want to give money to George Lucas, who's already rich, when you could get bed sheets that are just as good, and keep the money for yourself?"
P.S. Don't worry, Tess, youth is cured by time.
