Hmm, never thought of Revenge of the Sith as a cartoon. It does explain a lot of the shortcomings of the Prequels if you consider them cartoons.
Interesting you say that - when I last took a look at a PT movie, I started to think of them as a pseudo-animated-type offshoot of the SW universe (it's own thing, not 'in-universe' with the OT) and on those terms I actually for the first time did get over my Prequelophobia to some degree and enjoy them for what they are.
I realized that the core/root of my PT hatred is that I was supposed to actually believe - just as an example - that little moppet kid or whiny brooder teen literally grew up to become the Vader I saw in the OT. But when you think of it as this kind of animated universe, separate from the one that Han Solo and Chewy inhabit, that connection gets cut, and you can just view them on their own terms.
I think the droid is the most interesting of the hero characters to me based on the trailers(although I do like jyn's rebel outfit), but the leap in technology is indeed a head scratcher. But meh...should fit right in with the blind stick fighting warrior, the trouser wearing graffiti victim baywatch patrol, and the friendly looking stormtroopers.
Yeah, again - I think if you view Rogue One as its own separate thing, as opposed to something that's being (I guess somewhat blasphemously
) marketed by Disney as literally a first act for ANH, then it's okay that robots can sprint.
That's how I've taken a liking to the HT Jedha patrol "sandie" - looking at it not as a ANH sandie, but as a variant of the sandie in its own mini-universe like a sandie from Rebels or something.
Bottom line is that for me, many of these retconned products - the PT, TFA, probably also RO - have in the end proven to be inferior to the OT as films and also in cultural resonance/significance (not the same as box office) and haven't or won't stand the test of time like the OT has, which is fine. But it's this ideology that says it's equivalent/equal to the OT simply because it has the same designs/locations and storylines grafted onto the OT. The OT spawned a brand, and like all brands, that brand has to live on with new products like RO, but it's your choice whether you buy into the marketing that it's a "continuation" or a "lead-up" to the classic storylines.
In a general sense, we have different kinds of studio filmmakers today than we did in the 1970's - pop-culture-as-sole-inspiration "brand interpreters" as opposed to risk-takers and iconoclasts, so the fact we end up with lavishly competent films that will be forgotten in a decade isn't surprising. But there is some wonderful stuff in that lavishness, so enjoy the running robots.
