In the end, it’s all in how you use it.

My opinion on the Star Wars films are as follows…

Star Wars: Groundbreaking sci-fi art-house brilliance.

Empire: One of the best films ever, and all the things sci-fi aspires to be.

Most of Jedi and EVERYTHING that followed: Utter shit which has the sole purpose of selling toys so George Lucas can rake in billions on his lucrative (and unprecedented) merchandising rights.

What started as one of the most amazing stories to ever hit the silver screen eventually generated into burp and fart jokes to sell toys to kids. Nothing like flushing a franchise down the toilet to sell a bunch of crap. Lucas sucks ass.

As for Dave’s assertation that Harrison Ford took Star Wars beyond cult status… I don’t know. I think it’s easy to say that now when we look at Harrison Ford, megastar. We look back and go “aha! that’s where first saw it!” Certainly the character of Han Solo stands out in stark contrast to Obiwan, Luke, or Leia, in that he is the only character not clearly fighting for the cause. Luke is, of course, the central character of the first movie — he’s sort of the central thread woven through everything. Luke really isn’t a horribly interesting character though. He’s just a country farmboy off to the bright lights of the big city… or really, that displaced fairy tale prince living as a lowly farmhand until events conspire to allow him to save a princess. No, Luke doesn’t become a truly interesting character until Empire, when he acquires a dark side with that whole Freudian conflict of killing the Father.

For me, that leaves Alec Guiness. I think his was the performance that appealed to me the most when I originally saw the film, and after… when the movie finally came to HBO in the early 80’s. (Imagine that… letting a film wait for 3-5 years before bringing it to cable… those days are gone!) It was Guiness who weilded the light saber against Darth Vader and who really provided any insight into the Force.

I happened to pick up a biography of Alec Guiness not long ago, and it discussed his experiences with the first Star Wars Trilogy. I was saddened to see that his view was more than a little apathetic. Filming Episode IV was hard, especially the part in Tunisia, which evidently didn’t generate much enthusiasm for him… and you get the sense that while he may have found George Lucas pleasant or charming, he really wasn’t that impressed with George Lucas as a maker of films that interested him. His involvement in the subsequent two movies boiled down to George Lucas coming to London, buying him an expensive lunch or dinner, and offering him comparatively large amounts of money for one to two days work.

When it snowed and we ran out to the schoolyard to play ‘Hoth,’ I was always Han. And I’m sure you know why.

With that said, Harrison Ford rules!!!!!

I totally agree with you about how CGI gets in the way of real acting. I mean, yes, it’s hard to act when you can’t see what you’re acting with, but at the same time, it’s harder to really get into character.

And woo hoo, we’re going to fight side-by-side!!!

However, the new SW films with all their CGI and green screening could never allow for the acting freedom that the originals did. I think that’s why Ewan came off so stiff in the first two of them. Up to that point, he had been so accustomed to life as an indie actor where you could just drown yourself in the acting and do whatever and still make it work because there were no special effects, really. Then he winds up on this big dollar actioner and suddenly has his freedom taken away. By the third film, he became used to what he could and could not do and his acting was better as a result.

The Original Trilogy = actor-driven movies
The Prequel Trilogy = effects-driven movies

Just my two Lincolns. But I do still enjoy the PT and will fight side-by-side with you against those who call them crap. Not the best, admittedly. But still enjoyable.