Another thing I'll bring up, that I've never seen anyone talk about, is just how lived-in that world feels in ANH.
You see a town of a bunch of poor folk controlled by an empire, filled with authoritative troops, and there's a jazz bar where smugglers interact.
There's a weird human/hairy beast duo that run together and understand each other despite Chewbacca's lack of English.
You get the feeling that they've been doing this for a long time, and you get the feeling that there's a ton of people like them. You get that in their dialogue, in the way they interact with everyone etc.
All these new movies lack any sort of imagination or world-building, a lot of times people are "The One", or there's special significance drawn to same geriatric characters, no longer is there a universe to explore... but a plot to follow.
It's one of the reasons why Rogue One feels so terrible, sure it's an "outer worlds" story, but it's not delivered in any way that seems like a realistic progression.
Great summation of arguments I've used since the release of Rogue One and Last Jedi with both being utter crap.
People really tried to convince me that a ragtag group of people that barely know each other are going to do a suicide mission.
I felt insane when I saw rogue one and the initial praise and hype. Surely the rest of the world was smoking crack.
People really tried to convince me that Last Jedi was similar to Empire in earned character set up despite a giant swath of Empire bring slow build up with a majority of the story being on an isolated swamp planet and Han and co evading the Empire by sitting in a "hole" just talking. When you take your time, your story is earned. Nothing is earned in Last Jedi. Half the movie is a wild goose chase.
Bad movies.
Feels good to have feelings I've felt for years reiterated back.
Star wars is crap outside the original trilogy.
