I'm going to say this once more. If you had bothered to read any of the other threads we have made, there are many retorts against the PT gusher who comes on and decides not to argue on the merits of the PT but instead rather how the OT equally sucked as well. The answers are simple:
a ) Star Wars when it first came out was highly original, had tremendous soul, and was well-thought out. People hadn't seen anything like it before. Whereas the PT was rushed, unimaginative, hollow, and very unoriginal - thus the flaws do not get the same sort of pass. The PT regurgitates CGI and plotlines that have already been done. "A Titanic in space, indeed." How about a Star Wars in space? And don't come back with all the mythical and serial subject matter that Lucas borrowed in order to make the Star Wars movies - it doesn't compare. No one effectively meshed so many influences all together into such a tight and imaginative package as Lucas did with the original trilogy. There was a reason the original Star Wars was nominated for 10 Oscars in 1978, including Best Picture and Best Writing. It won 6 of those 10. AOTC was nominated for 1. I only use the Oscars as an example to show that even in the effects department, the films were not wildly considered all that great, groundbreaking, or original. The OT was - thus some of its flaws can be forgiven.
b ) The PT felt like a cash-grab which accounts for our disgust toward LucasFilms. It does not feel like they wanted to entertain or provide a story with depth and focus - instead the films merely seemed like a way to showcase a masturbatory array of special effects designed to cover up a serious lack of story and soul. Tthat and the fact that every minor character introduced seemed to be created to sell more toys...
c ) ...Oh and now that we're on the characters. The acting and characters in the PT are far inferior to the OT. Many OT enthusiasts cannot relate with these characters simply because they are badly written, poorly acted, and had no arc whatsoever. This is not the actors the fault, it is a fault of poor direction, unworkable lines, and roles that offered no room for subtext or interpretation. We related with Han Solo. We related with Luke Skywalker. We related with Wedge Antilles. We related with Lando Calrissian. Hell, a lot of us even related with Bobba Fett. And in so doing, we bonded with these characters. Who here can relate with a Queen Amadilla or Jango Fett? Or an Anakin Skywalker or Jar Jar Binks? An Elan Sleezbaggano or Mace Windu? Not as many. We have no attachment to these stale characters, thus the PT has again failed us on this level as well. Whereas we reveled in the most minor of well-thought-out characters/aliens such as Jawas or Bosskk, or Tusken Raiders and Biggs Darklighter, how the hell can we do the same with Jar Jar Binks or the two-headed announcer on Tatooine? We cannot.
d ) Humor. The humor in the PT is of the low-brow such that you would find in a Farrelly brothers movie or some other assorted flick. Farting and poodoo jokes are lame, Threepios puns are lame, tongues stuck in engines are lame, there is not one moment in the PT that would make an adult with even moderate intelligence laugh. The OT was sprinkled with humor that an adult can relate to, a lot of it coming from Harrison Ford - though even Threepio was a hell of a lot funnier in the OT than he was as the pun-ripping huckster in the PT (but I suppose this is to showcase his evolution in humor between the PT and OT - or maybe he recieved an upgraded humor chip for improved human-cyborg relations? Or better yet, when his memory was wiped, all the puns and shit humor he inherited from past adventures were removed forever?) That said, the OT had a lot of moments that adults can genuinely relate to and even smile at. The PT? An adult can only watch for the effects, because there isn't anything intellectually stimulating in them - and as mentioned earlier, the effects we can get from any other action movie now. Nothing new there.
There are so many more things I could list, but I won't.
So no, people probably won't go tit-for-tat with you on you OT points of contention, simply because most of the points have been brought up before and contended to death with over and over! In short, the OT were excellent and original movies (not so much ROTJ) and get a few passes due to this fact, whereas the PT were amazingly huge let-downs for many people.
This post has been edited by diligent_d: 10 August 2005 - 04:06 PM