I don't think people are complaining about the characters' height.

It has virtually nothing to do with size, but with their portrayal. Little, fierce warriors I can buy; cutesy teddy bears, I can't.

Changing the primitive tribe at the end of Return of the Jedi from Wookiees (the original idea) to Ewoks is, by far, one of Lucas' worst ideas.

1. Starting the prequel trilogy with an ENTIRE movie about Anakin as a little kid. The wee bit of important plot in TPM could have been in flash backs and the whole trilogy could have spent more time fleshing out Anakins struggles and seduction to the dark side.

2. Jar Jar. Made TPM nearly unbearable, on top of it being pointless as per the above point.

3. Greedo shooting first. Ruined a great scene

I can't believe no one has mentioned the Luke/Leia sibling storyline. It appears to be thrown into ROTJ as a quick way to tie up some loose ends and almost ruins ROTJ for me. It just seems completely out of place with the first two films.

Don't even get me started on the prequel trilogy and I don't even acknowledge the changes he keeps making everytime he releases the OT.

1. Jar Jar Binks (brings TPM down so much, the worst character ever)

2. Ewoks (not as bad as people say, but the wookie planet would have made ROTJ a classic)

3. Anakin inserted in ROTJ, The Musical # in ROTJ, Greedo Shooting First, all SE Edits

4. C-3PO during Clone Wars & Droid Factory in AOTC (useless to the movie)

5. The Gungan battle at the end of TPM (could have been so much cooler, but Lucas had to go with a less serious tone)

6. Boss Nass (King of Gungans) everytime he shakes his head and saliva comes out of his mouth after talking, I look at myself and say, "Is this movie made for a 3 year old?"

7. Padme losing the will to live after just delivering twins. (It totally hurts her character, because she was such a strong character in the previous two movies)

8. The way Boba Fett dies in ROTJ, lame real lame

9. Anakin blowing up the droid army main controls in TPM. There was no sense of drama or tension. It was the total opposite of ANH where you were on the edge of your seat rooting for Luke. In TPM, you have this little kid making wisecracks and just gets lucky and blows up the main controls!

10. Did I mention Jar Jar, he is so annoying and bad he gets 2 votes on my Top 10!

11. not having the fluid drained from his neck

yeah, and its not like he doesnt have the money to do something about his 12 chins.

i largely agree with what most people have been saying. i just want to add one (ok, maybe more) of my own:

the worst idea lucas had was TPM. he made it for 5-year-olds, jar-jar, gungans, under-utilized darth maul, CGI fish monsters (wtf?!), a meaningless pod-race, an incredibly unfunny and anachronistic race announcer, the sub-par acting of jake lloyd (christ, look at haley osment for a great child actor), puppet yoda. this story should have been maybe half of the first film, then jump ahead 5-10 years, show the jedi trials, and then maybe add count dooku killing qui-gonn.

there are several other bad ideas, especially in rotj, & aotc.

but i hope we dont completely forget all the great ideas he's had too. and they have far outweighed the bad.

Another of Lucas' worst ideas:

Force Lightning

Throughout ANH and TESB, the Force is presented as two sides, Light and Dark, both equal in power with the Dark Side only being more seductive. A perfect Ying/Yang type of balance exists between the two Sides.

Then in ROTJ, the Emperor pulls this Dark Side power out of nowhere, and with the Light Side not having it at all, now the Dark Side is de facto more powerful than the Light Side. And then Lucas brings this Force Lightning power back yet again in the PT.

Sorry, but Lucas made a big mistake in inventing this power in the first place.

Right, cause the fact that Mace deflected it with his saber, and Yoda caught it in his bare hands makes the Light side weaker.

That and in ROTJ, it's a Sith Lord (Palpy) vs. a quasi-Jedi n00b (Luke). Somewhat of a mismatch...

That's like the difference between having a gun and having a kevlar vest. Of the two, I'd still give the advantage to the man with a gun.

