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Perhaps it's not that we hate Prequel Star Wars because we hate special effects, but that Prequel Star Wars taught us to hate special effects.

There's this incorrect notion floating about that just because a product is meant for children, it is allowed to be ill-conceived and shoddy. Sometimes, I wonder if George Lucas is using that misconception as a shield to hide behind in order to excuse the genuine problems in Star Wars. That's neither here nor there though, since Star Wars wasn't originally meant to be only a kids' product. It's more of a family series.

The article itself was a fun, tongue-in-cheek essay on the state of Star Wars fandom in this fay and age...until the author released that second additional article and let us all know what he really thought of Star Wars fans. I want to call attention to this one part somewhere in the middle of the article:

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(a letter to Andrey Summers)

"Thank you for finally formulating what I was feeling all along. I saw the first film when I was 12 or so and every film that followed was a disappointment. I hated them, but as you correctly stated: I loved the idea.

Lucas did a great job in creating the technology, but telling the story was better left to someone else (Disney? look at what they did with pirates! ). Lucas even admitted he hated the whole story so I guess he went for the money, and ruined a lot of peoples dreams. You've hit the nail on the head."


-Peter

(Andrey Summers' Response)

"Why thank you, Peter. I thought I’d slot your email in here just to drive home that I’m not the only one who noticed good ideas and poor writing in the Star Wars…Sectography? 'Thanks for reading!'"

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So Mr. Summers receives a comment from someone who is trying to support him, and then turns around and mocks him in his next article. That's really just lame. What started as a fun jibe at the eccentricities of Star Wars fans has turned into an arrogant bash against "nerds" who won't give up their toys. How is he acting any better than those Star Wars fans who booed those poor kids off stage?

The notion that "Star Wars is just for kids" is one that just cannot be supported. Not after all the Star Wars games rated Teen, the umpteenth number of Star Wars books written at a college reading level, and the fact that millions of adults went to see Star Wars back in '77. Not that it really matters; the fact that a product is meant for children isn't an excuse for poor quality anyway.

It's not in a movie (yet), but I nominate Harry and Ginny from "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." The romance in that book in my opinion was such a...such a...superficial, flash-in-the-pan nothing; it makes Anakin and Padme's romance look like something out of an epic masterpiece. Harry/Ginny is so bad that some people find it easier to believe that Harry was under the influence of a Love Potion (which would turn the suspect romance writing into a well-done mystery story) rather than entertain the idea that JKR was capable of writing this. But if the bad romance continues in Book 7, it will probably be easy to dismiss it and just pretend that Harry ended up with Luna instead.

Here's another question we should mull over:

If Anakin's ghost appeared as Hayden in the new RotJ for such-and-such reasons, why didn't his ghost appear as a young man in the original cut of RotJ?