I caught some on TNT this weekend too The Prequels are so cartoony now. You can just see everyone is in a giant green screen room.

The scenes where Obi Wan is riding that stupid fucking giant lizard is distractingly bad.

Maybe they should wait and see how Rogue One performs, because from what I'm hearing it's not looking good.

My biggest issue with the prequels is that they're so anti-climactic. We all knew Palpatine was the Emperor, yet Lucas wrote and directed them like it was such a big secret and it was supposed to be a shocking reveal in ROTS.

It's kind of a weird thing... The audience is going into the films with the knowledge that Senator Palpatine will eventually become the Emperor. The other characters have no clue.

I, and many others, went in knowing that Darth Sidious was Palpatine.

I think Lucas treated it like a big reveal because his intent was the six films should be watched in order, 1-2-3-4-5-6 and not 4-5-6-1-2-3. So someone watching the movies for the first time would be surprised that Palpatine was the big villain, and that Anakin would fall to the Dark Side. Which then destroys the big reveal in ESB, which is one of the most famous plot twists in the history of film, which sets up the prequels. Just goes to show how messed up Lucas' storytelling instincts became.

There's that, but then there's lots of other stuff about the universe in general that he doesn't bother to go into because he just assumes we already know that from watching the originals. Just to throw out an example, the word "light saber" is never used in Episode I.

It's shocking how many of you watch movies on TNT.

you're crazy if you don't think this will be a huge hit.

I wish I could be that optimistic, I'm personally looking forward to it and I want it to do well but without a Skywalker or other named Jedi it's going to be a struggle.

Vader. People want to see new Vader footage.

Rogue One should get $1 billion easily. Maybe $1.5 billion if it's really good. Same for the Han SOlo movie.

Thrawn is part of the new canon. So that opens the door for other EU characters.

The Irony of the 'Star Wars Saga' now is that each Trilogy spoils the other, so there is no ideal way to watch them as a first time viewer. If you watch the Prequels first, then the Vader reveal to Luke is ruined. If you watch the Originals first, then you are one step ahead of the characters the whole trilogy.

In hindsight, Lucas should have continued the story after Episode 6 with flashbacks of Anakin's descent to the darkside littered throughout (Godfather 2 style). He could have done the Sequel Trilogy with Luke, Leia and Han and their kids, and in the process give us all of the Prequel Story flashbacks that we were interested in.

Hmmmm ...

Was Lucas's intent really to have people watch I-III first? Because otherwise there was no reason for the overt references and corny foreshadowing jokes, such as Palpatine saying he'll be watching Anakin's career with great interest, or Obi-Wan joking about Anakin being the death of him. Or that deleted scene with young Greedo. Many of those scenes are clearly meant for people who've seen the originals.

If someone saw them I-VI then, sure, those statements wouldn't be seen as jokes initially. But they'd still be seen as clumsy (retroactive) attempts at foreshadowing.

Random Page 3 Thoughts: An Abob Teff Story

Not sure why the studio head is already trying to marginalize Rogue One. Sorry for another Trump reference, but that's akin to Trump declaring months ago that the election is rigged. Just trying to lay out excuses now to cover his own ass later.

Personally, THIS is the movie I have been waiting decades for. Not everything that happens in the Star Wars universe has to involve a Skywalker. As Lucas proved, hamfisted artificial connections do not work. Let the world breathe and unfold. (Before you say it, yes, Vader is in this. However that is a natural element of the story.)

I don't believe for one moment that fans would shun a movie that doesn't feature the "known" characters. As long as it is titled "Star Wars" and it carries the true spirit the people will come. Disney's Rebels has been a success, as were many EU properties.

Give me Old Republic movies, please! But, as Resinrats said, the product in design must fit into the established world. Design new things, er ... Old things! I know it must be tricky to "devolve" your designs, but it can and should be done.

Granted Lucas's historic intent and wishes have changed as often as Trump's "policies", but one of the original intents was to tell stories of the Republic and the war through the eyes of narrators who weren't intimately tied to the story: C-3PO and R2-D2. Unfortunately I now hate these two characters thanks to the PT (and through no help from TFA).

Speaking of, I get the Jar-Jar hate, but it surprises me the character-rape of the droids does not get more attention. There are often mentions of R2-D2's new superpowers, but the complete desecration of C-3PO's personality to turn him into a 3 Stooges' reject was utterly insulting.

I expect the droids will also turn up at the end of Rogue One.

Did I mention I am eagerly awaiting Rogue One?

Yes, he said that at one time. Of course Lucas' ideas about Star Wars have always been mercurial.

Oh, we'll see new stuff with every movie. They want to sell toys.

The bottom line is that all movies should be watched in the order they were made. If you had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film and wanted to educate yourself you wouldn't start with A Countess From Hong Kong. You start with the silent shorts and move forward.

If you wanted to study Lucas as a filmmaker you would start with THX then American Graffiti and then Star Wars (Ep IV). You wouldn't jump from a 1975 film to a 1999 film if you wanted to understand the progression of his vision.

What's true for everyone is true for Lucas as well: If you want to understand a filmmaker you need to more or less watch their films chronologically.

The amount of trooper variations we've seen for Rogue One definitely prove this out. It seems like there are different looking troopers in every scene.

With Force Awakens it made sense for their to be an evolution of the troopers given the time frame. But Rogue One just seems weird to have all these variants which we never see in A New Hope.

ANH shows us desert troopers on Tattooine and regular troopers on the Death Star. ESB and ROTJ expand that with Snow troopers and biker scouts. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Empire has varied types of soldiers.

The only thing different about the "sand trooper" was that they had a backpack with a shoulder pad, right?

And they were dirty.

Spielberg finally getting to direct a SW movie might be a hell of a way to retire if he is considering it.

Normally, I don't, but when I saw Star Wars on the channel guide, the nerd in me couldn't resist.

I don't think any of us plan our day around it like we would do in the 1980's when Star Wars would come on HBO. But it's more like when I'm channel surfing and nothing is on and flip by Star Wars, you stop and watch certain parts.

I hadn't watched the Prequels in so long so I was curious as to how I would feel about them now that The Force Awakens was out and Lucas was exiled from the movies. When the one Gungan says to Jar Jar, "Jar Jar, you in deep doodoo!" I shook my head that something like that got in the films!