And, as for the PT's showing these Force Lightning defenses, it's along the level of R2D2's jet packs as far as inconsistency with the OT. I mean both Yoda and Obi-Wan knew how to defend against Force Lightning, so maybe Obi-Wan should've told Luke about using his lightsaber to absorb it and Yoda should've taught Luke how to catch it in his hand. Not teaching him anything at all about it was pretty damn absent-minded of the Jedi Masters. It would've been much better if Lucas had never invented Force Lightning in the first place and these particular inconsistencies between the movies wouldn't exist.

Changing the music at the end of ROTJ. It used to lead perfectly into the Star Wars theme as the end credits come up, now it seems rather choppy. Not a very good note to end the series on.

Killing Darth Maul off in TPM Lucas should have just kept using him in the Count Dooku role and never use Dooku

Instead of introducing us to the Gungans, Lucas should have introduced us to Admiral Ackbar's species. Why create one amphibias species only to have them disappear on the OT when he had a perfectly good amphibias species from the OT that Lucas could have fleshed out more in the PT.

As much as I think most of the SE changes are just downright silly, this is actually really nice, esp adding Naboo for the DVD versions.

If you'll allow me to exand a bit, I'll explain. Before we had any SW DVDs, the biggest subject of discussion was of course originals vs SEs. I had the idea (and still do) that I like to see the Star Wars films as two sets of stories. The first is the Holy Trilogy. Star Wars, Empire and Jedi. No numbers or anything. Han shot first, no praxis explosions, and the ending was our small band of heroes celebrating on a backwoods planet with a race of primitive, but fierce little creatures. It was like going to a cookout with a few close friends, the kind you make godparents to your children. For that setting, the Ewok song is perfect: Celebrate the Love.

Then there's "The Saga" it's bigger, louder, flashier. You still have your close friends in eps 4, 5 and 6, but you see they're fighting for something much bigger than themselves. They're fighting for an idea, or even, an ideal. Something they are willing to throw themselves into a fight against a monstrous empire for, an empire that we now know came about because of corruption and apathy, and just plain not enough love in the galaxy. When they take out the DS II above Endor now, they've taken a major step in restoring that ideal. It's not just about them, it's about Tatooine, about Naboo, about Coruscant. For The Saga, the new ending is wonderful tribute, it's a celebration, but not too light as there's still a lot of work to be done. The Emperor and his toys may be gone, but you're still going to have to change how people think. Make them care about the trees again. (read the ROTJ novel for that allusion)

If you're an anime fan, imagine it like you have an OVA, then you have an expanded series with the same ideas and characters, but with differences ranging from subtle to radical.

When I came up with that, my idea for the perfect DVD boxset was the original versions of the Holy Trilogy, no changes whatsoever, hell even leave the Ep IV off of the first one. Then Episodes 1-6, and these versions of 4-6 could have all the singing and dancing and farting the flannelled one could ever dream of, because it would be a different telling of the story.

I'm not sure. Lucas needed to prove that Kenobi could kick ass. And Maul, Dooku and Grievous are supposed to be facets of what Vader would become. If you combined any of them (like how fans wanted Maul to come back with mechanical legs) than you lose any subtle allusions to what Vader would become. Perhaps if Dooku had been there from the beginning, maybe even Sidiuos playing Maul and Dooku off each other a little, that might work.


Because there's already enough fanboy whining about coincidences in the PT already . The Gungans weren't a bad concept, their blend of nature and technology is quite impressive actually. If Lucas had only let someone else polish the writing, they might have been better received.

I wish I could remember what it was, but the title escapes me now, I saw something fairly recently that had a jester/sidekick role that was sorta like Jar Jar's dynamic, but it was written really, honest to goodness funny. I distinctly remember thinking that if Jar Jar had been written the same way, the whole PT would have been perceived in a different light.

well said.

1. Greedo shoots first.
2. Over the top Jar-Jar. If he was less of an awkward stooge he could have been bearable.
3. Padme dying from a broken heart. Weak excuse for death.
4. A musical moment in ROTJ. This was as unnecessary as the rave in Matrix Reloaded.