What went wrong with the new trilogy?

[Elfdart]

They're American movie stars. Particularly Portman. Not exactly grooming for the better acting - the British stage actors are better. You disputing this? McDiarmid and Neeson may be the strongest actors of the entire PT.

By that logic, everyone from Errol Flynn to Sean Connery to Kate Winslet is an American movie star, too. The fact that Neeson and McDiarmid turned in better performances than some of the other actors is not just a reflection of talent. They've been in movies and stage for decades. Portman and Christensen took their roles when they were teenagers.

Excuse me? I assumed? "Before the dark times; before the Empire." Or how about, "My father didn't fight in the Clone Wars, he was a navigator aboard a spice freighter." "That's what your uncle taught you." Or "You fought in the Clone Wars?" "Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father." "When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot, and I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi."

None of this squares away without awkwardness with the PT, and Anakin as a hotshot pilot is a lot more compelling that a nerdy kid with a cliche personality. I'm discussing how the PT was weak, and how it could be made better, not that I expected GL to do what was in my head. So stuff the stawman. Cliche nine year olds make poorer characters than young men with character continuity to their older self.

There is absolutely nothing in those quotes that is contradicted by the other movies, so what are you bitching about?

Which is WANK and stupid. I know people who can race riced up cars; can they pilot fighter jets BETTER THAN TRAINED pilots? TPM was wrapped up with wank deus ex machina and it blows cock.

Do you have evidence that flying a pod or a speeder is that much different from flying a fighter? I remember ANH when Luke is not only allowed to fly a fighter, but is placed in charge of two other pilots (Biggs and Wedge) when the only thing we've seen him fly so far is his landspeeder and we hear one mention of him flying a T-16, which doesn't appear to be any trouble to fly at all (you see one gliding casually on Tattooine in ROTJ). So if Anakin's ability to fly a fighter by the seat of his pants (with R2-D2 helping him) is "wank deus ex machina and it blows cock", then Luke being allowed to fly in the Battle of Yavin at all, being put in charge of Biggs and Wedge, mastering his X-wing, and scoring the decisive shot are wank on an exponentially larger scale and blows an infinitely larger amount of cock.

Okay, whatever. And I know that, but there wasn't much hunting down and destroying, was there?

You must have missed the attack on the Jedi Temple.

Anyhow, this is my point of least concern.

Concession accepted.

Anakin-as-a-nine-year-old is a shitty character and a poor way to start the PT.

It's the only way that makes sense. Kids that age regard being taken away from their parents as about the worst thing imaginable. Anakin's removal from his mother is softened by (a) Qui-Gon Jinn being an ideal father figure (b) if he stays home, he faces a life of slavery and (c) he gets to go do all kinds of cool stuff he dreamed about. Adolescents and teenagers can't wait to get away from their parents. What's more, one's personality is more or less formed by ages 12-13 (earlier for smarter kids), which is why in so many societies children (especially males) were considered to be adults until the last hundred years or so when they reached Bar Mitzvah age or King's Oath age. It would be pretty hard to manipulate Anakin to the dark side if his opinions and personality were already formed.

Its a weakness, and starting the trilogy off with a more AOTC-ish Anakin, before being discovered would've made for a better character. And the nine-year-old ricer being able to pilot spacecraft is just obscene wank. You know it, and everyone knows it. If you want to dispute this, whatever - if you like the taste of shit, there's no logical argument.

I know that your poor understanding of the story, storytelling in general and human nature makes you right? Please.

Unlike the stormtroopers who walk into doors.

Once in the entire series. At least you had the Rebels you sympathized with in OT. No one gives a fuck about the robotic clones and the bumbling droids.

You're not supposed to give a fuck about the battledroids any more than you were suppsed to give a fuck about the chainmail-clad soldiers in The Adventures of Robin Hood who die with arrows in their chests. Ditto for the clones. In fact, since the clones are presented as such obvious precursors to the stormtroopers, even the casual viewer gets the impression "Uh oh, those are going to be the bad guys.".

Besides, no one gave a fuck about bumbling stormtroopers or the Rebel soldiers who died in droves on the blockade runner or on Hoth. They gave even less of a shit over the Rebel soldiers who died on Endor. They were redshirts in cooler uniforms, nothing more.

