^this ones pretty on the nose, even for you

Well, even I ain't that great, just that it's a lot better than people give it credit for. II and III I didn't even care, like LOTR II and III.

The only thing that would have made Helm's Deep good is if Gandalf and his horses all tripped, slid, fell and piled up each other while stupidly galloping down a steep hill, straight at pikes while the rest of them all slip and fall off that bridge and get crushed under their armor. I can't even remember III except remembering that I thought it was over about 5 times. It was a lot like Trinity hanging on when she needed to just die already in the third Matrix.

Now Empire, like I said did have his moments that made it worth a watch. I mean, come on, Asteroid chase and Imperial March. Hoth COULD have been epic with some tighter editing and concepts. It took Family Guy to point out the absurdity of the Rebel escape plan. It was solid, but it's not the masterpiece people think it is.

 Jedi? Yeah big pew pew battle was cool to look at. Speeder chase was nice. Jabba's palace was pretty cool. Ewoks? Oof. That wasn't just an annoying character, that was immersion destroying.

But IV? IV was some really good stuff. Nice story, moves at a good pace. Fun scenes. Really didn't miss a beat. I? Always a bigger fish. Pod races were alright. And Duel of the Fates was top stuff. II? What happened? Yoda with a lightsaber? Okay I guess, but after the surprise wore off...III? There was that Robot general guy that was pretty cool but otherwise...I don't see the big tragedy. Anakin became evil. BFD. I dunno, maybe it's just because by then I'd become less and less into Star Wars and it became oversaturated for me.

LOTR I was a fun coming together of adventurers. Great way to kick start everything. Awesome scenes. II? Blah blah blah, dumb epic battle. I dunno, maybe it worked for LOTR fans, but it was just overwrought IMO. III? Zzzzzzzzz. (In fairness, most have said this was the weakest of the bunch). II did have Brad Dourif so that was good.

Now you want some good? Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, Voyage Home. That's a nice trilogy. TMP wasn't as bad as made out to be. And VI was a rockin good time too. Lets not talk about V.

Or Red October, Patriot Games and Clear & Present Danger.

Terminator 2, there's a great sequel. Toy Story 2 (Better than the 1st). Aliens.

The biggest issue with the prequels is the acting.

The biggest issue with the prequels is the acting.

Hamill and Fisher can do some things, but they weren't great by any sense of the imagination. Yes, you have Alec Guinness, Harrison Ford, James Earl Jones and Peter Cushing but you could then point to Liam Neeson, Ewan MacGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid and Natalie Portman.

Not really seeing any big acting gap here. That being said, Hayden was probably worse than anyone else. And then you add in Jar-Jar...

just looking at the movies alone when comparing empire and the prequels (or at least why they have their respective legacies) is kind of missing the forest for the trees. don't get me wrong, the original trilogy did have a solid script and great acting, but it basically got big off of special effects. if you're watching it nowadays in the era of marvel cgi-fests, yeah, it might be easy to miss what made it so great.

empire in particular is rated to highly because it delivered on the spectacle that made a new hope so popular while also deviating from the formula that had made a new hope pretty campy (which was fine and worked well for it, but we probably didn't need two movies worth).

Well, the special effects were great, but then so did The Matrix and LOTR, and as I said, after the first ones, bleh (although the 2nd Matrix wasn't THAT bad...well...up until the end). 

I think what got people with Empire was the Luke-Vader reveal and the cliffhanger.

I think Empire would have been a lot better if they had just cleaned up Hoth and went with a different concept for AT-ATs and actually had the battle make a modicum of tactical sense. Even some throwaway dialogue. That and maybe if people didn't treat Yoda's advice as "deep" when it was just fortune cookie crap. I think those two things might have overly soured my view of the movie. That and I don't think it was "dark" so much as ponderous and cloudy.

Great movie--one of Spielberg's best.

One of?

Ussuslly you think Spielberg.

Weightlifting.

from 'Vancouver Islander', a term of regional use

Indeed, I am a Van Islander. There are a few other on social media.

I'm the VanIslander of Hfboards, here since '04.

Damn. I didn't realize i was on waygook. I have 30,000+ posts on HfBoards (yeah was a mod there and a mod on Dave's, always invited, stepped down at Hfboards cuz i love the site but can't stand dealing with the riff raff.)