For me, Empire Strikes Back was by far the best of the Star Wars films. I enjoyed the three prequels for the visuals, despite the weaker storytelling, relative to the first three movies.
The new movie trailer looks fairly good, with a modern grittiness to it.
I always had a preference to Star Trek over the Star Wars franchise, and see Star Wars more as fantasy fluff with great special effects, and am less critical of it on that level, just enjoying it for what it is. Whereas Star Trek aspires to more sophistication and scientific realism.
I'm frankly amazed that Harrison Ford, Mark Hammill and Carrie Fischer are even invited to be part of a new movie. The franchise is almost 40 years old now, and all of them must be bucking 70.
I think it's a wise thing for the producers to cultivate a young cast, with maybe a few old favorites in the mix. That way they'll have actors they can bring back to appear in many sequels, keeping the franchise going for many decades to come.
I never understood why Star Wars, as popular as it was, and has continued to be for 38 years, has had so few movies. I can understand after the first 3 movies that George Lucas might have been exhausted and wanted to take a break. But I'm sure there's plenty of other writers and directors who would have eagerly stepped up to the plate to take over the heavy lifting. But instead there was a gap of almost 20 years before they did episodes 1, 2 and 3.
With an envisioned complete epic from the start of only 9 movies, I'm amazed they have only produced 6 in 38 years. And for all the time put into them, how consistently disappointing episodes 1, 2 and 3 were!
Maybe this next batch will finish on a high note.
