Comment crap direction (Score 5, Interesting) 360
The problem here is not the franchise, but the director. George Lucas has an uncanny ability to get the worst possible performances out of good actors. Look no further than Samuel L. Jackson, who's a talented individual, but came off as stiff and wooden in the Star Wars movies.
It's well known that George Lucas doesn't direct actors at all, and often shoots just a single take of the performance. Then he invests massive time and energy into the visual effects, making the CG artists re-do their work multiple times for questionable reasons. He's more of a technology evangelist than a filmmaker.