[quote name='javeryh']As someone who
remembers seeing Empire and Jedi in the theaters I can honestly say I enjoyed the prequels. Sure, the acting was terrible (for the most part), the script seemed like it was written by a high school kid who just finished freshman English and the special effects were completely overdone but they were entertaining at least. I almost wet myself during the first 15 minutes of Phantom Menace during the badass lightsaber fight - too bad the rest of the movie didn't match the opening. I do think Lucas should have handed his "outline" over to a more contemporary director who could have done something to connect to today's audience though.
Can you believe it's been almost 10 years since Episode I?[/QUOTE]
I agree, that opening sequence in Phantom Menace was absolutely thrilling to me. It brought back all those childhood memories of seeing the first movie (and the complete surprise that was Empire Strikes Back). But FINALLY, we got to see what real Jedi could do and it was very well done. The movie also finishes up pretty solidly (double fight vs Darth Maul, seeing the emperor eyeing Anakin for his potential). I think Episode III was handled decently, but the whole transition of Anakin to Vader just seemed a little too rushed and not as weighty as it should have been. In retrospect he should have ditched child Anakin in the first movie and spent more time focusing on Anakin's descent over the 3 movies, instead of barely starting that half way through Ep II (except for the ominous back-talk to Obi-Wan at the beginning of AotC
).
Episode I came along at an interesting time for me. I was jobless for about 3 months after it came out (the only time since graduating from college) and my daughter was just hitting the age where she could see movies with me. We went to about 4 or 5 afternoon matinees. While I understand the hate for Jar-Jar he was an entertaining character for her
. Anyway, I will always have fond memories of it because of all those circumstances. All in all I'm glad the prequels got made vs NOT being made at all as they were certainly entertaining enough - just wish, as most people do, that they were a bit better.
I feel kind of bad for all you youngsters with all your shiny objects and fancy video games - I couldn't imagine being so jaded (like Soodmeg there). Other than occasional moments in the prequels, the only thing that has come close to capturing the feel of the original Star Wars movies for me in recent times is the LOTR trilogy - and that had childhood connections for me as well since the last time I had read it was when I was 10-13 or so. While I can't be too happy about approaching 40, I am certainly glad I was able to have the experience of going into the original Star Wars completely unawares as to what I was going to see and being, of course, completely blown away. That opening scene may not look like much now but back then that thundering space battle with the huge Imperial cruiser passing overhead was incredible. Then that was followed up by the darker Empire Strikes Back, which was also a complete surprise - and also corresponded to my becoming a bit older and more primed for the darker story. Though I remember not believing Vader was Luke's father until confirmed in RotJ. I just couldn't believe it was actually true - figured he was just playing with him. See, there were no Internets back then so beyond a few fan magazines (I think I got the fan club one for a while) there was very little info that came out before the sequels. In some ways I kind of miss all of that...
ing sense and had the worse audio ever, the second had apparently a "bigger" budget for bigger location shots, more storm troopers, effects and so on. 
