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When did you realize the Prequels sucked? — Page 2

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Not just DVD, it's never been restored and will never get a cinema release again.

All we have are the laserdisc transfers and a handful of prints hidden away in archives and possibly private collections where they will never see the light of day and possibly just rot to pieces over time.

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xhonzi said:

So... are a lot of you saying that you hate the prequels because the O-OT was never released on DVD?

I'd say to a degree yes, at least for me.

That the films were disapointing was one thing, but I had a lot of love for all things "Star Wars."

Then George Lucas gave all of us who loved his work a big collective donkey punch when he stole the original films from the culture.

Imagine your buddy, the world's best BBQ man, invites you over for BBQ. When you arrive he gives you a somewhat stale cheese sandwich.

Yeah the sandwhich is kinda bad, but it's not until he starts eating the succulent barbeque pork ribs in front of you, and then says "I have all this extra pork ribs, they sure look good," puts the platter on the ground and urinates on the porkribs all the while asking you how you like your sandwich.

That's when you really hate the sandwich. It's not that the sandwich has gotten worse, it's just that the whole thing is now personal.

 

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TheBoost said:

Yeah the sandwhich is kinda bad, but it's not until he starts eating the succulent barbeque pork ribs in front of you, and then says "I have all this extra pork ribs, they sure look good," puts the platter on the ground and urinates on the porkribs all the while asking you how you like your sandwich.

Wait...how do you eat pork ribs?

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xhonzi said:

So... are a lot of you saying that you hate the prequels because the O-OT was never released on DVD?

 No, I resent the PT because Lucas treats the OOT like shit.  If Lucas never revisited SW in the mid 90's, the SE would never exist.  Lucas decided in 1994 to make the PT movies, and then in the process decided to do the SE first, mostly to get interest back into SW and have them match up with the PT Special Effects. 

The change i hate the most of the Special Editions is Hayden inserted into the Ghost Scene at the end of the ROTJ.  No prequels = Sebastian Shaw is still there.

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I kind of like the prequels, but I dont make a big deal out of it.

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Wasn't Hayden added for the 2004 VD release, and not vor the 97'SE? Yeah, I also detest than one...

Some of the things about the SE I really like. Maybe it's a generational difference, but as much as I enjoy models (I'm a scale modeler, and I also find them far more realistic than CGI), the SE had some nice CGI touches - like the improved lighting on the engines in some scenes; very few scenes, sadly.

If the SE was purely "cosmetic" and didn't introduce (or to be blunt, force) some changes, I'm sure people would have loved it. I still like it a lot. I've seen the original OT only on VHS as a kid, the SE was my full cinematic experience.

It's stunning how people can make fantastic edits with their own PCs and visually improve the OT, without adding any stupidity, yet Lucas with his near infinite budget can't. Meh...

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Burdokva said:

Wasn't Hayden added for the 2004 VD release, and not vor the 97'SE? Yeah, I also detest than one...

Some of the things about the SE I really like. Maybe it's a generational difference, but as much as I enjoy models (I'm a scale modeler, and I also find them far more realistic than CGI), the SE had some nice CGI touches - like the improved lighting on the engines in some scenes; very few scenes, sadly.

If the SE was purely "cosmetic" and didn't introduce (or to be blunt, force) some changes, I'm sure people would have loved it. I still like it a lot. I've seen the original OT only on VHS as a kid, the SE was my full cinematic experience.

It's stunning how people can make fantastic edits with their own PCs and visually improve the OT, without adding any stupidity, yet Lucas with his near infinite budget can't. Meh...

"He's like some retarded person who just want's to see cool stuff done on this computer." Mr. Plinkett

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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When a friend of mine, who had recently seen a bootleg low-res copy of TPM (I'm in Sweden, we had to wait three months to get it in theaters here) told me that there was a character in it that reminded a lot of an annoying character from a video game that we had played a week before.

As for Episode III, it started to go downhill at the beginning when you could see Ewan McGregor's expression that he really did not care anymore ...

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Was it this one by chance?

Out around the right time, looks and walks sort of the same, fart jokes etc only Abe is much better and the game was rather good.

Abe

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EyeShotFirst said:

"He's like some retarded person who just want's to see cool stuff done on this computer." Mr. Plinkett

 

I'm retarded because I like some things about the 97'SE? That's fair...

