We have different opinions on what "feels like" Star Wars, I guess, because despite the many surface differences between the PT and the OT, the core of the story feels like Star Wars. Whereas, with the ST, the bits that feel like Star Wars to me are usually pretty superficial fanservice, not anything deeper like characterization or theme.
I went into the PT figuring that there was such a fever pitch of expectation about it that it could be The Platonic Form of a good movie, and people would still be disappointed. But I enjoyed myself, and while it wasn't perfect it was good and enjoyable. And I've had a lot of fun fannishly with the worlds it opened up.
I went into the ST with about the same expectations. The first movie was fun but not spectacular, and I left it going "okay, interesting set up, but they better have an incredibly good explanation for the question of why Luke left and what he's been doing, because it does not fit with his character at all. but I like the new characters, and they handled Leia and Han well, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt about Luke." Then the second movie came out, and not only did they characterize Luke so differently from how I see him that I can't accept it's the same character from the OT, they treated Finn and Poe terribly, as well, and twisted Rey's plot arc so it was All About Ren, not about her. On top of that, I saw enough of how racist certain corners of fandom were being about Finn, Poe, and Rose, and how badly the actors who played them were treated by certain corners of fandom, that it really soured my participation in anything fannish with the ST.
On a thematic level, if you take the PT and OT together, what you get is a message that there is evil in the world and sometimes evil wins for a while, and good people can turn into terrible people, and good people can fail and do stupid things, but despite all this evil can be resisted and sometimes the good guys win. Sometimes there is redemption, and grace, and hope, and change for the better. Whereas the ST starts out by saying "suckers, you thought the good guys won, WELL NOT FOR LONG, and now they're fighting the SAME WAR they've been fighting for sixty years, all the sacrifice and redemption of previous generations was for nought, and nothing changes but the superficial stuff." So that by the end of the ST, when the good guys do win, it doesn't feel like they won, at least to me. It doesn't feel like there's hope, or redemption, or any possibility of things ever getting better. It feels like a brief pause before the next round of Palpatine and fascism and stormtroopers and massacres. And the thing is, there really isn't a way to keep the plot similarities and Star Wars 2.0 feel without doing something like that, because if they're still fighting the same war (second verse, same as the first), then all the hope of change and renewal has failed. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there isn't really a way to keep the themes of the OT and PT as I understand them, while also keeping all the plot elements of the OT. Either you have hope for change and growth and better times ahead, or you have the unrelenting struggle of a small rebel group against fascism and the Dark Side and planet-killing weapons repeated over and over again. You can't do both. At least, not for long.
The thing the old Legends EU did right was allow the New Republic to grow and flourish. It was not always right and it had so many flaws and there were still Imperials and there were still Dark Siders and there were still space battles and there were still all of the elements that make up Star Wars, but without resetting it back to square one.
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I went into the PT figuring that there was such a fever pitch of expectation about it that it could be The Platonic Form of a good movie, and people would still be disappointed. But I enjoyed myself, and while it wasn't perfect it was good and enjoyable. And I've had a lot of fun fannishly with the worlds it opened up.
I went into the ST with about the same expectations. The first movie was fun but not spectacular, and I left it going "okay, interesting set up, but they better have an incredibly good explanation for the question of why Luke left and what he's been doing, because it does not fit with his character at all. but I like the new characters, and they handled Leia and Han well, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt about Luke." Then the second movie came out, and not only did they characterize Luke so differently from how I see him that I can't accept it's the same character from the OT, they treated Finn and Poe terribly, as well, and twisted Rey's plot arc so it was All About Ren, not about her. On top of that, I saw enough of how racist certain corners of fandom were being about Finn, Poe, and Rose, and how badly the actors who played them were treated by certain corners of fandom, that it really soured my participation in anything fannish with the ST.
On a thematic level, if you take the PT and OT together, what you get is a message that there is evil in the world and sometimes evil wins for a while, and good people can turn into terrible people, and good people can fail and do stupid things, but despite all this evil can be resisted and sometimes the good guys win. Sometimes there is redemption, and grace, and hope, and change for the better. Whereas the ST starts out by saying "suckers, you thought the good guys won, WELL NOT FOR LONG, and now they're fighting the SAME WAR they've been fighting for sixty years, all the sacrifice and redemption of previous generations was for nought, and nothing changes but the superficial stuff." So that by the end of the ST, when the good guys do win, it doesn't feel like they won, at least to me. It doesn't feel like there's hope, or redemption, or any possibility of things ever getting better. It feels like a brief pause before the next round of Palpatine and fascism and stormtroopers and massacres. And the thing is, there really isn't a way to keep the plot similarities and Star Wars 2.0 feel without doing something like that, because if they're still fighting the same war (second verse, same as the first), then all the hope of change and renewal has failed. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there isn't really a way to keep the themes of the OT and PT as I understand them, while also keeping all the plot elements of the OT. Either you have hope for change and growth and better times ahead, or you have the unrelenting struggle of a small rebel group against fascism and the Dark Side and planet-killing weapons repeated over and over again. You can't do both. At least, not for long.
The thing the old Legends EU did right was allow the New Republic to grow and flourish. It was not always right and it had so many flaws and there were still Imperials and there were still Dark Siders and there were still space battles and there were still all of the elements that make up Star Wars, but without resetting it back to square one.