My whole point is if it was nostalgia it would be #1 for me, but it is #3,
My point is that your nostalgia is what's making it #3. Nostalgia doesn't automatically mean you love it unconditionally. just that because of your childhood memories, you give it more love than it probably deserves. Nothing really WRONG with it, but it helps to understand that up front so there's a proper frame to your argument. The nostalgia is also why you refuse to believe there was ALWAYS this divide amongst film fans and even Star Wars fans more specifically, and it's deeper than simply "Ewoks = Jar Jar" or whatever the line is that you're drawing. There were people back then who HATED ROTJ and ESB after Star Wars came out. The difference is a) you didn't really seek those people out and b) there wasn't, because of lack of internet, as far reaching a segment of the community for you to easily read about. You think it was nicer mostly because you didn't KNOW about those who hated just as people now hate the Prequels and Computer Animation and all things post models and opticals. And along with the growth of the internet has come the gift of massive overstatement. It's one thing to recognize there are some screwed up elements in all the movies, and some really screwed up stuff in the Special Editions. It's another to call it "spitting in the face" as if it carries that much weight. But that sort of overstatement isn't just accepted, it's EXPECTED.
CG has become a scapegoat for superficial bitch sessions about films. It's just how it is. It's unfair, yes, but that's how it's become. I should know better than to be devil's advocate in these cases because I've gone down these roads and hit the logical dead ends these discussions end up slamming into, but it seems so flimsy and superficial to act as if CG is fundamentally any different than opticals and models. They were using the same techniques back in the 80's. They're just using something different to fill in the blue areas now. And it's VERY hard to tell the difference when it's done well. And you'd have a hard time convincing me ILM, WETA, Imageworks and Digital Domain dont' know how to do it well. To decry special effects presence in a Star Wars movie is odd, because as I pointed out in the post that spun off this argument--the story was secondary to a LOT of people when they went to see Star Wars. It was the effects that they went to see. Sometimes people act as if CG is a sentient being made up of nintendo cartridges that's helping write the movie and design the posters, and that seems so willfully simplistic when looking at why a movie works and doesn't work.