 

EDIT: Hey, Abe's Exodus was great - certainly miles better than anything related with JJ-Binks.

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ESF can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was referring to you Burdokva.  I think he was referring to Lucas by way of a quote from the RedLetterMedia review.

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TV's Frink said:

ESF can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he was referring to you Burdokva.  I think he was referring to Lucas by way of a quote from the RedLetterMedia review.

Yep, that's what I was doing.

 

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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I may be bashed quite a bit for this, but... the whole Star Wars Saga kinda sucks.

Don't get me wrong. I am a Star Wars fan. Yes, I started with TPM, but it appealed to me as an 8-year old kid. Still, I was instantly hooked, found the OT as fast as I could, and... Yeah, I loved Star Wars Saga. And I do still, and I can still rewatch movies over and over again. But now, I... I see flaws in every episode.

I will not go into much detail, because it would require too much time to wrtie everything I think.

What I want to say is that Star Wars story looks so great on paper. But realisation to life is not really all that great.

Even ESB. ESB is undeniably the best of the OT episodes. But, while rewatching it the other day, I thought that C-3PO... reminded me of Jar-Jar. Oh my, he was annoying. And I swear I wanted to kill him when he talked during the freezing Han in carbonite scene. One can say that, well, 3PO should be annoying, it's his character... Bullshit. He was a lot more likeable in ANH than in ESB (and if we take parallels with Jar-Jar, he was more likeable in Ep2 than in Ep1... that doesn't mean I like Jar-Jar very much, by the way).

Episode 4 is very slow-paced and I feel bored while watching it. Don't dare anybody start with some 'old movie/different times/I'm too young' stuff. Blues Brothers has some issues with pacing, but it kicks ass. 12 Angry Men is an old film and there people just talk in one friggin' room, but it kicks ass. Back to the Future... well, Back to the Future just kicks ass. Totally. I know BttF is not slow-paced. But Episode 4 is, well, slow.

Episode 6 is poorly structured. How much time does it take to rescue Han? Somewhere like, 35-40 minutes? That's almost half of the movie when nothing practically happens. RotS had Palpatine rescure mission, somewhere 20-25 minutes, half as long as RotJ rescue mission, but it was still kinda long, there was still unnecessary water. Not to mention, Palpatine is totally stupid in RotJ. Prequel Palpatine rocks, really. But RotJ Palpatine is senile.

Just don't think that I'm an OT-basher or something. There are a lot of things I like in the OT. But most of it is from ESB. And as I wanted to say that PT has a lot of totally great stuff too, I realised that most of my favorite scenes are from RotS. So yeah. The only good and well-made Star Wars movies in my opinion are ESB and RotS. Now sue me.

Anyway, there is one thing that bugs me in the whole Star Wars Saga, but in OT mostly. It's turning to the Dark Side/Light Side stuff.

Let's take OT. Just how exactly Vader (and Palpatine) wanted to turn Luke to the Dark Side? In ESB, Vader, like, chops his hand and expects Luke to join him? And in RotJ Palpatine expects to make Luke kill Vader and become his apprentice because... anger makes Luke more powerful? How, how does that exactly work anyway? Luke kills Vader and then goes on a killing spree to kill his friends or something? Vader grants Luke power to rule the galaxy and Luke... agrees? Just like that? And becomes, what, evil? HOW DOES IT WORK?! PT way of joining the Dark Side is much more believable. It took a Palpatine years to earn Anakin's trust and mess up with his head - that, combined with some issues Anakin had, and whoala. And still Anakin's turn to the Dark Side may (and does) seem somewhat forced. And Vader and Palpatine always talk like "You don't know the true power of the Dark Side", "If only you knew the power of the Dark Side", bla-blah. And how does one go back to the Light Side exactly? If a Sith Lord donates money for charity, does he come back to the Light Side? What are these sides anyway?

I really think that RotS could be a lot better movie if it didn't have to tie in with the OT. Firstly, RotS establishes a very good, in my opinion, vision of the sides of the Force (during the Palpatine talk in the Opera) - that light side is, basically, selflessness, and Dark Side is selfishness (even if posed as selflessness). Which is absolutely NOT the same as Good and Evil. Secondly, RotS establishes that the border between the Light and Dark is undefined, which is a very wise thought in my opinion. But at the same time, Anakin just clicks and becomes bad, i.e. EVil, because he has to become Vader the way he is in the most of the OT, i.e. Evil. Some people say that "If only Lucas thought a more believable turn for Anakin to become Vader". My response to them: bullshit. OT has a very poor concept of different sides of the Force, in my opinion. I can't see anyone turning to the Dark Side the OT way. Oh wait. Anakin's click in RotS is exactly what it is - the OT way. And that's what most people didn't like.

