I agree. Lord of the Rings is one great example of the potential the Star Wars prequel trilogy had.

Kamino and Geonosis actually seem like exotic, faraway planets whereas when I watch Endor, it's like "wow, I could drive to where they filmed this".

I too could go to a place where diminutive bear-like creatures speak gibberish to me and try to make me their dinner, but I ain't getting there by drivin'

I didn't say he needed to hire a director, only a great screenwriter and editor. Those are your words, not mine. Lucas can still direct as far as I'm concerned. Either way, he did it the way he wanted to do it, and he doesn't owe you, me, or anyone else a thing, much less an explanation.

I wondered when LOTR would be brought up. Personally, I found LOTR incredibly boring. Neither the characters nor the story did a thing for more. So the last thing I wanted Star Wars to be is LOTR. If Star Wars doesn't do it for you, by all means enjoy LOTR. I enjoy Potter films, Star Wars, and the original Matrix, far more than I ever enjoyed LOTR. I can almost bet that I will enjoy Narnia far more as well. To each their own.

Having said all that, I have no desire to continue with the same tired argument that's been regurgitated a million times before. You either like Star Wars or you don't. So let's continue to talk about the DVD, for those of us that are interested.

Fucking Ewoks. The reason they're worse than Jar Jar is that they are nothing but a BLATANT marketing tool. You watch the movie and it's apparant that George Lucas put them in to sell teddy bears to little kids. Look at his unsuccessful attempt to establish the Ewoks as their own property post-"Jedi". He produced two terrible telefilms and two seasons of a crappy cartoon before realizing that the Ewoks just weren't catching on. A failed fad would have been acceptable if not for the fact that Lucas tried to use a sure-fire hit to expose his fad idea to the masses. People say all the "Star Wars" films are commercials to sell toys but I honestly think the Ewoks are the only thing in the entire saga where it is apparant and undeniable that they were designed as toys first. Jar Jar, on the other hand, is actually believable (albeit annoying) "Star Wars" alien. Within the confines of the "Star Wars" universe, I can believe that there is a race of bipedal amphibians and I can also accept that there are retarded and annoying members of said race. Also, you can say what you want about Jar Jar but nothing he does is completely irritatingly unbelievable like the Ewoks defeating the Stormtroopers on Endor. Jar Jar is a mild annoyance but the fact that the Ewoks gave the Empire such a massive beating really takes the wind out of "Jedi".

You could also drive to locales similar to Geonosis and take a boat to where they could have filmed Kamino. Then again, the actual locations used for Kamino and Geonosis are really only a hard drive away, aren't they? And that's the thing: Geonosis and Kamino are fake environments. Endor, for all intents and purposes, was real.

Oh, but Jar Jar wasn't?

It was TOO real. Snow, water and sand are all real but they would exist on other planets. The setting of Endor screams "Earth". You could say the same about Dagobah but there was still an unearthly quality that's lacking on Endor, though the presence of real snakes and lizards is somewhat distracting, too. "Star Wars" is fantasy and I don't want to see them in a location that is so horribly unexotic.

I think Jar Jar is an obvious attempt to appeal to kids but there are no Jar Jar telefilms, no Jar Jar animated series and no massive line of plush Gungans collecting dust on store shelves. Lucas has always put characters in his films that appeal to kids, look at Threepio & Artoo and even Yoda. Jar Jar is in that tradition, although it's undeniable that he didn't live up to them. In any case, you only need to compare the amount of Jar Jar-related merchandise (which was pretty reasonable) to the complete marketing blitz that Lucas gave the Ewoks for YEARS.

Had Jar-Jar been even slightly better received by audiences, you can bet that:

(a) he would have had a MUCH larger role in Episodes II + III.
(b) you'd see enough Gungan merchandise (toys, books, breakfast pastries, UPN sitcoms) to choke a gundark.

But the Ewoks weren't exactly well-recieved by audiences either, yet Lucas still tried in vain to market them for 2 or 3 years after the release of "Jedi". So much for your theory.

Sorry but you're making very little sense here. Water, snow and sand can exist on other planets but not trees? Riiiight... And if you're a kid who's lived in the inner city all his life, sitting in the dark watching JEDI, those redwoods are going to look pretty damn exotic. Or for that matter, if you live in the desert, or the snow, or the beach, Crescent City's forest is going to seem very different. These are all earthly locations, so your point is moot.

The Ewoks weren't popular but they weren't overwhelmingly despised by so many or so loudly as Jar Jar. All of your criticisms of JEDI are equally true of the Prequels, if not significantly moreso.

I'm absolutely certain that the trees on other planets wouldn't look identical to the trees on Earth. When you watch the scenes on Endor, you are watching Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and the Ewoks on Earth. There is absolutely nothing remotely "alien" about it. You almost expect to see horses and deer running around. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that they actually used horses in one of the shitty "Ewoks" movies. When it comes to anything Endor-related, Lucas just went cheap and lazy.

Like I said earlier, most "Star Wars" fans were kids during the OT era and now they're adults. Kids liked the Ewoks back then and kids like Jar Jar now. My little sister was 4 when Episode I came out and she LOVED Jar Jar.

