Which all would have been fine if they had a fucking plan for the trilogy. It's completely unfathomable to me how badly they screwed up the ST. I mean TFA had to be one of the most anticipated movies of all time. How do you not have a plan going forward?

Some of it sure. I still think it was all KK's fault. I don't care that she was a great producer previously or that she was hand picked by George Lucas to carry on the torch. She let JJ Abrams set up all these empty mystery boxes and she let Rian Johnson all over Star Wars. It was all over after that. Yeah Rise wasn't great but I think it was just about the best that they could do with the mess they had after TLJ.

My hot take is Disney unfairly gets a lot of the blame. I think it is their fault for reducing it to 2 years in between movies vs 3 but Lucasfilm was largely still intact from when George Lucas was in charge. They kept KK in charge like Lucas wanted. Besides the accelerated timeline I think they had little to do with what the final product ended up being. I think Disney under Bob Iger was pretty smart with their acquisitions and let Pixar/Marvel/Lucasfilm all run pretty much under the same creative leadership without some big corporate shake up or installing their own people to be the heads of those studios.

Disney literally disregarded Lucas's plans for a sequel trilogy and came up with one all their own after the purchase. Is KK a problem, yeah, but while she was Lucas's heir apparent in the end she was appointed by Iger. Disney/Lucasfilm came up with the 2 year cycle, the one-off movies, basically cranking out product every year. The entire time, without a fleshed out storyline or overall plan or direction for the property.

They immediately wanted product/content, period. When TLJ disappointed (in relation to TFA), when Solo tanked, and when TRoS failed to engage critics and sputtered to a close with audiences (comparatively), they were lucky enough to have The Mandolorian ready to roll on the backburner.

I though Ewan's Obi-Wan was easily the best part of the prequels as he (Ewan) seemed to be the only one (well along with Ian) having any kind of fun with their roles and actually putting for effort. I was at Star Wars Celebration a couple of weeks ago and with no big movie announcements, maybe that means they are putting some actual thought into their future theatrical releases. I would have been happy with more "stories" as I loved Rogue One and thought Solo was way better than it had a right to be (and left me wanting to see more of his adventures leading into ANH).

^^ I don't know if they're putting a ton of thought into it as much as they're paralyzed by fear of making another shit trilogy. That said, after watching the Book of Boba Fett and now Obi Wan, I am dumbfounded that nobody watches these back and says "this isn't good enough". So maybe Disney really does think it's putting out high quality stuff. Subscriptions would tell them that their business model works - hell, I've had D+ since day 1 and only watch the SW shows and a few MCU shows.

I like Star Wars.

Sorry, that's not allowed here.

He was okay in Phantom Menace. By the second he's just "wise-cracking" with Anakin and saying terrible dialogue. And I don't even remember what he did in the 3rd of note besides fighting Anakin and the ridiculous "higher ground" moment.

The Obi-Wan series posits "what if Ewan McGregor was Obi-Wan Kenobi but everything around him was better?"

I'd argue that the worst thing about The Last Jedi isn't Luke dying but rather that they wasted Laura Dern by saddling her character with a needlessly complicated triple-agent subplot. And I'm someone who actually enjoyed TLJ.

Still haven't seen Rise of Skywalker. Someday, God give me strength. FTR, I haven't seen Attack of the Clones in its entirety either.

Do we know it was Disney that scrapped Lucas's plans for the ST? Plus from what little I've seen that's not necessarily a bad thing. And yes she was appointed by Iger and of course Disney gets the ultimate blame since it's their company but their plan wasn't to shake things up. They kept Lucasfilm pretty much intact as is. I definitely admit that them setting that aggressive timeline was Disney's biggest mistake. Everything that I bolded was KK and Lucasfilm. As far as I know Disney didn't have anything to do with it creatively. Firing and hiring directors was KK. I thought that bringing in Jon Favreau might have been Disney's move but a quick search shows it was KK who approached him about it.

So again other then setting an unreasonably aggressive timeline I don't think Disney had much to do with their output creatively. For better or for worse it seems like it was all Lucasfilm.

And of course they wanted content. Why else would they have bought Star Wars? The fans want content. Everyone wants content. Nothing wrong with that.

OMG, you haven't seen Attack of the Clones? How can you call yourself a fan without seeing every Star Wars movie, even the bad ones? You should watch AotC in its entirety just to confirm it's terrible.

Then you are not a true Star Wars fan.

For reference, these were Lucas' initial plans. Make of them what you w(h)ill.

What I've read about Lucas' outline for the Sequel Trilogy was... not good. The stuff about the Whills would have taken the thing into a really weird direction that I don't think would have worked.

ETA: Yeah, it's what Joel posted a few minutes before my post.

I find that angle the most interesting. I was somewhat under the impression that the midichlorian stuff was a reaction to the more "Chrictony" sci-fi that was popular in the 1990s. It even quickly gets dropped after Episode I, aside from a quick mention of them in the Darth Plagueis story (which I figured was because audiences didn't like the concept, like Jar Jar Binks). But he decides to go back to them here?

I think only the Leia stuff really shines, but that would have likely caused the same reaction in many of the people who hate Rey/Rose/Holdo.

The Luke stuff is pretty par for the course and like the third iteration of rebuilding the Jedi.

The Maul stuff is... Yikes. Star Wars, for the love of God, please stop bringing characters back from the dead. EU, Sequels, TV shows, I'm talking to all of you.

