And maybe good films in general?

I remember up through the middle 1970s, just before Star Wars first appeared in theaters in 1977, that wile of course there had always been a bad slew of SF films for decades, there were also a few true gems, especially in the late 1960s through the early 1970s.

With few exceptions, it was not the high budgets or special effects that was focused on, but the story, plot, characters, and underlying meaning.

Take Dark Star as just one example. Made by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon in 1975 (O'Bannon would go on to work on Alien in 1979) for the astoundingly low budget of $35,000, that film had more meaning, humor, and real SF than many films with far more money and production "values". Even the fact that the props, sets, and FX were so cheap was worked into the overal quality of Dark Star.

Rent/buy this film if you can:

http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/themovies/ds/ds.html

I know one of Lucas' goals was to bring back the Saturday Afternoon Matinee fun of his childhood, but did he ruin good films in the process? Forgive me, but there is already far too much fluff in the entertainment industry. Did we really need more?

And as for FX - computer graphics have become so good now that it isn't even any more fun to see how well a film did in that area. The last time I remember watching for and being impressed with film FX was in Jurassic Park (1993). And okay, maybe The Matrix (1999).

I'm not saying there haven't been any good SF film since Star Wars, but I do think the number of potentially class works decreased when the flashy effects and popcorn mentality was gobbled up and spewed out by Hollywood after 1977.

Finally, Phantom Menace was awful, and not just because of Jar Jar Stinks, I mean Binks. The kid who played young Anakin was a TERRIBLE actor. In all of Hollywood, they couldn't have found anyone better?

ST 2 was an improvement, I thought (should Asimov's estate have sued for Lucas ripping off but Lucas lost it after Empire Strikes Back in 1980, in my opinion. Return of the Jedi was the sign of how an already light film series was heading down like a Star Destroyer into the rebuilt Death Star.