Fans vs Lucas Documentary

[Great Rumbler]

sure, the 'stiff' acting from TPM returns, but that's how Lucas wanted it.

Maybe he did and maybe he didn't, but it makes the scenes between Anakin and Padme absolutely terrible.

Oh come on, that's pure speculation. He's a professional filmmaker dammit. An artist. He's not just gonna mail it in, is my speculation.

BUT here's the thing, Lucas is no longer just a filmmaker. He stopped being that not long after Star Wars first hit the big time. He's a businessman now, a very successful business man who has created a business worth billions. He doesn't have to fight the system for anything anymore, he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone anymore; if he wants something done, then that something gets done because he IS the system.

but the "little kid has special powers that make up for his lack of any combat training, allowing him to destroy space stations with ease" is basically the plot of ANH.

Luke was hardly a "little kid". Also, Obi-Wan gave him some rudimentary training in how to use the Force and Luke flew one-man fighters back on Tatooine ["used to bull's eye womprats in my T-16" and "Just like Beggar's Canyon back home"]. Anakin knew how to race on the ground and that's it. He got in the spaceship by accident and flew it by accident and destroyed a space station by accidents, all without ever having been inside a spaceship before.

And if we're talking about Harryhausen-esque monster scenes, to me nothing seemed more pointless than the Rancor scene in RotJ.

It was a bit ridiculous in RotJ as well, the whole Jabba the Hut scene kind of was. The arena scene was a lot longer in AotC though.

Also there was that one alien X-Wing pilot in ANH who was clearly meant to be a caricature of Japanese kamikaze pilots.

Eh? There weren't any alien pilots in A New Hope.

many, many will argue that ESB tops ANH and every other Star Wars flick, and that movie wasn't nominated for any important Oscars.

It probably would have been nominated for something, but this was about the same time that Lucas got fed up with the Academy and burned his Guild card. And I brought it up because of your contention that the older generation didn't get it when it first came out.

Also great performances from Sam Jackson, Ewan MacGregor, and Natalie Portman. Unlike many of the actors in the OT, the PT actors' careers didn't die when the series ended.

Harrison Ford's certainly didn't die, neither did Carrie Fisher's [although she never achieved the success Ford did]. Mark Hamill took his career to voice acting and has become one of the most prolific American voice actors ever.

Of the PT, McGregor and Portman have had good acting career's since, but Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen haven't done much [aside from a couple of bad movies for the later].