Huge, monster fan of the original (s), but I wouldn't lap anything up- just like I never lapped up the lazy and stupid cash-out twists that made up Return Of The Jedi.

In fact, just about everything to do with the Jedi as characters is why I grew to hate this property over the years. What started as a spiritual underpinning and a vague aspirational ideal for one character, grew quickly to become an all encompassing deus ex machina device.

The Jedi, and by extension anything focusing on the Force, are easily the least interesting parts of this universe to me.

No matter who is involved on the creative side.

But I get that that is a view not shared by the majority of fans.

It's interesting he wanted the next trilogy to explain the Whills. As a kid my imagination went into overdrive trying to understand The Journal of the Whills referenced in the Star Wars novelization.

He isn't.
I fail to see how "Whills" adds anything whatsoever to SW.
What a stupid fncking idea by GL.

I think McDiarmid's performance is about the only entertaining aspect throughout the prequel trilogy.

Weren't the Whills Yoda's species for a while, or was that fanwank/speculation?

This exchange is just epic

I forgot to circle back around on this. Revisionist history has shown that both Kennedys and MLK all fired first.

Star Micronaut Wars!

Eh, it's a pass from me.

I will say I've always found it fascinating how many people I know are bothered the mystical nature of the Force has a biological explanation and yet want nothing to do with anything spiritual or religious because they only believe in observational science. It's an interesting juxtaposition to witness.

Pfft. You'd know.



Agreed. This reminds me of a thread I started here 13 years ago(!) about how creators and/or creatives remember their creations incorrectly. My first example? George Lucas.

I'm right there with you. I actually liked the explanation of the politics to how the Empire came to power. And I was really yearning for some of that during TFA. I would have like to have had some explanation to how the First Order came to power and how widespread is their power and how the resistance came to be and what planets did they destroy. It all just seems to come out of nowhere in TFA.

George Lucas has always been a pretty good concept man. The OT, PT, Indy. When he hands it off to someone else to write and direct the results have been more good than bad. The prequel trilogy felt like he filmed a detailed story outline. I still think the PT was a good concept, but George fucked it up on numerous levels by writing and directing them himself. If he could have handed the prequels off to Larry Kasdan to write and then someone like David Fincher to direct, I think we'd be living in a different world when it comes to Star Wars.

The whole Whill thing could have been good. I would have gone along for the ride. Especially with George Lucas only being involved as an idea man. Which is where he works best.

The four recent films, if nothing else, have made me appreciate the prequels more. They’re still all mediocre to average films since Empire; but the concepts, action sequences, and some of the performances in the prequels are good enough to help me get thru some of the writing and direction.

It doesn’t look like GL’s plans for 7-9 would have been all that better or worse than what we got so far.

Disney should give Lucas his own trilogy to explain the Whils. They're giving everyone else they're own trilogy. Might be kind of a cool side story.

Add me to this list also.

Are we sure George isn’t confused and think of Willow? It’s a small scale world of mysticism.

Lucas had three films...three fucking films...to get his ideas out in the prequel trilogy. It’s inexcusable to wait until the last 20 minutes of the third movie to start tying the PT to the OT. It was literally like Lucas didn’t realize he was at the end of the line until until the last minute and then just tried throwing everything at the wall to see if it would stick. Why does Padme die? Fuck it, she died of a broken heart! Why don’t the droid remember anything? Fuck it, have their memories wiped. Why do Yoda and Obi-Wan end up where they do? Fuck it, just have them runaway!

And any time I hear Lucas spout off about having his one plan from the very start, I just remember that he had Luke and Leia make out in ESB...

He didn’t have a plan for shit.

I always sort of pictured the Whills as being along the lines of the caretakers on Luke's island in TLJ, ancient mystics that recorded the history of the Jedi and so on. So there we go, close enough.

It has been said that by the time of the prequels, there was no one left at Lucasfilm that would tell George if something wasn't working. All the younger employees worshipped him for creating the OT, so he was surrounded by yes-men that had grown up believing anything he did was infallible. That is what insiders have pointed at for why the prequels turned out the way they did.

I don't think George's heart was ever into making another Star Wars trilogy, including the Prequels. Selling out the entire franchise to Disney I take as final proof of that feeling. But he had hundreds of employees working at the company, and wanted to keep them employed. Thus he made the prequels. When fan reaction crushed Lucas for some of his creative choices in the prequels, his spirit was broken.

GL has said the main reason for deciding to go ahead with the PT was his kids...they talked him into it.

“Hey dad, we want more lightsaber battles and spaceship chases!”

“Sure, sure. But you know what kids today think is really exciting? Long drawn out scenes of senate committees meeting about intergalactic trade negotiations”

This may be and looking at the making of documentaries from the prequels I think you can tell that he basically was surrounded by yes people. The problem I have with Lucas and why I've never felt an ounce sorry for him is that he seems so arrogant. Rather than taking feedback from fans and being constructive with it he constantly was doing something stupid while he was still in charge of Lucasfilm. Whether it was further tinkering with the Original Trilogy or choices made in the prequels. I think it seems like the only time he listened to criticism was when he minimized Jar Jar Binks screen time in Episodes II and III. It almost is like the guy thrives on doing stuff to piss off the fans because that's how he wants it whether anyone else likes it or not.

Nice one.

That's EXACTLY how I feel about the prequel trilogy.

Palpatine's story, and his political intrigue and maneuvering, is amazing. It's well constructed, shows how he's using BOTH sides to get what he wants, and is fairly original.

But Anakin is handled so poorly it kills almost every scene he's in. Anakin could have been done so much better if they just had him trying too hard in the 2nd movie, and making mistakes as a result. Eventually,he'd become angry and resentful that he's always being criticized when he's trying harder than everyone else, and he thinks he deserves credit for the effort and isn't getting it. Having him whine and complain from practically minute one of the 2nd movie was a huge mistake.

It's important to remember Anakin HAD to be flawed.
He couldn't be goody-two-shoes if he is to become DV.

I think Lucas wrote himself into a corner here.

In ROTJ, the dialog gives the impression that Padme lived long enough for Leia to remember her.

But when Lucas started the prequel trilogy with the story of Anakin's childhood, it effectively wasted an entire movie.

The ideal way to make the birth of the twins fit with the OT would have been for Anakin to not know she was pregnant, and the most effective way to do that would have been to reveal the pregnancy after Anakin's battle with Obi-Wan, and then open the next film either with their birth or shortly after. It creates a story problem in that Anakin knew Padme was pregnant and she lived, Vader and Palpatine would be hunting for his children. It's better for him to not know she was ever pregnant in the first place.

But since Lucas spent the first two movies dicking around, the entire arc of Anakin's story had to be jammed into the last hour of the final movie.

Think how much better the prequels would have been if Episode I had ended with Anakin and Padme's wedding, Episode II had ended with Obi-Wan leaving Anakin to die on Mustafar, and Episode III had featured the birth of the twins, the reveal of Darth Vader, and Vader hunting down the remaining Jedi.

It really is disappointing thinking about how much better the prequels could have been. A lot of wasted potential.

I think most people here understand this, it's just that it was handled so poorly in the PT. His mixed emotions and quick anger are something we all could have foreseen just from what we saw in the OOT. However, Lucas turned him into a whiny child killer and ruined his redemption in ROTJ. Just another of his many, many misses in the PT.