Skill Doesn’t Matter If You Lack Taste

As others have pointed out, the Star Wars transitions are part of the conceit of the movies. As an old fart, I grew up watching the movie serials that the Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, movies are made in homage of. If you aren't familiar with them then you are watching a very different movie than I am.

This is probably one of the reasons that I rather like the prequels; I'm viewing them in the context that they were created in. If Lucas erred it was in expecting future generations to be aware of the context and not expecting them to simply take the movies at face value. Since the movies made a lot of money, I don't feel he erred by much.

Lucas also is referencing a lot of post war Japanese film narrative technique; this is less critical to "reading" the film, though.

I've never heard anyone who knows about film narrative technique say that Lucas was an "unskilled" film maker. As for the films literary quality, YMMV.

And plenty of people have remarked that the Stones haven't been relevant in forever.

But I think more people are angry that he won't leave the original trilogy alone.

You seem to have specific examples in mind. I have no idea what they are on this side of your skull. More specific language would be appreciated.

The crux of taste is rooted in celebrity worship and group think. Taste is a roll of the die and a hope that your vision resonates with those around you.

A lot of what is called "taste" is group think. Not all of it is, however. In addition to "taste" there is also Taste. A number of the hallmarks of Taste in instrumental music, like the ability to use slight modulation of rhythm to convey the visceral feeling of specific dance steps, are demonstrably cross cultural and enduring across generations. Many of the hallmarks of Taste in visual design (rule of thirds) have endured over hundreds of years. Note that these examples are rooted in the function of the human sensorium -- that's not coincidence.

This isn't to say that absolutely everything Louis Armstrong's contemporaries did still resonates today. It also isn't to say that absolutely everything the old masters painted resonates with 21st century viewers. But note how much of what Louis Armstrong and Michaelangelo did which still resonates and which contemporary artists still include in their practice. We now know from science that people are not "blank slates." This notion was just an ideological fiction. Our senses and perceptions mostly work in a particular way, and this is bound to give rise to Taste.

That said, you are mostly right, and our functioning as social animals with the ability to maintain ideologies as a group bonding mechanism also gives rise to "taste."

Taste is almost negligible.

If by this, you mean that the ratio of Taste/"taste" is frustratingly close to zero, I'd say you're right. Groupthink is agonizingly powerful, but that's only most of what there is, not all of it. (Sturgeon's Law)

That was a bit tongue-in-cheek, my point is that tastes are in a state of perpetual change and instances that are regarded as representations of "good taste" are generally reflections of today's zeitgeist. Taste (as in gustation) is a good analog for social taste; people have a general idea of what tastes good to other people, but they almost always know what they like to eat and they also know that everyone is different and preferences in taste vary over time and by location. A good chef (someone that might be regarded as having good taste), certainly has his own preferences, but his skill is the capacity to engineer a dish that meets the requirements of any taste (because "good" depends on the taster)

A number of the hallmarks of Taste in instrumental music, like the ability to use slight modulation of rhythm to convey the visceral feeling of specific dance steps, are demonstrably cross cultural and enduring across generations.

What you describe are skills. Someone who "has taste" simply has preferences that align with those around them; catering to taste is just marketing. This is not to say that works of intrinsic merit don't exist, but those who can appreciate the finer details of a given work (in any domain) are rare, thus we rely on the social taste as a heuristic for determining which things are good. Those who pay little attention to the trends around them and simply serve their own preferences/apathy are regarded as tasteless. Even those cheesy Star Wars transitions were hip at one time.