Peter

Jedi might be weaker across the entire board (it unquestionably showed some cracks), but it makes up for it with some A+ aspects that still grade it as hugely rewatchable.

Among many smaller items (e.g. The Emperor), just the main story structure does big heavy lifting. The first third of the film returns to its pulp roots by having our band of heroes get into and out of a Flash Gordon type serial situation, complete with a fascinating group of gangsters, a nasty monster, and an epic final clash set to grand musical score. Then Jedi tread movie history by essentially creating the triple-threat action finale, cutting back and forth between a guerilla ground combat, massive fleet clash, and Shakespearean drama sword duel that is a master-class of editing.

Think about the many films since that have done such an action finale - they all owe Jedi for setting the bar for how it can be done.

Maybe not in one sitting it isn't as rewatchable. It was rewatchable enough to justify hugely successful extended edition releases, so...the verdict is in, for tons of people it is practically infinitely rewatchable.

You actually kind of have it backwards. LOTR is special in part because it's really just one grand film that happens to be broken into three releases/chapters. In that regard, it perfectly mirrors its source material.

But, if anything, that means it isn't a true trilogy, a group of three truly separate films that together add up to one contained story. I'm not saying that is how it should be seen, just that it doesn't have more cause to be called a trilogy than the likes of SW or BTTF.

Unfortunately, this article is as shallow as I figured it would be. So many of its observations presumes "change" that never really happened, or sees changed attitudes as more universal than is really the case.

American Beauty - I get anyone finding any Spacey film to be distracted by his presence, but the bit about the plot...well, let's just say it was always supposed to feel "unsettling", in many ways. No change there

American Pie - authors like this one would have us believe every goofy teen movie from the 1980s should be buried too. Forget Fast Times or anything John Hughes, eh? Hate to break it to the author, but this film offers insight into young male culture from around 2000, as well as the more sordid side of young male culture in general. Every boy becoming a man has to wrestle with how to balance their physical attraction and desire to pursue women with seeing the person behind the attraction. That's biology and real life. As with any comedy, this plays it with exaggeration, but if it bothers a viewer I promise it would have been just as bothersome at the turn of the millennium

She's All That - the writeup here blatantly whiffs on the clear message of the movie, that the girl bought into just as many presumptions and stereotypes as the boy (and their peers). Yeah, the silly "glasses off" trope is indeed silly and even was at the time, but there was more 3D depth to this than the author apparently realizes

Deep Blue Sea - was always more B monster flick; if anything, the aging of the effects leans into that tone

Is Merlin forgotten, or just a show that primarily made an impact in its native Britain? They tried to give it a show on a US letter network and (I suppose) it didn't do well enough to continue, but it got a full BBC run and my impression is that it was very popular on there.

I kept up with it throughout, and my best guess is that it applied a Doctor Who tonal approach to the Arthurian world that also reimagined the Arthur/Merlin duo as a same-youthful-age "odd couple" (the two characters coming to play so well off each other that their dynamic carried the series). Correct me if I'm wrong, but DW is more cult following in the US than smash hit, and Merlin likewise I figure had limited exposure across the pond but like DW is thought of fondly by many who did watch it.