And the patsies can't be scary or impressive in their own right?

If they were, they wouldn't be patsies anymore.

Darth Vader embodied evil until ROTJ we see he's really just a lapdog and enabler for the real evil: Palpatine.

Anyone who paid attention in ANH noticed that Darth Vader was the Emperor's gofer. He was tool who found himself taking orders from a governor. Those who watched ANH without having their fingers in their ears and heads up their asses noticed that the Emperor was the one calling the shots and was therefore the ultimate evil in the galaxy. TESB confirms this when he knuckles under to the Emperor.

I suppose he should've just been a fucking bafoon from the start?

So the fact that he was a pussywhipped, self-serious teenager makes him a buffoon for life?

You're right -cargo haulers should look kewl.

Warships should. McQuarrie, an engineer, produced the ISD. Doug Chiang, creator of the N-1 artpiece that looks like it ought to fall apart, made the flying saucers of doom.

They're not warships, numbnuts -they're cargo haulers with guns added.

I don't understand why you're being such a colossal asshole about what comes down to aesthetic preferences.

Want some cheese to go with that whine?

1. It is the start of all popcorn movies, and popcorn movies should have cool battles, not regal you with bureacratic bumbling and "tax disputes."

Oh damn, you have to wait all of 2 minutes in TPM before the fighting starts. Boo hoo. You must really hate TESB, since you have to wait 20-30 minutes before the action starts.

McQuarrie was simply a better educated and more intelligent art director than Chiang, their mistakes speaking to that.

Mistakes? You are one dumb twat. Lucas tells Chiang and everyone else he wants everything shiny, colorful and new -very Flash Gordonish- and his employees deliver what he wanted. Lucas went to McQuarrie because he had worked for NASA and on 2001 and wanted a more industrial look. Chiang didn't make mistakes any more than McQuarrie did.

But Gary Kurtz did tell Lucas "no" and eventually left over their differences (which is why ROTJ was weaker than ANH or TESB), and he had to compromise with other talents and personalities, as well as the studio.

What a load of bullshit. Kurtz nearly spent Lucas into bankruptcy and they had a parting of ways because of that as much as anything else. After TESB, Lucas worked with Howard Kazanjian on Raiders of the Lost Ark. The result was the exact opposite: the movie was finished early and under budget. It did almost as well at the box office and better with critics and the Academy (nominated for Best Picture). The studio had no say with TESB and zero creative say with ANH, except for memos suggesting that Lucas make Chewbacca wear pants or lederhosen. With input like that, no wonder Star Wars turned out so well.

Same thing with Roddenberry and TOS; collaborations produce good stuff, "the true intent" produces TNG and the PT.

Star Trek with Roddenberry: a classic
Star Trek without Roddenberry: sucks out loud

The Gungans were supposed to be backwards and pitiful. Does the Tuskens' use of gaffi sticks prove that Johnston and McQuarrie were telling Lucas "No"?

Did they fight field armies?

Did the Gungans before TPM?

The Galactic Republic's ships were supposed to be geometrically impossible in order to show its decadence? GL describes vague shapes, artists draw them, and in the PT they managed to make every fighter in the entire series not fit R2.

You left out the most important part: Lucas looks over all the designs and says "I'll take that one." And yes, the period is supposed to be absurd and decadent, like the Roaring Twenties before the rise of Fascism.

And that's exactly my point. Kasdan, Kurtz, and Kershner helped him out and it shows.

Which one helped him write ANH? Which one helped him direct it?

What are you talking about? Its plain public evidence that he had co-producers, writers, and directors in the OT, and in the PT he did everything by himself, except ROTS, where he got playwright Tom Stoppard to polish the dialogue and ghost re-write the script.

Which Stoppard denies.

Everyone has poorly concieved ideas. GL is the lynchpin without which there is no SW. But that doesn't mean he doesn't need collaborators and other talented people to give him harsh advice sometimes.

Yeah, the most successful filmmaker of all time needs to be told how to make movies.

Groupthink is a poor substitute for constructive criticism. And this time there were no Kasdan, Kurtz, and Kershner to help - and his conflict with the latter two is a matter of public record, and why they both didn't return for ROTJ (and why ROTJ is weaker than ANH or TESB).