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I may take my time some day to write less spountainiously my opinion on OT, PT, Saga as a whole - bad sides of the movies, all of them, good sides of the movies, all of them. If anyone's interested.

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Wow... so much that I disagree with there Farlander.  I'd respond, but 1) I'm too lazy and 2) it would be off topic anyway.  Maybe you should transfer that post to a thread of its own; it would generate a lot of discussion I'm sure.

Back to the topic at hand... I actually thought TPM started off pretty good.  We had a classic opening crawl, mysterious-looking Jedi in the cloaks, lightsabers cutting through blast doors...  and then Obi-Wan and Qui Gon decided to run away at 80 kph.  'Huh, that's weird' I thought.  But I let it slide.  It wasn't until a few minutes later, when Jar Jar opened his mouth and spoke his first words, that I first began to sense that something was really "off".  I thought, wow, that's just.... wrong.  Really, really wrong.  Why is a character talking like this in a Star Wars movie?

From there, the whole film snowballed into something that felt like it was 30% Star Wars goodness and 70% pig shit.  On the one hand were things like R2, the pod race, Jedi council, and the lightsaber battle (all of which I liked), and on the other were such things as Jar Jar, "Yippee!", Boss Nass doing his impression of a motor boat (what IS that about anyway?!), the Three Stooges in space, a crappy-looking Yoda, and a lacklustre space/ground battle.

Yet despite all its shortcomings, I remember leaving my first viewing of TPM (I ultimately saw it five times in theatres) thinking "Wow, that was fun!"  I kept replaying Duel of the Fates in my head, and vowed to go out and buy myself a lightsaber as soon as possible.  Looking back, I think the few likeable parts of the movie, combined with the novelty of having a new Star Wars movie, temporarily masked the film's suckiness for me.

As for AOTC, I initially liked it more than TPM because I felt it had a more (and I use the term loosely here) "adult" feel to it... thanks, in large part, to being 99% Jar Jar free.  Like TPM, it also had its good and bad:  Jango Fett, the Slave 1, a rusty-looking 3PO, a bearded Obi-Wan, and Sand People being slaughtered were cool; a poorly-executed love story, 3PO's one-liners, Yoda fighting (a.k.a. "the green blender"), and robo-waitress were bad.  Upon leaving the theatre, I knew right away that it wasn't great, but it was only recently that, looking back, I now see it as being worse in some ways than TPM in terms of pacing, story, and acting.

As for ROTS, I thought (and still think) that it's the best of the PT, and in some ways is even on par with ROTJ.  But it, too, has its many failings: a cackling emperor, people dying from having no "will to live", newborns with a remarkable memory, robot slapstick, and wheezy cyborgs come to mind.

Ultimately, the PT, like all Star Wars, is fun to watch (to varying degrees), but unlike the OT there is no lasting appeal... I think RedLetterMedia does a pretty good job of explaining why this is.  I think Lucas should admit he cocked up, hand over the reigns to someone who's still capable of making a film, and reboot the entire PT franchise.

“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers

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TPM was the first one I saw. I went to the theatre with my Mum as a little kid and watched it, then rented it quite a few times after that - and eventually bought the VHS. The action was great, I had no idea what character development was, and the CGI looked real to me (imo the CGI in TPM is better than in AoTC/RoTS). Then I saw Toy Story 2. Irrelevant, right? Well, no. You see, in Toy Story 2, it turns out that the evil Emperor Zurg is Buzz Lightyear's father. As I was watching Toy Story 2, my Dad turned to me and said "You know where that's from!" and I was like, "What?" and then he was all "Star Wars! Darth Vader is Luke's father!"

That's right. My Dad ruined the Original Trilogy for me. I hadn't seen Empire Strikes Back before then, and I never got to experience it in the way that so many others did.

I didn't realise the significance of that at the time, though. I borrowed Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on VHS (the pre-1997 versions, no less) and watched them religiously, until I was given the Special Edition boxset that Christmas. I was still in awe of it all; the Jabba scene astounded me ("How did they make a CGI character in 1977?! Wow!") and I would watch all of the films frequently - even though I thought of ESB as 'the most boringest' one.

