[swashmebuckle]

All my good will from 4 and 5 goes into propping up the lifeless body of 6. 7 is going to have to be so much better than any other JJ Abrams movie, I just... C-3PO wouldn't tell you the odds.

Dude has a writing credit on Armageddon.

[Luis Dias]

...how about we all agree that it wasn't a miraculous spectacle of storytelling that was nonetheless entertaining, and move on?.

Because I can't agree with a terrible judgement like calling it "entertaining", sorry.

Man, it's sure a good thing that word is subjective!

So you're saying I should join your consensus because the word is subjective? Eh eh, nope. The movie is terrible, and that's my personal assessment. "We" can't all agree with you because "We" probably includes my person and my person won't agree with it!

[Phantom Hoover]

I actually have fond memories of The Phantom Menace because I watched it when I was four and the spectacle was genuinely overwhelming. Doesn't mean I now think it was in any way a good film, though.

[Luis Dias]

Oh you youngling. At least you survived.

[Hades]

none of the Star Wars movies were actually any good, and none of them are good in this day and age.

[Bobboau]

not even TESB?

[Phantom Hoover]

FS1 > TESB

[MP-Ryan]

Episode 3 was terrible. I'll impale anyone who disagrees with this assertion of mine. The movie is unbearable at all levels.

Then again, you are the kind of person who badmouthed The Wrath Of Khan, sooooooooooooooooooooooo......

Nevertheless, your list is interesting. It is similar to the "machete" order but without TPM. Well, I'd say my order is highly superior. It's this: 4, 5, 6. It's great! You should try it! It doesn't have any bad movies in it!

Get your stake out then, because I don't think Episode 3 (well, aside from it's terrible title) was really all that bad compared to the other Star Wars movies.  1 and 2 were abysmal... let's get that out of the way.  But 4 and 5 retain a lot of their credibility from the goodwill they garnered on release, not necessarily how they stand up today.  The dialog... oh god, the dialog... Honestly, TESB, widely hailed as the best of the Star wars movies (to date) has absolutely ATROCIOUS dialog writing.  So bad that it is visibly painful to some of the actors speaking those lines.  Lucas had a neat idea with the universe, but his character writing is plainly awful.  TESB stands on its plot - generally - and the performances of some of its strongest actors.  Even then, it is not a great movie by the sum of its elements, but rather in spite of them.  Star Wars' success had a great deal more to do with spectacle than anything else.

While I'm at it, allow me to commit another sci-fi heresy, because yes, TWOK, widely hailed as the best Star Trek movie, is only the best by virtue of the fact that the others are generally so bad.  It is a vastly overrated film among its legions of sci-fi fans, by way of nostalgia, attachment to the characters, and the fact that it is the ONLY example of the Star Trek universe having a irreversible character development (*gasp* characters that grow? NEVAR!) result for one of its primary characters (which they then reversed for Search for Spock anyway; and no, Data in Nemesis doesn't count either because they did the same ****ing thing with B4).

Nerd rage over the purity of Star Wars and Star Trek makes me laugh.  The recent 'Trek' movies have been widely successful among non-traditional audiences because they make the universe accessible in a way The Original Series (and its spinoff films) never were.  Abrams could do much worse than to replicate those successes in the Star Wars universe.

OK.  I'm ready.  I've got my fire extinguisher, my steel plate armour, my BBQ (for any incoming steaks... get it?).... bring it

[Flipside]

I suppose the thing is with Star Wars was that it was an adequate, if somewhat dated, story told in a new setting.

The original three were somewhat hampered by good story ideas but limited ability to put the idea on screen because of budget, the second three suffered from the opposite, plenty of funding to make it look gorgeous, but it had no idea where it was going when it started, and still very little where it ended. It knew it needed to finish with a young Luke and Leia, but just seemed to meander in that general direction with no real impetus at all.

Also, it's got to the point where I really do think that Lucas is just trolling, as has been suggested before, the things like replacing Darth Vaders image in ROTJ, the 'Han shot first' incident and the whole 'Nooooooo!' thing in return of the Jedi makes me quite convinced that Lucas really didn't care about the movies any more, but just saw a way to make a bit more money before selling it on. That's why I think the sale of the franchise was a good thing in theory.

