The Obligatory Special Edition Hate Thread

[Darth Geek]

I love this info graphic:

Wow! I have never seen it summed up so succinctly before.

[RoninFox]

I've lost track.  Do Star Wars fans actually like Star Wars?  Or is it some kind of ironic turn of phrase?  Because I swear I hear more complaining about the series from its fans than from casual viewers of the general public.  I can't recall the last time a Star Wars fan said anything good about Star Wars.

I love Star Wars.  I love the imagery, I love the characters, I love the over the top storytelling.  I love the classic depictions of good and evil.

You don't hear that a whole lot because when talking about the classic movies most Star Wars fans consider it understood.  Then when the special editions came out, they tried to replace what we loved with crap.  Then the prequels came out and were mostly made of the leftover crap that couldn't fit in the special editions.

The rage isn't as strong for me anymore, I have my dvd copies of the movies I actually did and still do love, and I can mostly ignore the rest now unless I'm watching a riff, which almost works like therapy.

[Tripe]

I've lost track.  Do Star Wars fans actually like Star Wars?  Or is it some kind of ironic turn of phrase?  Because I swear I hear more complaining about the series from its fans than from casual viewers of the general public.  I can't recall the last time a Star Wars fan said anything good about Star Wars.

You are so blind! You so do not understand! You weren't there at the beginning. You don't know how good it was! How important! This is it for you! This jumped-up firework display of a toy advert! People like you make me sick! What's wrong with you?

[SJP]

Yeah, I know nobody likes the new trilogy, but I don't mind it as much as everyone else does.  Yes, it is nothing but CG, and yes, it isn't written nearly as well, but I can't actually HATE them.  I just like Star Wars.  It's a part of my childhood.  And there's just something about it that no amount of midichlorians, Jar Jar, or wooden dialogue can destroy.  And there's stuff to like in 1, 2, and 3 that I think a lot of people say they don't care for but really do.  Underused he may be, but Darth Maul's lightsaber duel is still one of the best moments in Star Wars history.  And even if people say it's silly now, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, during Episode II, when they saw Yoda walk in at the end, started cheering at the top of their lungs, knowing Yoda was going to show how things were done.

Since I was born too young to see ANY of the original 3 in the theater when they first came out, that's probably the closest moment I will ever have to some of the feeling the (slightly) older folk get out of the original movies.  Heck, not once during the Lord of the Rings movies did I experience anything, theater-wise, that came close to those 3 minutes where Yoda went berserk.  I remember reading a reviewer in an old magazine talking about how he'll never forget how, in Jedi, the whole theater stood up at the climatic Emperor-tossing moment and started shouting, "THROW HIM IN!  THROW HIM IN!"  Episode II may not have reached that level of awesome, but I'd like to think, for just a moment, I shared something with those who got a chance to see the original, untouched trilogy in theaters, and that's not a bad thing at all.

And yes, I do like the old ones better than the new ones...there's really no question that beyond the budget they are just better made overall, with better acting, but they certainly aren't the most horrible movies ever made.  As long as "Dudley Do-Right" still exists, there are movies that are still just unwatchable.   

[RoninFox]

Yeah, I know nobody likes the new trilogy, but I don't mind it as much as everyone else does.  Yes, it is nothing but CG, and yes, it isn't written nearly as well, but I can't actually HATE them.  I just like Star Wars.  It's a part of my childhood.  And there's just something about it that no amount of midichlorians, Jar Jar, or wooden dialogue can destroy.  And there's stuff to like in 1, 2, and 3 that I think a lot of people say they don't care for but really do.  Underused he may be, but Darth Maul's lightsaber duel is still one of the best moments in Star Wars history.  And even if people say it's silly now, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, during Episode II, when they saw Yoda walk in at the end, started cheering at the top of their lungs, knowing Yoda was going to show how things were done.

Since I was born too young to see ANY of the original 3 in the theater when they first came out, that's probably the closest moment I will ever have to some of the feeling the (slightly) older folk get out of the original movies.  Heck, not once during the Lord of the Rings movies did I experience anything, theater-wise, that came close to those 3 minutes where Yoda went berserk.  I remember reading a reviewer in an old magazine talking about how he'll never forget how, in Jedi, the whole theater stood up at the climatic Emperor-tossing moment and started shouting, "THROW HIM IN!  THROW HIM IN!"  Episode II may not have reached that level of awesome, but I'd like to think, for just a moment, I shared something with those who got a chance to see the original, untouched trilogy in theaters, and that's not a bad thing at all.

And yes, I do like the old ones better than the new ones...there's really no question that beyond the budget they are just better made overall, with better acting, but they certainly aren't the most horrible movies ever made.  As long as "Dudley Do-Right" still exists, there are movies that are still just unwatchable.   

I'll admit there are elements to the prequels I like, but not enough to say I like the films.  And while I'll agree that I like the Darth Maul lightsaber fight, I just found the Yoda fight funny, and eventually I had to agree with the idea that Yoda dueling with a lightsaber took more away from Yoda than it added to the movie.  The only fight I really got into in Episode II was Obi Wan and Jango Fett on the landing platform.

I can ignore the dialog and just enjoy a great fight in Episode III, if the rest of the prequels had anywhere near the intensity of Anakin and Obi Wan's battle then things would have been a lot different.

Interesting that all I can think of to bring up are the fights, and the vast majority of them I actually couldn't bring myself to care about at all.  Just the lightsaber duels seem to bring up any actual emotion.  What about the other fights.

Gungans fighting robots...so?

Nameless pilots and a small child blow up a ship in the exact same kind of way we've seen in two other movies...okay, repetitive and extra stupid because it's a kid depicted as doing it by accident.

The chase scene with the female shapeshifter...a thousand reasons that the Jedi should have died but didn't because shut up that's why.

Jedi fighting random monsters...well, it was okay.

Jedi fighting termite aliens and robots...cool for a couple minutes.

Evil robots fighting evil clones with some Jedi stuck in here and there...so?  We don't even see the end to know which winner we don't care about.

Giant space battle at the beginning of Episode III, bigger than any in Star Wars history...pretty much ignored once Obi and Ani get on board the biggest enemy ship.  If the movie doesn't even care why should I?

Obi Wan duels a four armed robot thing...the robot is obviously an idiot.  At one point it starts whirling lightsabers in a pattern that couldn't possibly be avoided or broken as a means of intimidation, then it stopped and slowed down to give Obi Wan a chance.  I think he was paid off.

Palpatine fights Yoda in the abandoned Senate chamber...dumb for the same reason as Yoda and Dooku, except that Dooku is a 63% stupider name.

You know what I think my favorite scene in the entire prequel series is, actually?  Palpatine talking to Anakin in the Space-Aqua Frollics theater.  A quiet moment of character development.

[mrbasehart]

I hate Phantom Menace and tolerate the other two prequels.  A New Hope is okay, but Empire Strikes Back is, for me, the only "proper" movie in the series.  It's pretty great.