It's hard for me to convey my Star Wars bonafides without wanting to kill myself after....but believe me when I say that I love Star Wars. I saw the re-released "Special Edition" (Special Ed alright....) in the theatre, and loved them, mostly. There was weird shit like the animated musical dance numbers (but at least that was actually in line with what George Lucas originally wanted there), the walking Jabba, Greedo shooting first, etc. but all in all, it was fucking rad to get to see some version of Star Wars on the big screen.
I was in 10th grade when Ep. I came out, and obviously went to see it opening night. My world collapsed. It was a good thing in the big picture probably because I'd rather be the mountain dude bro I am than the comicon dweeb nerd I could've been, but it sucked at the time. Jar Jar was just inexcusable, the political and trade b plot was mind numbingly stupid/contrived/tacked on, and the acting across the board (dialog huge part of the problem, but not all of it—and fuck you you Ewan Mc and Liam Neeson apologists, they were horrible too!! I digress.) was really awful.
Yes, the next 2 movies were better, SLIGHTLY, but they still were cynical, greedy, child-targeted, merchandising driven pieces of commercial shit. And, not even particularly good commercial dog shit.
I have very, very mild guarded optimism that these movies could turn out...fine. There's some pretty talented people involved, I for one don't think the Disney association is the death knell, and I'm really relieved that George Lucas doesn't have any real say in the plot, the direction, the anything, because he just isn't a very good filmmaker at this point, if he ever truly was to begin with. It would be a really pleasant surprise for this flick to be on the level of say something like a Nolan Batman or maybe like a less funny and irreverent Guardians of the Galaxy or something. It could also really be terrible, but we've been burned bad.
We will see what happens, but I'm glad this is happening now as opposed to 5 years ago during the 3d bullshit. Also, I feel like uhh "smartish" blockbusters are getting a little more traction, and like there's a little more care going into the upper echelon of these tent pole movies (some of them, some of them are shit). People are more receptive and open to Sci-Fi and dystopian future (past) fiction then really ever before with the Hunger Games, Hary Potter, all of it really. I guess all I'm really trying to say is that studios have incentive to actually make a quality, somewhat artful Star Wars movie because there's an audience and the longsighted view would be to sustain a franchise on quality and excitement. People will go see VII no matter what, me included, but if it's terrible, I'm out on VIII and IX and hopefully other people are too.
Last thing. I wish they would've abandoned the Skywalker arc (or at least the central canon movie version) and picked up one of the better narrative arcs from the expanded universe. There's 3 or 4 book trilogies that would've been killer, and even maybe from a video game, like KOTOR. It's a cool, fully realized universe, and had they given a talented writer more freedom to build around other characters, it could've produced a better movie I think. But, this could still be cool. I want it to be anyway.