Thick said:
You are right, the first three films are good. The problem is that the franchise has rotted, and you can't claim it is a good franchise while simultaneously acknowledging that most of its content is shit. The things that make a single project good, be it film or book or game, are different from the things that make a franchise good. Namely, a franchise is good if it is consistently placed in good projects. The Star Wars franchise is not, thus it is no longer, and probably never again will be, a good franchise.
As you're fond of examples, take Mario. He's been in some great games, and some really dreadful games.
Does it mean that all Mario games are rubbish because of
Hotel Mario? Nope.
Does it mean that you're delusional if you expect the next Mario game to be superlative? Probably.
Does it mean there can't be any more good Mario games? No. There's a good chance that it'll be shite, but there's always a chance. If I hope that the next Mario/Sonic/Star Wars game is good, and choose to ignore the awful, awful garbage that's been dumped on the franchise, does that make me delusional? No.
Just makes me optimistic that we can have a return to form. I may still be fighting an uphill battle against those that will trot out the Holiday Special, but there's enough goodness in there to provide the means of a good story - by ignoring the insane canon that's been built up since it got popular.
You don't give up music just because Susan Boyle is at number one. Though it's often very tempting.
SFU2 was still a demo that I gave up on though. I'm hoping that one day someone will take the canon and run far away from Lucas, where they can feed it, care for it and make it sing proud again.
That's a dream, not a delusion.