As poor as episodes 1-3 were in contrast to the original trilogy, they were still entertaining movies. I just wish Lucas didn't pander to the fucking kids with the new trilogy like he did. The original movies were adult flicks that kids just happened to embrace because children love lasers and x wing fighters. They were awesome no matter your age, and the special effects were unreal when you consider the movies were made upwards of 18 years BEFORE windows 95. Think about how shitty and antiquated windows 95 is by today's standards, and then consider the state of computer imagery in 1980... It's incredible what Lucas was able to accomplish given the technological constraints of that era. The space battle between the Rebel/Imperial fleet in Jedi still looks like something out of a high budget film created at the turn of the century. (Which is mind-boggling when you think about it)
Fast forward though, and I think it's safe to say that Lucas damaged the brand by making the new trilogy a Disney circlejerk. Yeah, there were some pretty awesome scenes in 1-2: The podrace, the final jedi fight with Darth Maul, and the last hour or so of episode 2 was entertaining as shit. But all the stupid droid noises, retarded characters (seriously, how the fuck did George Lucas think Jar Jar was a good idea), shitty jokes, cringe worthy acting from Christensen/Portman, and cringe worthy love story script - that plagued so much of the films - took away a lot of what made the original three so fantastic.
I honestly thought episode 3 was pretty well done in the grand scheme of things, but it too suffered from so many of the same shitty Disney elements. (Though to a lesser extent)
People hold those movies to a higher standard because we all know what Star Wars is capable of being; so to an extent I think the newer trilogy has been the subject of some unfair hostility and criticism. As poor as Christensen/Portman were; Liam Neeson, Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine), Ewan McGregor (after eipsode 1), Christopher Lee, Samuel L Jackson, and a select few others were all satisfying.
I think a much fairer synopsis is: The new trilogy was entertaining for the most part, and the movies certainly had their moments; but they could have been, and should have been so much better than they were.
Anyways, I loved what JJ did with Star Trek, so I'm pretty optimistic for the new Star Wars trilogy. (Admittedly I was never a fan of Star Trek growing up, so I don't have anything to compare JJ's contributions to. I'm aware that many purists think he ruined the so called "magic")