Attack of the Clones rolled around, which I went to see a couple of times in the cinema. I didn't buy the VHS, as I kind of hated the love story - at the time I thought I was just plain immature but looking back on it now I realise that I never had a problem with the love story in ESB; the one in AoTC simply suffered from terrible execution. This was at the time and still is my most loathed film in the PT. The CGI was crappy, Anakin was a whiny teenager and I had no idea who Dooku or Sifo Dyas were.

Revenge of the Sith, I liked. I went to see it on opening night and grabbed a pizza beforehand. There were stormtroopers posing in the lobby, and the movie was simply a thrill - from the space battle at the beginning to the first appearance of the Emperor through to the image of the Death Star at the end. I was so caught up in the angst and special effects as a young teenager that I ranked this film above the Original Trilogy - something which I feel deeply ashamed of now.

It wasn't until I saw the RedLetterMedia reviews that I realised what a fucking mess the Star Wars prequels are. Not just the nitpicking, but watching clips from the films again demonstrated to me not only the awful CGI but the even more awful acting and scripting. I am now a total purist, and I don't really consider the prequels to be canon - the only information that I accept regarding the Old Republic era are snippets from pre-1997 video games and novels. They, in my opinion, captured the essence of the very brief allusions made by Kenobi in SW and RoTJ.

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Farlander,

Your opinion is interesting if only for this fact: You never knew the OT as the OT.  Your introduction to Star Wars was the Phantom Menace, as you said.  The PT hangs like sandbags on the entire SW product.  I absolutely loved Star Wars from when it came out until 1999.  From about 1999 to 2008, I couldn't stand Star Wars.  Even watching the OT was painful for me, because of its association with the PT.  It so tarnished my enjoyment of movies I really loved.  It, as you said, made it all suck.

A couple years ago, I started to turn around on it again.  Ady's SW:R was a big part of it, but I started to cut the sandbags loose and self-deliriorize (new word!) that the prequels don't exist.  And, wouldn't you know, it returned the movies to their former esteem!

My 7 year old son (and my other younger kids, for that matter) are very vaguely aware that there are prequel movies, cartoons and toys out there, but they've never really seen them.  Several of my real life friends believe I have cheated my son from forming his own opinion... but his 7 year old world already almost revolves in a single day.  His current favourites are Ben-10 and He-man, at least they were when I dropped him off for school this morning. 

I find the prequel material to so dillute the SW property that it simply becomes irrelevant.  If you could somehow see the impact the prequels had by seeing a future where the prequels weren't made and to compare it to our future... I think you'd see that the prequels gave the Star Wars name a boost in the arm, but that they eventually did more harm than good.  Currently you can find a site like this with a lot of 30 somethings complaining about how one of the best parts of their childhoods has been changed for the worse, but people in your (Finlander) generation mostly just won't care.  The OT, the PT, won't be met with positive or negative passion... Just with indifference.

(Sorry to get so "oldguy" on you, but you did lead in with your "youngguy" perspective)

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Judge said:

Revenge of the Sith, I liked. I went to see it on opening night and grabbed a pizza beforehand.

And how was the pizza?

...as a young teenager that I ranked this film above the Original Trilogy - something which I feel deeply ashamed of now.

 And well you should.  ;)  Glad you have repented of this sin.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I don't expect anyone on a site called 'originaltrilogy.com' to agree with me, to be honest. After all, the original trilogy was a huge part of most of this site's community's youth, I would be actually surprised if anyone would say 'Hey, you know what, this 19-year old sucker might be actually right and the original Star Wars movies possibly may not be as good as we remember them'. And that's good, I do not enforce anything. Everyone has his own opinion. I have my own.

The original trilogy was a huge part of my youth too. But, to me, it doesn't have a lasting appeal. The story has, the movies not really. Same case with the PT. (that's why I want edit the whole Saga, but, heck I don't know when and how I will find the needed time) Maybe I have this kind of opinion because there was no trilogy raping my childhood... but that's where the Sequel Trilogy will come in, right? :p

But, heck, it's Star Wars. I still like this modern Greek mythology.

 

EDIT: Oh crap, why I was writing this, more posts appeared. I was replying to corellian77, reading what's new now.

