Jar Jar was where the scales tipped from disinterest towards dislike for Star Wars for me. The original trilogy was inoffensive, a thing I saw; never hit me as something worthy of the rabid following it'd garnered at that point. Then they made this huge fuss about a "NEW" Star Wars, and I saw that, and it was a CGI Muppet acting like an idiot and political "intrigue" for a couple of hours. I signed off then. PM didn't offend me, per se, but it certainly didn't help give the franchise any more significance with me. If I saw further films, fine; if not, fine. I watched Rogue One out of boredom, and can't recall much about it outside of that hallway scene when I perked up at Vader actually killing people, like actual violence; Vader wasn't just this ostensibly powerful and evil person; he WAS a powerful and evil person. Makes me look back on his death scene in Return like, "yeah, you came around in the end, but you were clearly a fucking MONSTER capable of the kinds of atrocities that make Dateline News." He wasn't in the hallway to impose his will and flex his political charisma as he'd mostly been used in previous films; he was there to kill people, and they showed it.
Yeah, it's sort of interesting to me, my relationship with the SW franchise. One of my earliest memories, is going to see RotJ in the theaters. I remember it because it was the first time I'd ever gone to a movie, and seen a line of people that long. The theater was in our local mall, and it was a capital i shaped building. The theater was off at the end of one of the crossbars, and the line was AALLL the way down to the center hub of the i. That just blew my little kid brain. We eventually got in there, and it was PACKED. Again, never saw anything that packed before, at any movie. I remember everyone being just dead silent, when Luke was on the gangplank over the sarlaac pit. We all knew he had something planned, but no idea. And the way the theater erupted in applause as he caught the saber, that iconic ignition sound, followed by John Williams' score soaring into a victorious swell. They went fucking nuts. I had never really been in a crowd of people that large, not that packed in you know? And definitely not anything that emotionally intense. It was amazing. I actually getting misty eyed typing this, remembering that event. I can pretty easily quote, verbatim, almost every line of the original trilogy, though I do have to be watching it while I do it. I love the franchise. It has had a massive impact on my personal psyche, and outlook on the world, in a lot of fundamental ways. I also am fascinated by the fact that SW is going to be something that will likely persist in human culture, for centuries. It has firmly taken hold in our collective psyche, and I think that's a pretty amazing thing.
But I also appreciate it's got some really ugly warts on a lot of it's content. Just, subpar, poorly written schlock. And that's ok to me. I don't defend it like a religious fanatic, and I don't mind if people say they don't like it. I will debate individual claims depending on what they are, as people conflate "bad" with "I didn't like it personally" a lot, and I think that needs addressing from time to time.
But if an individual movie or show isn't great, that's fine. I'll be disappointed, because I want things to be good, and don't want things to be bad. But, it doesn't "rape my childhood" if something doesn't live up to the hype. For someone, it was a powerful, and amazing experience, and I try not to shit on other people's parades if I can avoid it. I have a perfectly good, private toilet where I can handle my business, I don't need to spray it all over everyone else and ruin their day.
