good goooood lol

...and The Phantom Menace.

(Oh boy...I brought that up :P)

As long as any new characters are good and the story isn't stupid. I mean you can focus on it all you want but if it's bad from the start not much can save it really.

As far as the effects go I really hope they do as much as they possibly can with practical effects and only the most extreme stuff with CGI. I have always felt more practical is the better way to go and at the very least just have the CGI assist in making the practical look killer.

A good recent example of this is Pacific Rim. They really built the inside of the Robots heads with the stuff the pilots need to strap into and stuff and then make it look even better with CGI. That is the way to go in my opinin.

"they"?

Different people are working on it now.

same here.