Star Wars: Revenge of my Inner Child

Okay.  A lot of people have declared their dissatisfaction, and voiced criticism of SW: Episode III -- simplistic plot, shallow dialogue, yada yada, endless hyper-action instead of character development -- and some have liked it despite (or due to) all that.  But I realized recently in an email dialogue on the subject with a good friend and fellow Star-Wars-o-phile (he had the best collection of the original action figures and ships when we were little kids), just what my main disappointment with the Prequel series is, and since I haven't heard it from anywhere else, I feel like putting it out there.

I think the best feature of all of the Star Wars movies, in both trilogies, is that they are endlessly imagination-provoking.  I think a lot of fans would agree -- especially those my age who spent hours on the playground in the era of the Original trilogy, acting out new stories with their friends.  But after having watched all of the Prequels, I don't feel like I really know any more about their main characters than I did after I watched the Original trilogy -- except that I got to see the events unfold, instead of just being told about them.  Anakin is trained by Obi-Wan, switches to the Dark Side, wipes out Jedi.  Not even anything very novel or complicated in how it comes about. But why tell the story, if there is nothing really new to be told?  Explore the world before the Empire, I suppose, and see how the politics wound up in such mess.

Okay, I buy that, and I think Palpatine and his machinations were my favorite part of all three, and the settings were often very cool and surprising (the water planet and its aliens in II was totally my favorite addition to the SW universe).  But we could have experienced all that with an entirely new story unfolding, maybe with Anakin's fall as something happening simultaneously, sort of as part of the historical backdrop; create new characters and their own crises, following a story trajectory that we can't anticipate even if we know that the Empire is looming ahead.

Granted, I probably had my hopes too high for these movies, especially since I already knew going into them that we were being told a story to which we already knew the ending.  It's just that there is so much to that universe, and its ability to make you feel that has always fascinated me. In the end, maybe I was just disappointed that of all the possible stories, Lucas chose to stick to the one he had already told us.  And as its creator, that's his call.  I'd be happier with it, though, if I could still go out on the playground to make up my own Star Wars adventures -- and have them feel just as realistic.