I'm just not seeing what you see....at all.
I could say the same.
Basically, Lucas was paying homage to the Flash Gordon seriels (among others) of the 40's and 50's. He managed to transcend it with the first film, and then other people made the idea even better, while keeping the feel.
Yeah, this was what it was about in 1977. It's since become much more than that. George Lucas's Star Wars is an intricately structured six-part saga that tells the story of the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, as well as the fall of a Republic, rise of an Empire, and eventual destruction of that empire. It's an epic story of the conflict between good and evil not only in the world, but also within individuals and institutions. That's what the whole saga, I through VI, achieves.
Then he took full control and decided to take it back to the seriel level of bad acting and poor plot points, plot holes, and horrendous character development, and put it all into a really fun CGI world that happened to look really neat
It is often claimed that Lucas seized control of the prequel trilogy, and I think (though this doesn't directly relate to the quality of the movies) that it's unfair to let this stand without pointing out what actually happened.
Lucas approached Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg to direct Episode I. He wanted one of these critically acclaimed directors to help guide the creation of the prequel trilogy. All three said no, according to Howard: "They all said the same thing: 'George, you should do it!'" So the idea that Lucas seized creative control and forced everyone else out... not exactly accurate. He tried to get not just anyone, but three highly acclaimed directors, to offer outside input.
They are fun to watch, but the story is so poorly executed that it's hard to even view it as canon.
Honestly don't see this. Legitimately, this point of view is totally alien to me. I've watched all six of these films at least ten times each, and I legitimately a) see Revenge of the Sith as the clear best film in terms of plot and execution and b) see little difference in the quality of storyline between the two trilogies.
To be totally candid, I view The Force Awakens as a lower level of canon than the Original Sextet. I view it as "this is the vision of George Lucas, this is the story he originally wanted to tell, and then this is some stuff that other people wrote as continuations." If you ask me "how did Han Solo die," I'll tell you from The Force Awakens, but I will always view Lucas's sextet as the main Star Wars story and whatever else as continuations by others that hold a lower canonical status than the Lucas works.
It's like he didn't even watch the OT before writing the PT.
Oh, but he did. He absolutely, unquestionably, incontrovertibly did. Many times, by the looks of it.I'm going to bow out at this point, I think. I've stated my case, and I know that most people (at least, most people of a certain generation—many viewers my age who grew up with all of the original six movies do not have the same negative view of half the saga) will never agree with me. To lay it out, my position is:
1) Revenge of the Sith is every bit as good as the very best Star Wars films, and it might be the best one of the saga.
2) Episodes I-III are intricately and intelligently plotted. They have plots and characters that usually equal and occasional exceed those of Episodes IV-VI in quality. A close viewing and careful analysis of these films makes this fairly evident.
3) The original sextet of Star Wars films, by George Lucas, forms one cohesive story that makes most sense when viewed as a whole. There are connections and complexities in plots that span multiple films or in aspects of the films that parallel aspects of others that make the saga a much richer and more enjoyable experience when viewed as a whole.
4) The flaws that Episodes I-III have are also flaws that Episodes IV-VI have. For example, Episode I suffers from questionable pacing. Guess what else suffers from questionable pacing. A film that no Star Wars fan is allowed to question that I'm about to question. Episode IV starts really, really slowly. It takes half the movie for them to even get off of Tatooine. Episode I has some childish comic relief that is not very amusing or helpful to the plot. Episode VI has a lot of this as well. The prequel trilogy has been criticized for world-building at the expense of story, but Episode VI spends entirely too long building the world of Jabba's Palace. This series of films is by no means perfect, but the flaws are distributed relatively evenly across the series. Just a theory, but perhaps some people don't want to see flaws in the original trilogy that they have no problem seeing in the prequel trilogy.
If anyone is interested in reading more about what some of the greater complexities across the Star Wars saga are (and for proof that George Lucas not only watched but meticulously watched the original trilogy when writing the prequels), I recommend
https://www.starwarsringtheory.com. It's a great essay by someone who is better versed on this topic than I am that analyzes the plot structure of the full Star Wars saga and shows some of the intricacies behind Lucas's writing of Episodes I-III.