xhonzi said:
2. They're young kids. There's time for the PT later, if they want. (Your father Uncle George wanted you to have this, but your uncle father wouldn't allow it until you were old enough.) It is my personal opinion that the awesomeness that is Star Wars is diluted through association with the PT. Some of you younger kids that liked the PT once, and either still do or grew out of it, have no frame of reference for what I'm talking about since you don't know a Star Wars without that taint. As Boost said over in the "missing out" thread, the biggest changes to Star Wars (and I'm paraphrasing here) aren't the changes to the individual frames and audio waves, but to the context of them. Sure, it's not 1977 anymore, and that's part of it. But I think the inmovie context of the Prequels is far more damaging to the experience than the extramovie context of 30+ years.
5. Did twooffour call me a nerd and zombie call me obsessive? Ouch! That really hurts when other obsessive nerds call you that!
There's a whole lot of a difference between spending some considerable free time on debating unimportant niché stuff, and actually caring so much about a bunch of movies that it starts becoming important to you what your kid thinks of them, to the point that you start worrying about the (not given at all) possibility that their perception of the "timeless classics" could be "tainted".
To me, Star Wars and the likes are just that, very good films / entertainment, among many others (or, of varying quality), and while I certainly can get involved into lighthearted nerd debates in real life, or have fun at a film evening of whatever, it plays virtually no role in my real life. I've got a 12 year old brother, and while he knows about Star Wars, and even watches CW on occasion, I couldn't care less.
I'm also a classical music fan, yet I don't care whether he listens to it, as well, or not - certainly doesn't prevent me from making fun of some cheesy pop stuff he listens to, though, but that's a whole other thing :D And mostly, I just storm out of the room. :P
Now, do those films get "tainted" by the franchise's new installation? Well, how about I say ROTJ tainted ESB? Yet somehow, that second one remains a classic, right? How about I say ESB sort of tainted SW as that "space adventure film for all ages", and now SW is forever associated with tragedy and torture?
Or how about the whole pop-culture thing, the vast amount of ridicule, parody and plot hole bashing, don't you think that someone who might've watched ANH kinda seriously and let the Stormtroopers slip past their suspension of disbelief, or narm sensors, certainly won't do so after seeing a youtube poop video of that stormtrooper making funny gestures after his bro falls down the pit?
So you're gonna shield him from parodies and jokes, as well, because then they won't experience that chilling shiver you experienced when Vader said he was Luke's father, after having seen like 5 parodies of that scenes in various other scenes? Make sure they never search for "Vader" on Youtube, because they might just bump into his pal "Chad".
But hey, Star Trek considerable "growed a beard" in its later two series - and while it could get silly at times, not even "Voyager" managed to reach the levels of ridiculous camp that the original series had, or look anywhere as dated and cheesy.
So, has the "modernization", or the added level of seriousness and space politics, "tainted" that original space adventure series with Ham Shatner, Spock and gogo-bootsies? Not as far as I know, people do take "Star Trek" in general more seriously than they would without TNG and Ds9, but the original series with all its fun stuff remains as present in the popculture machine as it gets.
So, you know, maybe your concerns are a little unjustified? So your kid won't like Star Wars because of Clone Wars? Oh JESUS NO! Maybe they'll like Blade Runner, then.