Originally posted by: lord3vil
As for spaceship and set design, I'll take the death stars, TIE fighters, X wings, Y wings, Millennium Falcon, star destroyers, cloud city, AT-ATs and AT-STs over anything I've seen since.

Among the many beefs I had after seeing TPM, one that stood out for me personally was that there were no memorable spaceships/vehicles. Perhaps the OT ones were so memorable to me is because:

a. it was groundbreaking, so we weren't used to seeing other-worldly vehicles

and

b. I was the perfect age to enjoy playing with the toys throughout the run of the OT (age 5 in '77, 11 in '83)

After each film, a large part of the discussion centered around the vehicles. The Millennium Falcon had an attitude to match its pilot. It, along with the Death Star, was an actual character in the film. The Landspeeder was so cool, too, as far as we were concerned. TIE fighters had a great look. Then came ESB and the AT-ATs. We couldn't stop talking about those. The snow speeders were pretty meh, as were the cloud cars. But Slave I was a great reflection of its pilot (much as the MF was for Han). For ROTJ, the speeder bikes were the main vehicle of interest. But the AT-STs and Imperial Shuttle were definitely discussed as well.

The Millennium Falcon had more of a personality than anyone in the PT. With each film, we learned about the ship's strengths and weaknesses, we found out who loved it and to what degree, we saw it frustrating those who loved it. It was crucial to the Battle of Yavin, pivotal to the rescue of Luke in ESB, and was once again heroic in the destruction of the ROTJ Death Star.

Nothing in the PT came close to this.