Originally Posted by
Endus
It's more that I recognize that Star Wars has literally always been silly popcorn "SPLOSIONS AND LAZER SWORDS" sci-fi. The original trilogy was built, from the ground up, on the expectation and desire to sell toys, fer crissakes (which they were wildly successful at, I'll admit). This is why there's tons of wacky characters, it drove ship design concepts, it's why Ewoks exist, and so forth. The spiritualism of the Force has always been watered-down and misunderstood Bhuddism. It was groundbreaking in terms of special effects, but that's really about it. That spectacle in theaters captured people's minds like no other films had, which is why it's had such lasting popularity.
In terms of narrative quality and complexity, it's always been a bit crap. Hell, look at all the faffing about to retroactively make "made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" a not-stupid comment, since it's pretty damn obvious that Lucas thought "parsec" was a unit of time, not distance, when he wrote it. Or Luke and Leia french kissing and Luke being part of her budding love triangle, despite being her brother. People have wondered why the escape pod with 3P0 and R2 was allowed to crash on Tattooine; they were after the Death Star plans, and figured "hey, there's no life signs, so they couldn't possibly have stuck the plans in there or given them to droids, right?"
It's always been flashy and silly and about as deep as a puddle.