Barry, your quotes will be more distinct from the text if you offset them with a quickedit (plus it will save you some typing).

If you replace:
[quote]My beef with the "new" films is that they aren't very good. There was no emotional pull, just annoyance with Jar Jar and mini-Vader.[/quote]I don't agree with that.

With:
>My beef with the "new" films is that they aren't very good. There was no emotional pull, just annoyance with Jar Jar and mini-Vader.

I don't agree with that.

You'll get:

My beef with the "new" films is that they aren't very good. There was no emotional pull, just annoyance with Jar Jar and mini-Vader.

I don't agree with that.

No emotional pull? In my opinion there was a lot of emotional pull.

I cried for Jar Jar.

Or because of him.

You have to give a crap about the characters to be pulled about by their emotions.

Obi Wan was the only character I cared about in Menace and Clones. And even then it wasn't a whole lot.

I did like the movies, as there were lots of pretty stuff and effects to look at. But the amount of magic in them is pretty tiny when compared to the original trilogy.

eta:

I cried for Jar Jar.

Or because of him.

Because of Jar Jar I tried to buy the domain jarjarsucks.com. But someone else had already gotten it. (It's gone now.)

You have to give a crap about the characters to be pulled about by their emotions.

Yes. None of the emotions felt earned. I know we're talking about a popcorn movie, but there was no character development - just a string of "important" moments strung together with some annoying comic "relief" and a bombastic sound track.

"Yes. None of the emotions felt earned. I know we're talking about a popcorn movie, but there was no character development - just a string of "important" moments strung together with some annoying comic "relief" and a bombastic sound track."

The original trilogy's emotions were also predicated on "a string of important moments strung together with comic relief and a bombastic soundtrack". Really. Luke's character development happened through his actions and reactions to the events he was thrust into and the same goes for Anakin. Now your beef may be with the performances, direction or whatever but in that regard the two trilogies are very similar. This isn't a television series or a character drama and thus the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy both operate in broad strokes.

Barry, the Prequels are bad. They're indefensibly bad.

"Barry, the Prequels are bad. They're indefensibly bad."

Opinion stated as fact. Come on, you're much too smart to resort to that. Really, I see where you're coming from but I won't roll over and go with the flow.

Next up - Star Wars vs Star Trek.

Opinion stated as fact.

Whoa. You totally got me there. You win, here's your cookie. I'll just go over here and sulk.

"Whoa. You totally got me there. You win, here's your cookie. I'll just go over here and sulk."

I don't want to win, I'm just trying to tell folks where I'm coming from.