If the OT was released in today’s climate, it would receive the exact same level of ridicule as the prequels and sequels.
Please don’t mistake my comments for hating or trolling. I love all of Star Wars and I do prefer the originals to the prequels and sequels. I’m just saying the originals are often given a pass on certain criticisms. A lot of it has to do with them being well established before social media was prevalent. They are more engrained in our brains. I think a lot of classics would suffer similarly if released today.
This isn’t to invalidate the movies themselves. This is to put in perspective the amount of criticism being handed out regularly to almost everything.
Maybe to a degree. There’s a lot of criticisms that originate from clickbait BS artists who’ll make stuff up for the hell of it. The same would probably happen if the OT came out today (and in the context of being a new installment of an already beloved series).
But I don’t think it’s at all right to say that they’d get the same level of criticism, though. Speaking as a fan of a ton of things outside the OT (especially the Last Jedi), they’re not at all on the same level. The original Star Wars movies were culturally iconic and revolutionary to the film industry, in a way that the prequels and sequels never could be.
They ride off the success of the OT to an undeniable amount, and if it weren’t for the OT I doubt either of them would even be remembered 10 years down the line.
It may be true that there’s a lot of criticisms of stuff that happens in the ST and PT that also happens in the OT, but if I’m going to be honest, a lot of people (especially ones who are fans of every Star Wars movie) will take criticisms of the movies they like, and force them onto the OT.
I think the obsession modern film discourse has with a movie’s quality being determined by its flaws or inconsistencies is unhealthy, though. The OT isn’t the best trilogy because it has the least amount of problems (although I think it does), it’s because it has a ton of good qualities.