Originally Posted by
godisawesome
I think that’s fundamentally, even an idealized and consistently executed ST would still have one weakness against the PT - the era as its own separate asset, which is more what this thread is about than general quality of the film series.
The PT can be crap movies, and regardless still introduce a radically different, exciting, expansive, and well crafted world around it. The PT managed to never actually lose the fanbase in part because as much as Lucas the writer and director had flaws in executing his films, Lucas the producer user built a massive sandbox and unleashed his company onto it. The PT era was utterly dominating all mediums and markets beside the films in the day and age of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the X-Men movies - because Lucas created a mag of ante canvas for everyone else to work on. The PT films had a backlash and re-evaluation period… but the PT era was mostly an uninterrupted success across multiple platforms for over a decade, even at the worst time to be a fan of the actual films. Hell, some fo the company’s Lucas got were that people in his sandbox were doing things better than him (Grievous) because of the sandbox’s quilaty.
In contrast… whether it’s Abrams, Johnson, or LFL in general, there was little more than a desire to rigidly recreate the OT’s status quo, and outside of Abrams, frighteningly little interest in the actual characters or conflict of the era. Even LFL themselves seem apathetic towards the era, and their proudest forays are just stuff focused on how cool they think Ben Solo is or a failed TV show.
…Film-wise, the PT may have poor chemistry between its romantic leads, so-so execution all over, and cringey-dialogue…
…but nowhere does it ever go “Hey! You’re heroes’ a small minded, self-centered coward! But he should still get more credit for ignoring the Galaxy for doing a magic show for five minutes than the people who avenged billions of deaths and prevented billions more on days before, and they need to get beaten down and hollowed out until the black guy’s far away from the white girl, so she can properly worship the boring Neo-Nazi School Shooter who violated her mind under torture just days ago, while the only character trait given to the cool officer and pilot played by a Latino was ‘too hot blooded’!”
Any series with respect towards TLJ in it will always be shittier than the PT.