I suppose the thing is, Star Wars 4-6 were swashbuckling movies with a bit of 'Martial Art Movie' mentality thrown in, there's no questions of whether the good guys are really good or not (even Han just fills the 'Rogue' slot nicely), it's a nice polarized story that progresses moderately smoothly from point A to point B. However 1-3 gets so wrapped up in existential angst that it failed to sell itself to me, the story meandered around, never quite sure of what it was doing or where it was going, and many kinds of 'progression' within the storyline felt forced or too coincidental to work. All the leaping around in the world couldn't quite detract from the feeling the films weren't quite sure where they were going.

[swashmebuckle]

I don't really get the "it's dated" criticism. The dialog and acting in SW is deliberately cheesy and wooden to evoke the film serials that are its primary inspiration. The movies would be awful and totally lacking in charm without that. The whole presentation from the 20th century fox fanfare to the final iris shut on the credits is an homage to golden age hollywood film wizardry. It's "dated" 1936.

Edit: And the plot is dated 4000 BCE so I don't get that either

[Flipside]

It's not so much the 'dated' issue that is the problem as the fact that the limit in finances helped to focus the production team.

As an example, the fate of the Republican council is covered in one sentence from Grand Moff Tarkin in the original series, the Senate has been disbanded and the Emperor has absolute power, there's no need to worry about them.

In the new set of movies it would have involved 20 minutes of dialogue, lots of angst and a whole bunch of CGI Teacups. That was the problem with the new set, it spent too much time feeling like it was just treading water.

[Phantom Hoover]

I think the Red Letter Media reviews are great for pointing out just how weird the failings of the prequel films are. Star Wars was built on really basic monomyth foundations with a reliable set of stock characters, and then Lucas somehow completely forgets how to do that and makes three films of awkward fictional politics and overwrought CGI action that completely fails to hit the easy emotional targets.

[Mongoose]

Exactly.  Plinkett's stuff revealed reams of issues I had with them that I'd never been able to put into words, but always had as this niggling "bleh" feeling.  (Well except for I HAET SAND because that's pretty damn easy to put into words.)

As for Episode III in particular, I don't think I've sat through it as a whole since seeing it in theaters, but I do know I left the theater feeling okay-ish about it...and then as the days and weeks progressed I realized more and more that it was crap.

[swashmebuckle]

It's not so much the 'dated' issue that is the problem as the fact that the limit in finances helped to focus the production team.

As an example, the fate of the Republican council is covered in one sentence from Grand Moff Tarkin in the original series, the Senate has been disbanded and the Emperor has absolute power, there's no need to worry about them.

In the new set of movies it would have involved 20 minutes of dialogue, lots of angst and a whole bunch of CGI Teacups. That was the problem with the new set, it spent too much time feeling like it was just treading water.

That I certainly agree with. The prequels are amazing when it comes to wasting the audience's time in the least exciting and rewarding ways possible.

[Flipside]

To be honest, I think Lucas suffered from whatever the Movie version of feature creep is.

As far as J.J.Abrahms directing it, I don't have a problem with that in theory, Star Trek wasn't bad at all, though Into Darkness' ending felt far too 'forced in the mold' as a juxtaposition of the ending of Wrath of Khan. I don't mind a bit of creativity being used and I hope to God he pretends Midichlorians never happened, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad choice.

[Charismatic]

I first heard they were redoing the original 3 star wars films, i take it that's not true?

[Scotty]

I first heard they were redoing the original 3 star wars films, i take it that's not true?

That's not true.

[Sandwich]

I first heard they were redoing the original 3 star wars films, i take it that's not true?

That's not true.

Yeah, it's a shame, too. Doing that would almost be as potential-packed as redoing Matrix Revolutions, and we can't have that, can we?

[Trivial Psychic]

If you didn't like the prequels, you might want to check out what THIS guy is planning on doing.  Now, either his indicated plans for them are total BS, or he's gonna have to make an entirely new movie.

[Scourge of Ages]

Exactly.  Plinkett's stuff revealed reams of issues I had with them that I'd never been able to put into words, but always had as this niggling "bleh" feeling.  (Well except for I HAET SAND because that's pretty damn easy to put into words.)

As for Episode III in particular, I don't think I've sat through it as a whole since seeing it in theaters, but I do know I left the theater feeling okay-ish about it...and then as the days and weeks progressed I realized more and more that it was crap.

All of this!

Also, my friends and I have a thing to this day where if anybody says they hate anything, one of us will simply say, "I hate sand." And if there's enough of an opening, "It's hot, and course, and it gets everywhere." And if the opportunity is there, and the person in question is close enough and resilient enough emotionally, gently stroke his/her upper arm and say, "not like here. Here everything is soft."
We don't frequently do that last bit.