The acting in Episode IV (or "Star Wars" as we used to call it when it first came out) was actually pretty piss poor - with the exceptions of Peter Cushing and Alex Guinness. I don't think anyone really watched Star Wars for the acting anyway - and this applies to the three newer prequel movies if you just watch them for light entertainment value and don't expect some full on technically and politically correct nerd fest which has to be factually true to some comics, or whatever...

I think over analyzing Star Wars films, as serious film, is where much of the misplaced critique came from.

If you judge "Star Wars, the Movie" by the technical standards of today, it might seem "piss poor." But it was (pardon the pun) light-years beyond the technical standards of its day. Everything had to be done with film, optical printers, and (the amazing technical advance of its day) motion-controlled cameras. Everything was physical models and sets, physically photographed. Nothing else existed. Yet.

Sure, "SWtM" was a corny tale. It was a corn-pone tale, reaped from a rich legacy of equally corn-pone tales that also made money. The actors, with two exceptions, were inexperienced. Nonetheless, the pure-fantasy y-a-r-n was "a tale well-told," and Lucas was storyteller enough to expand it into many directions once the original film provided the money with which to do so. He was a skilled merchandiser enough to fully exploit his franchise, and to define how future properties could be similarly exploited.

And, in all of the films so far, I don't think they've lost sight of the importance of yarn. "I've got a bag of popcorn, a big jar of soda, my <girl|boy>friend<|spouse(!)>, and a dark, cool, mosquito-free (thank god ...) room to neck in. Meanwhile, tell me a story.™" Like them or not, the SW movies did that.

Well, the acting in the older ones is a lot lot better than in the newer ones, now that is piss poor acting, but I understand that it is very hard to act on greenscreen for every single shot.

Regarding the "enhanced" r2 unit in the trailer of star wars VII, does anyone attribute any specific cinematic reason why the colour of the robot is now red?

OK

They should have retain R2D2's original form. But, I like say, this episode and the remaining episodes are made for the new generation of star wars fans.

lol. This was one of the more infamous inconsistencies in the old Transformers cartoon:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/FIRRIB

Well, even in the original series there were "R2-like" robot designs which varied by paint color.

My guess is that a red R2-model robot is not the "R2D2®" character that we know and love, and that a change of paint-job is a simple but effective way to show that visually.

I remember that, when the first Star Wars movie came out (the first one in real time, that is, not in Star Wars time), many of the reviews found its various scenes marvelous tributes to classic western movies. That was long time ago and I can't remember the specifics, but I remember being spellbound in a movie theatre in Ardmore, Pa., for the duration of the show.

It was and still is a ripping good yarn and fast-paced enough that you overlook its defects.

In one sense, you can compare it to the Lord of the Rings: all the characters were either all good or all bad, but, in either case, they were all also completely two-dimensional. The story and its telling, though, were so good that you forgot all that. Now, I've read Lord of the Rings five times (and still might read it again, if only so I can enjoy Bored of the Rings one more time), but I don't expect ever to watch another Star Wars movie. Then, again, in various forms, I've read the Holmes canon likely a dozen times and watched multiple movie and television versions and listened to multiple radio versions of it, but that's another story.

I have heard it theorized that the reason Star Wars episodes 1, 2, and 3 were so bad, while 4, 5, and 6 ranged from excellent to pretty good is that, when the first three movies were made, studio execs could still say "No" to George Lucas. When the others were made, Lucas was the studio exec.

NO!

I've always felt that "The Movie" was good simply because, at that time, George Lucas was a hard-working filmmaker with exactly one other title to his name (THX-1138), who was taking a terrific gamble using other people's money in the sands of Tunisia. People who "knew" about such things reminded him that "space flicks don't make money." Other equally-insightful execs decided that the merchandising possibilities of the film were "zero."

With clever marketing, a really good soundtrack that famously blended the 20th Century fanfare directly into the opening bars, and most of all, immediate merchandising, this "space flick" became a phenomenon ... No one had any notion that such a thing would happen ...

... and, unfortunately, Lucas became unstoppable. He could do no wrong. His Industrial Light & Magic Company, at first whimsically named, became the SFX house that everyone had to line-up to use. He owned the Star Wars franchise and could do anything that he pleased with it ... including rewriting and republishing the original films ... and there was no one to say, "maybe that's not such a good idea, George."

Today, you can buy Star Wars toilet-paper holders, and Star Wars toilet-paper to put on it. Disney knows that three (or more) films will make gobs of money. Sure, it took a little persuading to re-assemble the original cast:

Could be. Maybe Lucas is just no good at producing movies of his books on his own.

This is the best one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBDcmVETEzE

Yawn.

Producing? The last movie he produced was Red Tails. It was good.

I firmly believe that "the editor" is the most important member of any writing team, and that the most important end of a pencil is the one that carries the eraser. By the time of the third movie, no one could tell The George™ that "Ewoks" were a stupid idea. (Nor could they, one film later, persuade him to deep-six Jar Jar Binks. ) No, The George™ by-then knew that anything he could dream up, not only would make it into whatever film he chose to create, but would become "canonical." Generations of "Star-Wars Fans™" would ponder his brainchild religiously, searching for "hidden meaning" even as they snapped-up whatever dolls for boys action-figures his merchandisers chose to create.

I am vaguely hoping that, when he sold the franchise to Disney, he lost at least some level of control over it. Disney has far better and more pragmatic screenwriters in their employ than Lucas ever was. They could, concievably, produce a better script, if The George™ no longer has carte blanche power over "his" creation. We shall see.