And here I am. Consider the torch passed.
its late at night, and i've been under a lot of stress lately, so forgive me... but.. i cried. seriously. =]
i joined these forums just to reply in this thread. you guys are awesome.
i'm 34 now, i was 5 when star wars first came out in theaters.. and it was possibly one of the biggest influences on my life, period. a 5 year old kid in 1977 can get pretty overwhelmed by something like star wars. luke skywalker was a role model to me. i can think of a lot of worse role models a kid can have.
my parents didnt like movies with 'war' in the title, so i had to beg friends and relatives to take me to see the original star wars movies. i saw each of them once. when the special editions hit theaters in 97, i lined up for hours to see the first shows. i 'lined up' (it wasnt really a line, in the traditional sense) for DAYS for each of the prequels, at the chinese theater in hollywood. i even LIKED the prequels. .. kinda. till the end.
when i first heard news of the special editions, of course i was ecstatic. star wars on the big screen again! i was hyped for the changes, because, like many here have said already, i didnt expect that it would mean the originals would get swept under the rug like they never existed. my first impressions of the SEs were the same as i feel about them now. some things in ANH were for the better, some for the worse, overall it came out even. the one thing i remeber from the first theatrical viewing was during the battle of yavin, i was looking forward to the bit where wedge comes out of nowhere to shoot a tie fighter off luke's tail... it was always one of my favorite moments, and i was hoping they hadnt messed it up.. but my heart skipped a beat when the new version was AWESOME and i was thrilled. ESB was an even better SE, it was almost exactly what the SEs were 'supposed to' be, an effects update. by the time RotJ came around, i was so happy about the SEs, i merely rolled my eyes a little and managed not to care.
i never expected the prequels to live up to the originals. it was impossible. ... so i went into them with blank (lowered) expectations. i enjoyed what i could, and didnt worry about the rest. unfortunately theres no getting around the fact that the entire starwars universe hinged on RotS, both trilogies had been building to that moment, and it was a letdown. that was what finally got me down on star wars, in any way. i was nothing but a happy fan till then, with some complaints, but i could live with it. the final straw was the 2004 DVD changes. some of the things lucas decided to insert into those abominations were too much. particularly anakin's ghost, and the extra dialog with the emperor in ESB - which amounts to a continuity error as far as i'm concerned, since ESB starts by LITERALLY SPELLING OUT 'obsessed with young skywalker' and then 15 minutes in, vader says 'skywalker is with them' and then a while later the emperor says 'skywalker' and vader acts like this is news. bah. idiots.
anyway... i always liked the idea of the SEs... and i wouldnt mind if george wanted to endlessly muck around with 'his' movies... but they're not just his anymore. they belong to all of us, now. and he's annoyed me enough that i'm just gonna stick with the original, unmolested trilogy.
as a defense mechanism, i've decided that the whole thing isnt really about anakin... its about obi-wan. both trilogies are really about obi-wan, and the mistake he made, and how he redeems it. ... he's consistently the best actor. =]