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Farlander said:

 ...But, to me, it doesn't have a lasting appeal... 

This was what I was getting at.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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xhonzi,

First, I want to say that "Finlander" is freakin' great! :D Seriously, no one ever mispronounced my nickname like that before, I had a good laugh (no excuses needed, btw).

You're implying that I have such opinion of Star Wars as a whole because of the PT. Possibly. But, think about this (and since I can't remember on top of my head any prequels to film series, I'll go with sequels, and PT, though being prequels, are essentialy sequels... yeah, what a convoluted phrase). The fact that PT made OT suck for you is not in favor of the OT. For example... Do Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions make the original Matrix suck for you (in case if you liked/loved the Matrix)? No (at least for me). Do the Dead Men's Chest and At World End's make the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie suck? Nah. Does Batman & Robin make Tim Burton's Batman suck? Of course not. Alright, the last example is a stretch, those Batman films are distanced enough to forget about Batman & Robin. My point is, why then PT should make the OT any worse? Is it really the the OT that is good, or the childhood memories that are good?

I can't answer what I would think about the OT if the PT didn't exist for me. But, I can say that it's not PT's existence that made me think different of Star Wars Saga. As I said, there are things I like in the PT, there are things I like in the OT, so a perfect parallel universe for me would be the one where neither PT nor OT existed, but a nice blend of the two.

PS. And nobody answered on how Palpatine and Vader planned to turn Luke to the Dark Side of the Force. :p OT-wise.

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This whole angle of Star Wars-as-modern myth/Important Movie has been pushed pretty hard the last 20 years. It's easy to picture someone new (like young people or everybody's wives and girlfriends like in the other thread) finally seeing the trilogy now and saying "that's it?"

The prequels go along with this newer angle and have a lot of artificial weightiness and frowning. But it's an awkward fit since the actual goal in 77-83 was this...other thing. A space western/adventure. Even the dagobah scenes in Empire, which are the deepest thing in the original trilogy, are pretty basic. I remember one director, possibly Tarantino, comparing those scenes to the time-honored pulpy tradition of the young cowboy who spends the middle of the movie learning from the older, wiser gunfighter/or Indian, like in Nevada Smith. But these days people generally bust out myth textbooks or the Joseph Campbell chart for anything involving Yoda. It's almost like coming back to Die Hard years later and expecting The Godfather. It's not The Godfather, but it's not even trying to be.

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Baronlando, I totally agree.

Everytime Lucas tries to make SW too serious, its comes off as more ridiculous, IMO.

The great thing about SW 77-83 is that they were fun movies, yet they had a mix of drama, comedic moments, and good action.  But the bottom line is they were FUN to watch over and over!!!!  Baron is right, they shouldn't be compared to the Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, or Schindlers List, they aren't those type of movies.  No one watches SW for the great academy award winning performances, you watched them because the actors played their roles and if you bought them in that role, it worked.  Han was cool, Luke was the farmboy, Leia was spunky, and Obiwan was the old sage, and thats it. 

Once Lucas turned the Trilogy/Saga (about midway through ROTJ) into Darth Vaders tragic story, that is when SW sort of lost me.  Luckily it was just a subplot of ROTJ, so I still enjoyed the movie, but once the PT was going to be about the rise of fall of Darth Vader, to me that is too serious for the SW universe.

Lucas turned a bunch of well made fun movies into War and Peace, and now the 'Saga' is laughable, because you have too much cheese in what is supposed to be a serious story that Lucas was trying to accomplish.

Remember the reason we all fell in love with the OOT was they were fun, yet well made movies, nothing more, nothing less.

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I'm kind of do / kind of don't agree with you CO.  On the one hand, I agree that SW is, above all else, simply a fun story, not unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark.  In fact, my all-time favourite quote regarding SW is in one of the DVD extras: some movie critic ends his whole analysis of the films by simply saying, "And it's fun... it's fun watching Star Wars."  I love that quotation because, to me, it really summarizes what Star Wars is all about.

On the other hand, the movies have always had a lot of ties to mythology (especially Greek myths), and have always dealt with "heavy" issues: tyranny, freedom, death, loss of innocence, etc.  I don't think the OT and the PT are different in that respect, except for the fact that the PT perhaps treats these issues with a bit more seriousness which, I agree, is often misplaced.

“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers