I don’t remember much about seeing the first Star Wars movie. I was a kid. All I really remember of it was feeling excited about it and wowed by the special effects. The campiness of the series, the little mistakes, the inconsistencies… these wouldn’t bother me for at least a decade. What mattered was that this movie was everything I wanted to see – science fiction brought to life, with spaceships and aliens and spectacular music and special effects that were top-of-the-line for the time.

Looking back, I remember how the ships didn’t move so much as… I don’t know… I’m not sure how to describe it. I mean, if you look at the SciFi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica” and watch the ships flipping over and moving at angles that seem so alien to traditional science fiction movies and the dogfighting that happened in it (as if space were just atmosphere without clouds or color)… well, it’s fairly true to real life physics (and this is part of the reason I enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica so much) and they seem to flow much smoother now. Old Star Wars just didn’t feel… natural.

Yes, I know. It was top-notch special effects back then, using models and camera angles and all of that. And as classic science fiction, it is good. Or… it was good.

Then George Lucas ruined it for me.

I’m not quite like PvP’s Brent in this. He was disillusioned by “Phantom” and “Clones”. Me, I actually enjoyed those movies. Sure, I was a bit unhappy with how they turned Anakin Skywalker from someone who was hinted to be a teenager or young adult… maybe a couple years older than Luke himself when he was first trained… to a kid who was “born of the Force” and managed through dumb luck (oh, I’m sorry, “The Force”) to take out the command ship of the invading alien fleet and escape unharmed. But I just rolled with it. “Phantom” wasn’t that bad of a movie.

Nor was “Clones” that bad. Yes, it took everything I (and quite a few other people) envisioned for the Clone Wars and tossed it on our ears (I’d been under the impression that the war was against the Clones, and that the Clones had turned evil or something), but again, it wasn’t too bad of a movie. And we got to make fun of “little orphan Annie” and of Amidala’s wearing more and more revealing outfits while telling “Annie” that she can’t run off and roll in the hay with him.

No, the deathblow to my enjoying Star Wars was in Lucas’s “recreating” of the original three movies with new special effects and some recreating of scenes. We’ve all heard that “Han shot first” and of other little bits… but what truly upset me was the final scene in Episode VI… when we saw the Force Ghosts of Yoda, Ben, and Anakin.

Lucas replaced the older, seasoned, middle-aged Anakin Skywalker with the “young Anakin” from the movies. I suppose Lucas felt that the force ghost would show Anakin as he was before he fell to the Dark Side… but why not show Yoda and Ben at the height of their power? (Then again, I’d consider that a slap in the face of the actor who played Ben Kenobi. There’s no satisfying me, is there?)

What’s more, the original format of the movies is not available anymore. I liked the old Star Wars. And once the last VCR tapes of Episodes IV, V, and VI fall apart or are eaten by tape machines, that will be it. The original Star Wars will exist only in the stars, beamed on radio signals broadcast from Earth when it showed on television.

So I’m with Brent in this. I have little interest in Episode VI. “Sith” will be on the same level as “Clones” and “Phantom” in my eyes, on the same level as the “remastered” versions of the first movies.

And I’ve got a Cole Skywalker urging me to go see it as well, in the form of my roommate. He’s watched all the others. He loves Star Wars for what it is. It’s got Wookies and it’ll be fun and exciting and it’s science fiction… and my other friends are all excited about it as well.

No doubt they’ll drag me to see it. And I might even enjoy it. But it will be a hollow enjoyment, because Star Wars isn’t for me anymore. I, like Brent, have moved on. And hey, in half a year Serenity will be in theaters and I can watch something good.

Addendum note: Lucas finally listened to the undercurrent of discontent from classic Star Wars fans (either that or realized that people were pirating DVDs of the original series) and has released the Original Trilogy, unenhanced and without extra unnecessary tidbits added in. Still, I feel insulted by what Lucas did in remastering the original series. Adding in extra starships, sure. That’s understandable. We had what was supposed to be a massive battle in Episode IV… with a handful of fighters on both sides. Episode VI had a much grander scale to it in comparison. But altering scenes, rewriting an already-released product… it worked (and was necessary) for Lord of the Rings. But Star Wars is no Lord of the Rings.

I also did end up seeing Episode III, because my ex-roommate wanted to go see it. He paid my way. And I was not disappointed in my cynicism. Episode III was a travesty. It was poorly written and poorly acted. But no doubt in ten or twenty years if Lucas is still alive he’ll try and rewrite it and make it much worse.