Unpopular Opinion

4, 5, and 6 are definitely better in a different way that resonates with younger kids and certainly George Lucas is prone to making weird decisions and writing bad dialogue. The actors though were the right people in the right place. The movies succeeded almost in spite of Lucas. However, what I’ve been struck by, now as a father, is less the sci-fi-fantasy, and more the sort of coming of age and father-son dynamic that is a bit more universal, that’s the core story.

Luke grows up on a backwater world, never knowing his father. He dreams of going to the academy to get the hell out of there. Then one day someone tells him his father was a knight and an ace fighter pilot to boot, the guy was a fucking legend. Luke builds up this impossible image of his father who was struck down by the evilest guy in the world, this total shitbag that works for the government. All the love he would’ve had for his Dad, he pours into hating Vader, he’s taken everything he ever loved away. Then, when Luke finally has a chance to confront him face-to-face, he discovers Vader was his Dad all along. It knocks the wind out of him, and suddenly he has to come to terms with that Dad on a pillar he’s idolized his whole life with that detestable boot licker he’s grown to hate.

“I am your father,” is the pinnacle of the OT, it’s where everything was leading to, that discovery. It’s that mixture of love & hate, how do choose to deal with that as a person? Luke chose love, and I think that’s an inspiring thing. The sci-fi-fantasy thing is just sort of there for the kids, but it’s not the crux of the story.

You need to go more unpopular. Most SW is only really good when you're 8.

An edit for the aggrieved: If actual creative people are in control instead of GL or idiot corpos, SW can make for decent space opera. Tartakovsky's Clone Wars will be good no matter how old I am lucky enough to get, as will some of the EU books that were de-canonized by Disney.

I just watched 4 and 5 with my gf who hasn't seen them all the way through. I'm 35 and I still think they're great. I gotta say I really hate the shitty CGI that Lucas added in the late 90's. We're watching them on Disney+ and I'm thinking about trying to torrent the original non-"remastered" versions before we get to 6. The CGI singing alien in Jabba's palace is the worst part of any Star Wars movie ever made imo.

Seem like you were smarter when you were 8

They’re good films IMO. More coherent plot than the sequels.

But everyone who hated on Jarjar conveniently forgot about Threepio and Ewoks.

Yeah, I can't watch any of them any more it ruins the nostalgia and reminds me how dumb I must have been. I can't stand to watch most mainstream stuff any more though. The second the plot goes stupid I turn anything off. I've wasted far too much time due to investment banker produced media. First hint is all I need.

You like them less now because you're watching the "remastered" versions, which butcher the originals.

Clone wars show and the animated shows in general + andor are peak Star Wars imo

Every single Star Wars Movie is uniquely and horribly flawed and I adore all of them.

Yeah but they had Carrie Fisher in a bikini sigh

You're not wrong. You're not right either, mind.

Star Wars was groundbreaking not for story, acting, or even direction but for its special effects and a grand vision that had not been common in movies before. Attempts were made to do things on that scale of vision before, but let down by technology and technique. For an example of what I mean by "technique", Star Wars was almost unique among space epics for having a gritty, grimy "lived in" look in its settings. Spacecraft had scars and flaws. Buildings looked dingy. So in the sense of pushing back the boundaries of what could be accomplished in visual storytelling, it qualifies as a qualified "good" in my book.

The Empire Strikes Back pushed back the boundaries on the visuals even more than did Star Wars and had vastly improved writing and direction on top of the continuation of that sense of scope that made its predecessor so memorable. I think it stands up on its own merits as a film and qualifies fully as "good".

We now enter the silly zone...

I reject the ludicrous conspiracy theories that claim there are more than two films in the Star Wars milieu. To wit:

• I reject the existence of a purported 3rd movie entitled Return of the Jedi in which the Empire is defeated by a bunch of primitive Teddy Bears. That people think Lucas would let his grand vision be so laughably terminated is risible. I understand he was intending to write and direct a third movie that was going to close out the story, but apparently life intervened and it was never completed.

• I reject the thesis that Star Wars was always intended to be a 9-part story, given that there was no hints of this in the first movie and that the "Episode V" in the opening crawl of the second was clearly a typographical error: II became somehow \/ and this was interpreted as "five" by the people who transcribed the text.

• So this naturally means I reject the existence of movies like the ridiculously-titled The Phantom Menace, the Attack of the Clones purported movie (whose title is obviously the product of fevered imaginations adding to the impressive world-building of the first movie!), and the uninspiring Revenge of the Sith title (revenge for what?!). Further, the supposed storyline that is circulated by feverish conspiracy theorists would have us believe that Lucas would open a trilogy "prequel" (as if that were even a word!) to what was then one of the most beloved of sci-fi ACTION movies ... with long, tedious talks about trade negotiations. Would continue that trilogy with long, tedious talks about governance. Yawn Yeah, go pull the other one. It plays "Jingle Bells"!

• Need I go on to say how I feel about this ridiculous notion of another trilogy sequel? And spin-offs? The only spin-off ever made was the Star Wars Holiday Special and that one is best left buried for all eternity!

Star Wars when it doesn’t pander obviously to children is good. When it does, it is god awful most of the time.