Fans ruined star wars for me. I loved the original trilogy. The first one was always my favorite, but the three fight scene at the end of Jedi is still the greatest (sci-fi) battle ever put to film in my opinion. Say what you want about the ewoks and stormtroopers terrible aim, find me a space battle more intense and visually stunning than that one. And that score over vader and luke's final duel, and vader's heel-face turn to kill the emperor and save himself, Just watch it!
It's brilliant. And before you dismiss my argument as some Luddite "who didn't like empire because it was boring", i loved Empire. Hoth, Asteroid field, dagobah, yoda, cloud city and the single greatest twist ever put to film. love it all. Seriously strongest writing of the original trilogy. I really hate that have to defend myself as a fan of star wars because i like new hope more than empire.
All this brings me to the prequel trilogy. And the question i always ask and never get a straight answer to: What did you expect? And don't say "not that", that's a cheap cop-out and you know it. You don't know what you wanted. and when given something perfectly serviceable you scorned it. why? because it wasn't Han's backstory? Luke growing up ridiculously bored on a moisture farm on a desert world? Leia growing up in a pampered world where she's a princess, and finding out the heart wrenching details that she is a replacement for a child her adoptive parents lost when the dark side took over before entering into a world of political intrigue and guile and working as a legitimate politician while secretly supporting and supplying a rebellion? okay that last one would be pretty awesome.
But the point is this. There was no way those films would ever be accepted even if they hadn't had atrocious dialogue and bad casting (by the way the only two problems i have with the prequel, and lets face it the originals had those problems too).
There are two reasons for this.
1: It wasn't new.
It wasn't. The original had a big thing going for it. No one had ever seen anything like it. EVER. and that visual stun made us overlook alot of the problems. Like Crysis and The Avengers it just looked so damn pretty and awesome and so different from anything before it that any flaws were covered up. The prequels had no such luxury. Episode 1 was released the same year as The Matrix, the Terminator and Robocop had been around for over a decade. science fiction and stunning visuals had been around for while. Pixar was making the leaps and bounds in graphic animation, and video games had already begun to change the playing field.
2:We all knew how it was going to end.
Some kid named anakin skywlker? Obi-Wan Kenobi? Jango Fett? Yoda? Palpatine? R2D2? C-3PO? We all knew what was going to happen, and where all these people were going to end up. The dramatic turn in Revenge of the Sith? Not dramatic, we know Anakin is going to be Vader and lose the arms and legs. There was no suspense, we knew where characters were going and some of the die-hards fans even knew how they were going to get there. Well of course the republic is going to use clones. Of course palpatine is going to be put in charge of the senate. of course the Jedi are going massacred. and yes Anakin is going to turn to the dark side. Surprise!
So i think the prequels are perfectly serviceable films that were never going to live up ridiculously high expectations fans had for them.
And the whole Mediclorean thing? drop it. It's a stupid argument and you look stupid when you use it. every supernatural sci-fi/fantasy Jesus race has a something (in fact usually in their blood) that marks them out as special. and according to Expanded Universe Medicloreans just make you more aware and sensitive to the force, everyone has them just the higher the count the better with the force you'll be.
Tl;dr FML
