The one thing I am thankful for is that JarJar's midicclorian count wasn't higher.  I was waiting for that shoe to fall in Ep2.  I guess it's not too late in the "expanded universe"

On the contrary, just imagine JarJar as a Jedi. The whole theater would have been roaring in applause when he was finally killed in Revenge of the Sith, and there would've been oh so many creative ways of doing it. And it's not like it could've made episode 2 any worse

*Chaaaapuuu--chaaaappuuu* (Darth Varder sound effect) "Luke, messa yo fadda."

So *that's* how they ultimately secured the alliance with the Gungans in Phantom Menace. Good thing that scene got cut, no?

"Youusa want being fren? Youusa do da oogie boogie with aaahhh here JarJar Binks!" *Boss Nass shoves JarJar towards the horrified yet strangely smiling Amidala*

Yeah, kinda like that only with more eww

A google image search returned more "Ewww" results but I choose not to post them. 

Strangely enough, I think Ahsoku is the best thing to happen to Star Wars for a while. I don't watch the cartoon (competing time slot with Stargate, Stargate wins), but without her the movie would have been garbage

I've lost count how many times I've seen the original trilogy over the past 30 years.  To be honest, when I saw Star Wars in the theater I was 10 years old...and I had no idea what was going on.  But they showed it again the next summer and boy did I get it.  I was hooked.  Christmas that year was freakin' sweet with all my Star Wars toys.

But I think I have an answer as to why to new trilogy, despite it's enhanced special effects, did not have the impact that the '77-'83 trilogy had.  Simply put, we all knew what was going to happen.  We all knew Anakin was going to become Darth Vader.  We knew that scores of Jedi were going to be killed off.  We knew that Anakin was going to sire Luke and Leia.  We knew that Kenobi and Anakin were going to duke it out.  We knew Yoda was an uber Jedi-master....you get my drift.  There were really no "surprises" in the new trilogy.  There were just a few things that made us go "hey, that was kinda cool."  But nothing really grabbed you and made you think.

In Empire Strikes Back, when Vader told Luke he was his father my mind spun and for the next three years the debate with my friends raged whether it was true or not.  Yoda: we had no idea how truly powerful he was in Empire.  Most thought he was a cute little muppet with that funny backward talk until he parked an X-Wing across the swamp with the Force.  And the special effects for that time were unbelievable.  Truly groundbreaking.  That generation had never seen anything like it before.  The Death Star battle.  The Force was something ethereal and mystical, not based in biology.  Everything was so much larger than life but at the same time relatable to everyone.  And as Luke went on his journey and discovered things about himself and what his life was really about, we were along for the ride and could relate to him.  And even then you really didn't know if Luke was actually going to make the right decisions and be a good guy or bad.  More unknowns in the original than the new and that, in my opinion, is what makes a story that sticks with you for years.

I personally don't think it's that. I think it's because Lucas wanted to make a CGI spectacle, rather than a character-driven trilogy. The only character development there was in the new trilogy was the Anakin - Padme relationship, and that ended up being played out like a high school drama, in part because Hayden Christensen isn't that great of an actor, and because neither he nor Natalie Portman had much to work with in terms of dialogue written for them.

So the trilogy not only ended up being somewhat predictable, but it ended up being good only for the cool CGI and flashy battles.

I wish Battlestar Galactica was re-done before Lucas did the new trilogy, because the new BSG shows that just because it's a sci-fi story doesn't mean it can't be character-driven. BSG's CGI is pretty amazing, but the show succeeds so well because it does not rely on it. If the new Star Wars trilogy did the same, it would've been a much bigger hit, I think.

The only new movie I go back to watch again is Revenge of the Sith, because despite it still being all about the CGI, it still manages (somehow) to trigger some emotion in the end - from Order 66 to Yoda failing to win against Palpatine. But when I finish watching the first two, my reaction is just "Hey, the effects were pretty cool"

I'm sure since she's a "youngling" that would be illegal even in the SW universe. Plus there's the whole Jedi oath thing

Youngling refers to age, Padawan refers to Jedi rank. The two are not mutually exclusive

I haven't seen The Clone Wars yet.  IT's rent-able from RedBox for a dollar and I'm still not sure it'll be worth it. 

/me can only be dissappointed so many times.

Then you haven't read enough of the books. The Republic Commando Series singlehandedly saved the whole prequel timespan for me - finally a writer who manages to make the whole palpatine-emperor/dooku/jedi council triple backstabbery work in a logical way.

Also, for those who haven't seen Clone Wars - don't. If you really need to know what happens in it, just read the book (you get an extra helping of Dooku's thought process, something woefully unexplained in the movies). It's more mature by far, although you can still see the regulating hand of the censors at work (unlike the RepCom books).

When a Jedi becomes a Padawan, they are no longer a youngling.
Note that this doesn't apply to the New Jedi Order, as there's no age restrictions - a non-padawan jedi/force sensitive is known as a Jedi Initiate.

I have seen original 3 prob 40 -50 x hard to tell maybe more. Overall I thought first 3 eps were enjoyable. My fav be the 2nd. You guys seem to want Star wars to turn into a dark bloodfest or something which I am glad did not happen. There were alot of points in the new movies I didnt like tho. I thing one of the probs was they centerd the movies just around jedis to much. They could have broadened out their scope more and involed clone commandos and the armies more.I mean look at ep 4. They made that movie without much force powers going on and it was huge so they didnt have to totally center on force powers. Also the fan based cartoon was really good but in all honesty the way they portrayed Grevious in the movie made more sense to me. Grevious was mostly a robot right? He didnt have force powers so I think he would have a hard time fighting a jedi who can speed his movements up and push and pull with his powers along with all sorts of other things. The worst thing to ever hit star wars was jar jar. That was like a monkey throwing crap in your face at the theaters. The only good thing to come from jar jar was the robot chicken parody lol.

Well, as to the force powers being used more in the first trilogy than the second - the Jedi were at the height of their power and knowledge in the newer movies. They had all but died out by episode 4, and Luke didn't start his training until he was pretty old. I think that aspect of the movies should have been expected.

Compare that to The Force Unleashed (which is canonical) where Vader's apprentice is tearing down blast doors with the force alone like they were made out of papir maché.

Star Wars has taken a turn for the LENS FLAER(!).

Well, more like back in the original trilogy days there was only so much they could do with effects I mean, hell, the Obi-Wan vs Vader duel on the Death Star was like 2 kids waving little sticks around instead of the duel between a powerful Jedi and powerful Sith.

If there's anything that's childish, it's that. It completely breaks it for me. No-one in their right mind would fight like that, force powers or not. It goes in the same "lens flare"-spirit as the concept of ZOMG-LOOK-AT-ME-I-HAVE-SPIKES-ON-MY-HEAD-AND-SINISTER-TATTOOS-Darth AIN'T-I-RAD-Maul.

But anyone who fought like that wouldn't have been able to block a basketball thrown at them, much less a blaster bolt. So the realism thing goes both ways

The Obi-Wan vs Anakin duel in Revenge of the Sith was actually the best fight in the new series, though. It broke away from the choreographed dance routines and was much more realistic and brutal. Dooku vs Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of episode 2 wasn't bad either.

The Darth Maul fight was a dance, though