That's why we'll never come to any sort of agreement and will always go in circles. I see SW as a whole, not as a movie series. I don't place the OT on a pedestal. I'm not judging the PT and the ST based on nostalgia and grown up delusion; I am going by the general standards I have through which I judge all things. I recognise and accept all the criticisms laid at the PT. I do not defend it as a sacred cow. But underneath all the clumsiness, it had Lucas' genuine pathos and it showed. The ST never did. The PT had this grand multimedia project surrounding it that you're ignoring, and yes, it played a tremendous role in getting people to look at it through different lenses.
The difference between the PT and the ST is simple but fundemental. The PT ended up not being what the fans imagined, true. But that taken away, it was Lucas' attempt at a genuine Tragedy, and the passion in it shined through. Whatever mishaps can be attributed to it, the core still exists. The ST has none of that. It is a soulless commercialised product that copied the EU, went off the rails and then hapahazardly tried to course correct by using as many 'membaries as they could. There's no love behind it, no true meaning; just greed. What you see as a validation of beats and cyclical storytelling, I see as cheap, worthless, hypocritical nonsense. I cannot condone it. I never will. The ST is an insult to any fan who poured time and money into the brand. What's worse is that it could've at least led to something original. But whereas the PT ended with a bang, the ST did the reverse and just went with a tedious whimper.
I'll say it again; we'll never come to any sort of agreement because we're on different spectrums of what SW is. I'm not an OT purist. I take SW as a whole. Taken as a whole, the PT breathed new life into the brand. The ST killed it. Taken in isolation, the PT is still an artistic (albeit commercialised) attempt to tell a story. Yes, not the story all of us wanted and one many oppose to this day. I've said it before that I imagined Anakin was a Magneto/Doom type instead of an emotionally unstable lover. But I grew to accept the narrative because I can see the plan Lucas had in mind and how it came together. It's not what I'd have done, but there is a logical narrative behind it all. At the end of the day, the PT is backed by a multitude of Classical & Antiquity inspiration that molds it into what it is. The ST is a shameless cashgrab. No internal logic, no true inspiration, just a collection of cast-out concepts. A cashgrab that is so empty in merch and worlbuilding, that it is an effectivelly dead era. The worst part being that it had a chance of averting that, but it did not.
So no, I'll never concede and recognise the ST as anything more than a tragic misstep in the journey of Star Wars. I'll not entertain the thought of opinion on it changing, because I can see no angle through which it happens. You yourself base your favourability towards it on the supposed continuity you see with the OT (which I disagree with; I see a butchered EU). Now, the narrative here is "people grew up with the PT and eventually saw it favourably" and here's the difference; if we accept nostalgia as the key, then we must also accept that it had nothing to do with the OT itself. Meaning that, by the same token, the people would come to see the ST favourably as a thing onto itself, divorced from any feelings towards the OT and the PT. Well, the youngsters whose first SW experience was the ST will have no emotional attachment to the previous two Trilogies, thus those same things you cite as the strengths of the ST, will be utterly meaningless to them. Leaving the ST to be judged on its own merits. That's how it worked for the PT's counter-OT fanbase. Do you really see that happening? I don't. Not everything becomes nostalgic. Some eras are just awful and are thus forgotten. I've been reading comics for too long, I've seen writers come to insert their nostalgia in the [current day] runs too often, to not know that some installments are just so awful that nobody wants anything to do with them.
I've said my piece, and I keep repeating it, though I see not the reason to do so, as this discussion will not result in anything but circular posts. My tune won't change. I cannot be convinced. Mishandled artistry will always have more merit than faulty conveyor-belt greed to me. I say this not in judgement but as a personal trait. I see where you're coming from, but I simply cannot, will not, agree. And that's all there is.
