Vaderisnothayden said:
There isn't any bloody "saga". There's just the Star Wars trilogy and there's the bunch of ripoffs called the prequels.
Actually i beg to differ the saga is:
Star Wars 1977
The Empire Strikes Back 1980
Return of the Jedi 1983.
The best way we have to enjoy the saga at the moment is through the gout, otherwise i agree with your point.
To me the prequels and special editions are all EU since they have very little to do with the Saga as it existed pre 1990's. Just cause lucas comes along and sanctions them as canon does not make them canon in my mind.
Lots of stuff like coruscant is taken right from the EU stuff that does not belong in the canon series as much as i like Zahn's trilogy.
As the original author and creator he had a right to retcon and change things so drastically, but it is strictly unfair to pretend all these happenings happen in the same universe and continuity of the original series why not just come out and admit he erased the real versions and replaced them with an alternate continuity as the new canon?
I do agree that George Lucas has changed the intent and mentality of the entire series as vinh has stated many times, and he is correct in his assessments as far as my opinion goes. And this from giving it a lot of thought and reading through the secret history of star wars. It really fucking pisses me off that we were denied the real and true prequel films and the sequel trilogy and giving this shit at the same time as burying the oot.
This great breech in continuity that i will always remember as the false and misleading Hayden Skywalker years, an entirely separate branch of films than the original star wars trilogy i loved and grew up with.
I don't want to sound like some religious zealot, as star wars in not a religion just a piece of fiction. But was a nice piece of science fiction/fantasy escapism in my youth. Lucas says the are just movies, and he is right they are just movies, but they moved the heart, mind and spirit and stirred the imaginations of generations of young people.
I would hope that is what he accomplished with the younger kids and people out there with the prequels, but as i cannot speak for them only my own experience i just don't see it. But admittedly perhaps i am extremely jaded as a fan, star wars was made for simpler times and for less critical and cynical approaches as modern films seem to show. My nephew enjoys the 2004 original trilogy and the prequels and clone wars, so i guess lucas has done something right and knows his audience and it is children. Not 30-40 something year olds.