They are all very good movies, killed by over-hype.blackngold29
Well, I certainly wouldn't say that they're all "very good". Though I'd absolutely agree that none of the prequels are "god-awful".
However, I don't consider any of the original movies to be a masterpiece either. And like a few others here have mentioned Return of the Jedi actually sort of sucked. I'd rank Revenge of the Sith as being far better than Return of the Jedi any day of the week.
Empire Strikes Back is still in my mind the best Star Wars movie by far. Yet...people LOOOOVE to make fun of Vader's "NOOOOOOO!!!!!" scene in Revenge, even though I don't see it being any different than Luke's reaction when he finds out that Darth Vader is his father. In both cases...utter cheese. A potentially emotional moment ruined by unintentioonal comedy.
I don't hold ANY of these movies on a pedestal, and none of them are irredeemable garbage. They've all got problems, some more than others. I'd still rank the original trilogy as being overall better than the prequels, but not by much. I liked A New Hope more than ROTS...but not by much. I like Attack of the Clones less than ROTJ...but not by much. With ALL 6 movies, I could take them or leave them. They're all just sort of "okay".
Furthermore, the original trilogy has the advantage of there not having been anything quite like it at the time. Granted, there was lots of previous sci-fi cheese and Star Wars built off of that, but it married that with some timeless and classic themes, and did it in a way that grabbed the public's attention. They were surely IMPORTANT movies, if not any kind of masterpieces. The prequels automatically have a disadvantage in that they aren't important. Quality or not, they just aren't important. Prequels are very rarely ever important or need-to-watch in the first place, and the Star Wars prequels had that going for them. Secondly, they came a good 20 years after Star Wars came out, had time to make a cultural impact, had time for numerous people to imitate it. By 20 years later, even if these movies were EXACTLY the same quality as the originals, they'd be seen as disappointments. Because in those 20 years, society has changed. What was amazing then often isn't now. This is precisely why Citizen Kane is justifiably hailed as one of the most important movies ever made, yet these days a lot of people think that it's either "boring" or "average, but not THAT good".
That's also precisely why I'm predicting that The Hobbit is going to be seen as a HUGE disappointment when it's finally released. By the time that movie ends up on movie theaters, enough time will have passed between it and the LOTR movies that it'll be doomed to just seem "okay". Even the hardcore fans who've been wanting to see that story for years will find it a disappointment in terms of it being the followup to the LOTR movies. The LOTR's movies cultural significance has long since died down, we'll be watching a prequel to the mosat important events of the whole saga. It'll just seem anticlimactic. Not worth the wait. A huge disappointment. The only chance that people will love the Hobbit the same way that they loved LOTR is if they view it more as an adaptation of Tolkien's book, rather than as a prequel to the LOTR trilogy. And...the Star Wars didn't have that in its advantage, since Star Wars wasn't adapted from a well-loved book.
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