Star Wars is my ur-fandom, so I try to be restrained whenever I talk about it. It's difficult for me to view each movie in a trilogy as discrete. Though Star Wars and Empire are the easiest.
I think Kotor 1 is a better game overall, while Kotor II is more interesting in its attempts to deal with headier philosophical concepts within the Star Wars universe, but how well it does that can be successful or not, depending a lot on your own engagement with those concepts, which for me is variable depending on my mood. It's like watching a movie with an ambiguous ending because it deals with questions that have no answer, or that loses credibility by endorsing more than one.
I think with few exceptions any series loses from its audience with every sequel, regardless of the story. Baldur's Gate 3 is a reboot, and a reboot of a fairly hallowed series so we should probably expect The Force Awakens level of hype/marketing that will bring in a lot of people. Most people haven't played the original games, but I do think most people have probably heard of them, and usually with respect to how influential they are.
This could lead to a bit of a backlash from people coming in blind not really understanding what they're in for and then being disappointed by a game regardless of how good it is. Baldur's Gate 3 will likely be the start of its own trilogy, so it's not totally irrelevant how seriously WotC and Larian take that potentially unhelpful feedback.
