ray_afraid said:
I'm in the same group your friends are in, CO. The only promising thing about Ep.7 that we know at this point is the inclusion of the 'big 3'. That has me curious enough to go see it, but I have zero expectations of it being anything I'll enjoy.
And I agree with what you said about the folks behind the film needing to focus on the original characters in order to cleanse the awful taste of the PT. I don't know anybody who would even go see it if they weren't involved. And, even with that, most of the people I know won't be seeing it anyway.
Now I can't speak for younger generations (people who grew up with the PT or young kids who grew up with the Clone Wars Cartoon Show), as maybe SW fanbase is so big that it doesn't need the OT generation to generate huge box office numbers?
I go back and forth daily about whether I want them to film this trilogy or not. There is a part of me that will totally regret if they fuck up Luke, Leia and Han in Episode 7, as there is a chance that could happen. But I am a SW fan at heart, so I am hoping if its done well I can look at MY saga as Episodes 4,5,6,7,8,9 and that would sort of help me forget the PT ever existed.
The same thing happened with me with the Rocky Franchise. Rocky 5 was so bad it just left a bad taste in my mouth towards the whole franchise (although I can always look at the Original Movie as a classic without sequels so thats never tainted). But Rocky 6 sort of put my faith back in the overall Rocky Story, as it was a perfect ending and I actually don't even recognize Rocky 5 now.