wpegg: I think I'd call that the "Narrative temporal order".
I think the thing about the original trilogy is that most people who love it, watched as kids. If you watch it young then the bad bits get smoothed over, and you get caught up in the magic. Most people that I know that dislike it have tried watching it when in their teens or older, and of course by then are too skeptical to get carried away.
This is similarly why there was little chance the prequels could ever please both child and adult alike (they opted for children, which is probably the smarter move).
I fundamentally disagree, see above.
Red_Avatar: You may disagree with I agree with him to some degree. The original trilogy was for young adults and adults, the prequel trilogy was for kids as well - it's this kids part that bugged me a lot personally. I found Star Wars very scary and fascinating at the same time as a kid. The prequels don't have that feeling (I tested this theory on my nephew who LOVES the prequels but finds the original series too scary to watch - he's 6 - so I consider this a FACT).
There's many many problems with the prequels though:
- some poorly picked actors throughout made worse by wooden acting (partially caused by the 3D scenery which limited interaction a great deal)
- Anakin as a child was just a brat. There's a reason a lot of movies with kids acting, are disliked because of the kid.
- a lack of real proper comedy (and I don't mean the retarded slap stick Jar Jar-pleasekilleme-Binks caused) - C3PO was still funny but the other actors couldn't be funny if their lives depended on it. Yes, Luke sucked at being funny as well, but Han Solo and Leia + C3PO were gold together. There's nowhere near anything like this in the prequels.
- a horrible horrible horrible HORRIBLE horrible HORRIIBBBBBBBLE love story between Anakin and Padme. I mean, it's "retch inducing" it's so bad with CGI apples flying about the place. Dear LORD that was bad and painful to watch. Thank GOD the original trilogy had nothing like that.
- and to end it with the worst sin of all sins: they turned Anakin in a bitchy bratty cunty emo fuckwit. In the original trilogy it sounded like he was this amazingly cool guy who fought valiantly for the light side but in the end fell to the dark side. The actual story is so horribly laid out, until this moment I've never managed to watch more than half the 3rd movie. I physically can't, it's that painful to see how George Lucas is taking a massive dump over all our expectations.
So yes, the "new" trilogy is pretty horrible. It has nothing to do with rose tinted glasses and all to do with us having to fill in the blanks for many years by ourselves. We could only imagine what the Clone Wars were, what Anakin did to fall to the dark side. I want to bet not a single person imagined such a lame and poorly executed explanation - except for George Lucas *facepalms*
Actually, I liked the Clone Wars (both the original animated version, and the CGI series), they made Anakin into a likeable protagonist who's faults were there but he wasn't the same Anakin as the movie version. He was caring, and genuinely a good person who was slowly corrupted by darkness (as should have been in the movies) and even his padawan (in the CGI version) kind of grew on me over time. The original feature length (and season 1) of the CGI I'm not too keen on, but fom about season 2 to when it was stopped are all solid seasons and worth a viewing (I still need to get copies of seasons 3-5 (I think it was 5 when it was cancelled). The Clone Wars (animated and CGI) were the first times I have enjoyed Star Wars on screen (I still loved some of the audio work, novels, comics and games) since the Original Trilogy.