Actually, they were received much better than we geeks think. Most non-fanatics that I know who like the Star Wars movies always point to Jedi as their favorite. Reason? Ewoks. Not because Luke's a Jedi now, or Princess Leia's metal bikini or the father/son duel at the end. Ewoks. You want another one? Nowhere is it in Return of the Jedi mentioned what the Ewoks are, but here we are and it's a household name. I doubt "Jar Jar" or "Gungan" can claim the same.

You do realize that Lucas didn't have the technology back then to render planets from the vapor of his imagination like he does now, right? That ALL of the OT exterior planet locations existed in our real world? And that Endorian horse you mention was dressed with alien hair and make-up, the same way that elephants were disguised as Banthas in STAR WARS. So again, all of your complaints aren't particularly well considered.

I was a kid when JEDI came out, and I didn't like the Ewoks. (I didn't hate them either.) I know several kids now who think Jar Jar is silly. You're trying to use individual, subjective opinions to establish an indisputable truth, which is why your arguments keep falling apart.

If Lucas couldn't have changed the very earthly trees on "Endor" to something more alien, he should have chosen a different locale. He could have approximated something like Geonosis (which is basically a Mars-like planet with geography that isn't impossible to replicate using practical effects) but he just went for the "easy out". It's a well-known fact that Lucas went cheap on "Jedi" due to the budget getting out of hand on "Empire" (they tried to alleviate price gouging by using the "Blue Harvest" name so people wouldn't charge more because of the "Star Wars" name) and I think the film really suffers as a result.

I admittedly own the Ewoks DVD's (I actually own all three of the shitty SW double-feature discs, I buy every SW-related DVD) and I just put the disc in to check out that claim. If any attempt was made to make the "Endorian horse" look "alien" by means of hair or make-up, it absolutely does not read onscreen. I saw some crappy "Power Rangers"-looking villain riding a HORSE. Back when I first saw the original film, I wondered how they did the Banthas. It didn't even occur to me that it was an elephant "dressed up" and I figured it was some sort of elaborate puppet and I was surprised to learn about them being elephants. That's not the case for "The Battle For Endor". It's a guy on a horse.

Why did JEDI cost more than EMPIRE then? And BLUE HARVEST was created for secrecy reasons so that fans wouldn't invade the sets (which they did anyway), not to convince potential contractors, vendors and locations that George Lucas' production company would be building science fiction sets a couple years before the next STAR WARS movie was due...but that the film they were working on wasn't JEDI.

I'd rather watch the original STAR WARS cast act in front of a pile of cardboard boxes and fertilizer than watch the Prequel cast act in front of the most beautifully rendered CG environment. I care more about story and character. I'm not particularly hung up on the unremarkability of trees and how dwarves in bad alien suits are more offensive than moronic and annoying CG beings.

As for the horse in THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR. Fine. You're not convinced. Whatever. It has nothing to do with the JEDI/CLONES discussion. It has nothing to with Ewoks vs. Jar Jar. It's irrelevant to the topics at hand, which you still haven't made much sense on.

That would seem to me to be evidence of the Ewok marketing blitz he's referring to. If they didn't hear the word in the movie, then where else would they have heard it?

I'd also note that name recognition in adults does not necessarily equal appeal to the same, particularly when it comes to kid-oriented properties. Think "Barney" or "Teletubbies."

Respectfully, yes, those are my words, not yours. I didn't say otherwise. If I implied otherwise, I apologize. If the performances were everything Lucas wanted, then he did a great job. In my opinion they are abysmal at best. And from that perspective, I don't feel Lucas is much of a director.

Yes, Lucas did it his way, and he doesn't owe anyone anything. I agree. As I said, he had every right to do the prequels any way he chose.

--THX

Uh, the word "Ewok" does appear in "Return of the Jedi" in the credits. The recognizability of their name can't be definitively attributed to any "marketing blitz".

Better check the facts on this statement. Ewok hating only became en vogue in the 90s. Kids loved the frigging Ewoks.

Also inaccurate, BH was used to divert press intrest since they were shooting in the US.

This is true to an extent. But there was mention somewhere, I can't remember I read it or if I saw it on a documentary, but the companies that would help supply stuff for movie companies to make props, would be like 'oh Star Wars?! Charge them an arm and a leg!'. So Lucas DID use that name so they wouldn't be charged an arm and a leg, but it was so they wouldn't be ripped off and then they could make the most out of their money towards the film.

I would love to see the source of this theory. It seems absolutely ridiculous that any company working with Lucasfilm in the two or three years before JEDI's release would believe that it was anything other than a STAR WARS movie, especially after RAIDERS had already been released in '81, and that the BLUE HARVEST logo seen on crew shirts and stationery clearly uses the STAR WARS font.

Seems like kind of a half-assed secrecy front anyway. If BLUE HARVEST had been carried out in the exact same manner with the internet up and running as we know it today, people would have seen right through it immediately.

An aside: Warners seemed really big on secret code titles in the years after BLUE HARVEST. THE COLOR PURPLE was shot as MOON SONG, BATMAN RETURNS was shot as DICTEL, BATMAN FOREVER was shot as BLINKO, MATRIX RELOADED was BURLY MAN, etc. Anyone know of any others?