Originally posted by: Tiptup

Anyways, we can discuss alternate timelines as much as we like, but Star Wars is what it has now become. The prequel’s concepts weren’t done well. Where do the fans with higher standards go from here? Do we simply pretend that the later Star Wars films and content don’t exist in our world and then divorce ourselves from the pop culture?

This is a tough one, and one that I have not been able to erase from memory. For every movie series, I was always able to just vanish from my mind the bad movies: Superman III & IV, Jurassic Park II & III, Terminator 3, Rocky V, etc., but for some reason I can't divorce the PT movies from the OT story now, and I believe it is because it was a prequel story.

With every movies series and when the bad movies start hitting the theaters, that story happens AFTER the classics, so you can pretend it doesn't happen, cause it has no bearing on the previous movies. With the PT movies, they are stuck in our minds whether you like them, hate them, or love them. When I see the scene with Leia/Luke in ROTJ talking about their mother I think about Padme losing the will to live, UGGH! When I see Vader talk to Luke about, "You don't know the power of the darkside......" and the Emperor talking to Luke about how his father can never turn back..... I think of Anakin whole messy turn scene in ROTS and how he flips a switch and he is Darth Vader. I can't help but still think of C3PO now as that droid who Anakin built, and saying, "My parts are showing....." I can't help but see Chewbacca and think of his 'good relations' with Yoda. I could go on and on, but you guys know all the tie ins.

Sadly, I dont' think I will ever be able to look at SW ever the same again, as the PT will always be there sitting right in front of my face when scenes that talk about the PT in the OT are uttered by those characters. Before you wondered why Vader turned, what the Clone Wars were, what the Jedi were like in their heyday, and now for better or worse, we got our answers.

In a strange sense, by Lucas marrying the movies and trilogies together as one story, it has actually made any SW fan be so extreme in their views, as almost a take it or leave now. With movies like Indiana Jones & Harry Potter, you can love certain ones and like certain ones and even hate certain ones, but that wont taint the individual movies. I love Raiders & Temple of Doom but am not a big fan of Last Crusade and I probably won't like Indy IV, but so what, none of them effect the other movie other then that they have the same characters in some new adventure.

Sadly, as much as I really have soured on the PT through the years, I do see it as the complete story now, and it almost like I can't throw it away, yet I know they are bad, and I know when I try to watch them, I start pulling my hair out. I know this sounds dramatic, but it is only dramatic in the context of watching the movies, not everyday life, and once I turn the movies off, I could care less, but sadly once I turn the movies on, I constantly grapple with so many questions that have made the series a big head scratcher:

-Do I watch the SE in pristine quality, but have to deal with all the cringeworthy shit?

-Do I watch the OOT in average quality, but can enjoy the movies the way I watched them for so long?

-Do I try to watch the OOT movies, and just forget about every bad PT plot point that pervades the movies now?

-Do I watch the saga 1-6, and just give in to Lucas and accept mediocrity now for the few enjoyable moments of the PT that do make the overall story better, and in a sense say to yourself, "The PT movies could be the biggest guilty pleasure movies in the history of movies."

Ahhhhhh, what it is to be a SW fan thesedays.