I was never into Star Wars as a kid. The first Star Wars movie I saw was Episode 1. I really liked it. Then I saw Episode 2. I really liked that one too. Then I saw Episode 3, again, I really liked it.
Ever since the release of Episode 1, I have heard over and over the cry of all the fans of the original Star Wars movies. So many people went on and on about how bad the three new movies were. How bad the acting was. How bad the ‘virtual’ sets were. How unbelievable it was. How the characters ‘came out of no where’ or ‘had no base in the story’.
I thought, hey, maybe I should see these older three movies, seeing as how I loved the new three, so these must be spectacular. I watched Episode 4. It was crap. I laughed at how bad it was as I watched it. I decided not to watch the Episode 5 and 6 because if they were anything like Episode 4, it wouldn’t be worth my time.
I gave in and watched Episode 5 and 6. They were much better than 4, but still no where near as good as 1, 2, and 3. All the reasons I had heard over and over about why the new movies were so bad held true for the originals!
I hate criticizing acting. For one, it’s subjective. And second, most people don’t know good acting any way. And third, people usually use “bad acting” as a reason to hate a movie because they are left with no other reason to say they didn’t like that movie. Obviously this is debatable, but the acting in the original three movies was crap compared to the new three. I’m not saying Harrison Ford or any of the other star cast was bad, but so much of the supporting actors were garbage. And normally I don’t care if the acting is bad, that’s a very small part of a movie. But when people say “Episode 1 sucks because of how horrible the acting is”, they should go back and watch Episode 4 without bias. The acting was miserable.
Virtual sets are amazing. You can create anything in a virtual set. If the lighting matches the blue-screen live action, there is absolutely nothing you can complain about. Some movies have really bad virtual sets. But in episode 1, 2, and 3, I never thought “wow these look like crap”. All the ‘virtual sets’ in the new movies were fantastically done. They were all photo realistic and the lighting always matched. If we go back to the original three movies and look at their ‘virtual sets’ in the form of miniatures and puppets, we can make a pretty good comparison. It’s obvious when they are using miniature sets, props, and puppets in the original movies. In fact, it’s often very poorly done. Yes they were on a limited budget. But don’t say the virtual sets in the new movies were bad if the virtual sets in the old movies were so amazingly bad.
If something is unbelievable in a science fiction movie, and you think that’s bad, get a life.
As for characters ‘coming out of no where’, meaning they were only in one or two of the six episodes, what’s the problem? You could remove characters like Grevis, or Duku and not really affect much. You could continue removing characters. Maybe Laya. She didn’t have much to do with anything. Maybe Yoda. In the scheme of things, he wasn’t really necessary. If you removed all the ‘characters from nowhere’ you would be left with a single short movie. You would also make things boring. Short term plots are fun. Long term plots are fun. Long term plots without short term plots are really boring. Star Trek Voyager’s long term plot, getting home, didn’t need any short term plots. However, they had about 170 of them. They were mostly all great. It made the long term plot a lot more fun. That’s the point of the characters from nowhere. It was nice having the long term plot finished, although I’m sure that episodes 4, 5, and 6 could have been much more entertaining if they had better short term plots.
Until one of the people from ‘the new movies sucked’ crowd gives me a good reason why they really did suck, and one that out ways how crappy the original movies were in the first place, I am going to stick with my belief that those people are crazy. I would bet that if the people who ‘like’ the originals more than the new ones never saw the originals, then saw them after the new ones came out, just like I did, they would think the originals were crap… Just like me.
