YMMV / More American Graffiti

• Cult Classic: Critical reappraisals in recent years (from reviewers including the AV Club's Nathan Rabin, and The Guardian U.K.'s Matt Mitchell) have claimed that the film was ahead of its time in some respects, particularly in the style it uses to showcase the Innocence Lost theme and its usage of different aspect ratios as a nod to past filmmaking techniques.
• Designated Villain: Major Creech is made out to be a buffoon of a commander who's barely holding his temper around Terry, both for causing his division to expend a large amount of resources on a superfluous Viet Cong "attack", and threatening his oversight of a visiting U.S. Congressman. This continues all the way to the end, where he unambiguously tells Terry he's going to keep him on "latrine duty" for the rest of his career, prompting Terry to fake his own death to get out of the war. However, it's clear that Terry's shenanigans (which begin with him trying — and failing — to shoot himself in the shoulder to simulate a VC soldier's attack, and later have him referring to himself as a "coward" in front of Sinclair) are just the latest in a string of schemes cooked up to try and dodge active duty. The fact that Creech is drinking during the otherwise-jubilant celebration after Sinclair and Terry are rescued (with the other soldiers ignoring Joe's death) suggests that he's barely holding things together.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Like the preceding film, there are fans who disregard the ending postscript entirely, partly because one of the endings (Terry "missing in action" in Vietnam) makes no sense anymore because his fate was changed to a Faking the Dead scenario, and partly for stating that Milner died in a text crawl, particularly after he'd won the dragrace circuit and made plans to meet up with Eva at the Rose Bowl the next day. There are some fans who choose to believe that the latter character either faked his death or that Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated.
• One-Scene Wonder: Harrison Ford reprises his role as Bob Falfa in a single scene, revealing that he Took a Level in Jerkass after becoming a motorcycle patrol cop in San Francisco.
• Retroactive Recognition: The supporting cast is chockful of actors who would become bigger stars in later years, including Delroy Lindo as a drill sergeant, Rosanna Arquette as one of the girls in the commune Debbie visits, Scott Glenn as Newt, James Houghton (Knots Landing) as Sinclair, musician Naomi Judd, and Jonathan Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as Ron... not to mention The Doctor himself, Tom Baker, in one of his earliest roles (as a random police officer)!
• Sequelitis: Given how the original film was a surprise blockbuster (making $140 million off a $777,000 budget), a sequel was inevitable, even though George Lucas opted to serve as executive producer (and de facto director of the Vietnam sequences) rather than helm the director's chair again. The resulting project was lambasted at release for ultimately being superfluous to the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue the original film famously setup, in addition to some strange pacing and editing choices. More ultimately earned far less revenue, making somewhere between $8-15 million against a $3 million (USD) budget.
• Vindicated by History: The film received a critical reappraisal in recent years by fans and some critics (to the extent of being called a Cult Classic) for its use of artistic flair, particularly in the usage of differing aspect ratios and a Four Lines, All Waiting plotline, with John and Terry's storylines receiving particular praise for the contrasting visual styles and closure to their fates.

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