Some might have gotten the impression that I don't like Episodes I to III - that is not the case. I like them just fine. Usually when I watch all six of them, I start in numerical order I to VI, true. After all, why not watch them chronologically, and why not save the best for last.
The first three (in numerical order), the second set of three (in when they were made and released), the prequel trilogy, Anakin's story, the not as good ones; however you want to put it. The thing about Ep. I II III is that they are Star Wars. That's reason enough to at least like them, they've got that something about them.
Sure, for I-III a lot of people really despise some of the characters, or hate some of the fully CGI aspects, or wonder how everyone could have been so naive, or whatever. They are said to be too too long, there's not enough plot development, the first one was far too done on purpose as a B-Movie, they waited too long to make them, they just weren't like the original trilogy. All true to some extent - but they're Star Wars! I certainly share the opinion I-III told a story we didn't necessarily need to know the details of, that Vader was way cooler as a villain we knew little or nothing about, and that the whole story could have been rather random and whatever in that the details didn't actually mean anything because they were all essentially unknowns.
Although on the other hand, knowing how this and that happened, and how these and those tied into other things, that's kinda cool. I don't mind Jar-Jar and at times thought it rather funny, although they really messed him over as it went on... Well of course Palpatine messed over everyone really badly (manipulating everyone with the dark side and instituting an evil empire). And as far as doing bad things, you don't get much worse than eliminating a number of younglings and force-choking out your spouse. (Well except until you help blow up an entire planet that is.) And really, when it comes to the real villain Sidious, if you're cloaking yourself from such as Yoda and Mace, they all worked pretty well given they didn't know who or what the threat was. It's difficult to be calm and to try and make decisions when nothing is clear. That all could be argued about for hours though, as I'm sure many pro and con websites and blogs and magazines have.
For that and other things, a lot of it comes down to how much slack somebody will or won't cut. Christensen and Portman had something impossible to try and live up to for example . I'm sure they did their best in the many constraints, but they simply are not Ford and Fisher. Beyond that, these weren't the same writers working in the same way, not the same creators working in a certain time and being a certain age. This just isn't the world of or the technology of the late '70s and early 80s. These weren't movies made that put science fiction back on the map, they were products of the movie-making and competition of the late '90s and early '00s They can only be what they are, and if one doesn't take allowances for it, there's only one real outcome we should expect. If you hope for more, it's easy to be more disappointed about what you get, and that makes some people bitter and angry. (And not in the way a Miss Manners review of tESB just doesn't get it at all to begin with.)
All in all though, when it comes to EPI-III, I thought the prequel was fine. There was a lot of great stuff in it. If we compare it to the originals, of course it comes up short. Whatever it was, there is a lot to like about this last set of movies, and then add onto it that it was Star Wars. That allows us to ignore a lot of things, as we have to do anyway with fiction set in another place and time. Do they have an aspect of nostalgia to them, a bit, but as we've gone on at length about, they can only have so much of it. Given what we know can't be there, it makes it a lot easier to accept it however little it can be. Because.
You are worse than Hitler. And if not worse, at least as bad.
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