I watched Phantom and Clones recently. First time since ROTS came out. Phantom still sucks balls and is a snoozefest. Clones is a pretty decent movie beleaguered by the love story between two people that have no chemistry. Everything else is pretty solid. On the flip side it was George's job to sell us on these two falling in love and having kids and by that measure it was an abject failure.

See I'm the opposite. I think there is a good movie buried in Phantom. The Jar Jar/Naboo stuff is pretty much trash same with the Pod racing, but there is some good stuff in there. Clones I have a difficult time finding anything good.

Isn’t Attack of the Clones the one with the extended sequence of R2 and 3PO doing slapstick in a droid factory with C-3PO making wisecracks? Yeah, no, it’s trash through and through.

And that scene was added in after the film was shot because Lucas felt it needed more action.

If the prequels had been made in the same style/quality of the OT, they'd be infinitely better. Still overly long and clunky, but more than adequate imo. It's all in the execution.

Probably. Although I think the storylines were just never super compelling.

• The Republic needing to implement a draft to fight against a clone army is a better way to connect with the audience, as well as draw upon Lucas' memories of Vietnam (I know he didn't serve, but that was have been the major conflict during his coming of age).
• Starting with Anakin at age 19 where he's super into podracing. Scrap the slave stuff and just make him a character from American Graffiti. Small town with big dreams.
• Making Anakin as a more concrete mirror of Luke: When Obi-Wan mentions him as "a good friend", I always had in my mind that Anakin was the Classical Hero to Luke's Child Hero. Competent, barrel-chested, in control. I kind of always had in my head that his pursuit of the Dark Side was driven more by trying to do the right thing for everyone than for just his wife. That's all headcanon, I know, but I feel it would have been thematically more inline with what we see in the OT.
• Don't make the Jedi so strict, aloof, and powerless.

In the OT, you can feel Lucas' passion and experience in the characters and stories, whereas they just seem so inhuman and bland in the Prequels.

My fixes:
Everyone was cast 10yrs too young - yes, we can have our trio in their 30's and 40's. (I've always been a Branagh as Obi Wan fan)

Drop the prophecy and Jedi attachments nonsense, it can be frowned upon, but not disallowed.

Just from a filmmaking standpoint, you work yourself into a corner with your main heroes living as monks.

Obi-wan tracking the clone info to Kamino with a battle with Jango in the rain was the highlight for me. Loved the stops along the way at Dexter's Diner (always loved that character design) and the Jedi Archives. And as alluded to, that whole story is buoyed by Ewan Mcgregor. He basically keeps the PT from being complete trash. Yoda leading the clone army was cool. Plus it has the Geonosis battle at the end with dozens of Jedi. I thought it was pretty unique compared to the 1v1 jedi battles we've seen in every other movie.

Phantom Menace has "Duel of the Fates" and Darth Maul. That's about it. The podrace is pretty decent but it's just a fancy CG version of the speeder bikes on Endor's moon.

I'm watching Clone Wars for the first time right now. Season one was rough, but halfway through season 2 and it's getting pretty good. So timeline-wise, I might hold off on rewatching Sith until I'm done with the series.

I like the pod race and Obi-wan/Qui-Gon/Darth Maul duel in TPM. I like the Yoda stuff in AotC. I can't find a single redeemable thing in RotS, however.

The ST is entirely indefensible, as a whole and each movie. TFA was a scam. TLJ was a joke. TROS was an abomination.

D+ SW content has been mostly crap. Even TM is hit and miss, and that's the best of the live action to date. Rogue One was very good.

I see more and more how SW is a joke of a franchise to follow religiously, or to be glued to each new show/animation. It's gone beyond farcical in Disneys ownership. Its laughable really the content. The years go by now where my own fandom gets less and less.

Maybe if there was something truly great again I'd get back on board. Something new and different, a distant era pre or post-Saga. But it's not just that desire/need for a new era, the actual content itself is so poorly written, unengaging, relying on references, easter eggs and brand awareness, the nostalgia angle, to mask actual poor story-telling. It's bereft of heart and soul, just a Coca-Cola ad now.

TM season 1 was largely a bore of mission for the day crap, a few funny/cool moments here and there, season 2 packed more punch but it was still pretty low standards compared to far better TV shows that exist, that rivet you, fascinating stories and characters. Boba Fett and Obi-Wan series had some funny/cool moments but was largely shit. That's the in-your-bones truth that you ALL know too to be true. It's just we try to enjoy it "hey its SW content at least" we say to appease ourselves.I'm still waiting for something to merit getting excited for, that merits rewatching, that merits loving.

The Lucas Era SW had pride in craftsmanship and a dignity to its own mythology/lore. Lucas made errors, especially in the PT that cheapened the product. But Disney and the new LFL are going the extra miles and digging in deep to make it worse and indigestible.

The OT (even Ewok nonsense) was still great stuff. Pacing, writing, story-telling. And didn't break and mock its own lore inside the trilogy. The ST certainly did that inside itself to itself and to the OT and PT to boot. Even the PT kept in step with itself in terms of telling a coherent story, building characters backstories. It had bad problems as Red Letter Media has delved into, but it's still a consistent trilogy and to the OT.

Disney content has lowered our standards, so low now we just try to enjoy it somehow, trained to brush away major flaws, tho we know it's crap and getting crapper.