Not this bullshit again. Kurtz was replaced by Kazanjian for obvious reasons. Funny how Lucas can make successful movies without Kurtz and Kershner, but not the other way around. Last time I saw anything about Kurtz was an ad for an indie film about the release of Star Wars where he's one of several executive producers. The last time Kershner was seen or heard from was his cameo in On Deady Ground, a Steven Seagal movie. Yeah, Lucas would have been lost without them.

I just said Lucas gained from his collaborators' help in ANH and TESB, like
Kasdan, Kurtz, and Kershner, despite any disagreements he may've had with them. This time around, it was almost entirely his show without much outside talent, with notable exception of Tom Stoppard and ROTS is accordingly by far the strongest of the PT.

Kasdan quit writing for anyone but himself as he was busy directing his own movies after ROTJ, which only agreed to do out of loyalty to Lucas. So there were no problems between those two. Kasdan told the Baltimore Sun that he had looked over the screenplay to TPM and told Lucas he wouldn't change a word. Frank Darabont agreed that Lucas should write it himself and that he (Lucas) didn't need his services.

Contrary to the myth created by disgruntled fanboys who think Lucas should have consulted them about making the prequels, Lucas isn't surrounded by lackeys. Francis Coppola isn't afraid of telling anyone they're wrong (least of all Lucas) and he was a regular visitor to the sets and production of the prequels, even recommending people to help Lucas make the movies. Walter Murch is another person who knows Lucas well enough to tell him he's wrong. As is Steven Spielberg. As are a number of others. The notion that George Lucas is the Emperor and everyone around him is a toadie who tells him his clothes are amazing when his balls are in plain view is baseless.

[Darth Wong]

Contrary to the myth created by disgruntled fanboys who think Lucas should have consulted them about making the prequels, Lucas isn't surrounded by lackeys. Francis Coppola isn't afraid of telling anyone they're wrong (least of all Lucas) and he was a regular visitor to the sets and production of the prequels, even recommending people to help Lucas make the movies. Walter Murch is another person who knows Lucas well enough to tell him he's wrong. As is Steven Spielberg. As are a number of others. The notion that George Lucas is the Emperor and everyone around him is a toadie who tells him his clothes are amazing when his balls are in plain view is baseless.

That's a fair point. But it's hard to deny that the prequels lack a certain amount of "polish". Many scenes look as if they would have benefited greatly from a bit of tweaking or re-editing. Whether this is due to a lack of negative feedback or something else, I still argue that what the prequels needed was a lot of minor tweaking.

[Sarevok]

About the pod racer arguement.

I think those in favor of it missed the entire point. The author intent in OT was clear - Anakin was like the Red Baron. Nitpicking and twisting meanings to reconcile this with TPM is sad. Why not simply accept George Lucas made a mistake ?

[VT-16]

Doug Chiang, creator of the N-1 artpiece that looks like it ought to fall apart, made the flying saucers of doom.

On instructions from George Lucas who wanted flying saucers.

The author intent in OT was clear - Anakin was like the Red Baron.

He was a great pilot when Obi-Wan met him, then he became "the best starpilot in the galaxy". Which part of the prequels contradict this? I realize most people thought they were both the same thing (starfighters all the way), but which part actually contradicts the statements?

[Adrian Laguna]

About the pilot thing. Anakin reminds me a bit of Eddie Rickenbacker. He started as a race car driver and went-on to become America's Ace of Aces in the Great War. Similarly, Anakin started as a pod-racer and went on to become an awesome fighter pilot and flight commander (sadly this is mostly relegated to the Clone Wars cartoon). You could say they were both good pilots back when they were racing land-based vehicles. In the sense that they had the talent in them, and in the sense that in race car drivers are are referred to as pilots in a few languages like Spanish and Italian.

BTW - I really like Jaevric's version of TPM. About the only flaw that I can see is the start of the romance between Padme and Anakin, seems a bit forced. I would have them talk a bit and become friends before things get romantic. The actual romance is what Ep. II is for.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's the whole mucking about storyline thing. I mean, with ANH, bam, there's an evil empire with a death station, you've gotta blow it up. Then, the empire's out to get you in ESB. And then, in ROTJ, the evil empire has ANOTHER death station that needs blowing up. That's the bare framework, and all the embellishments and characters and stuff flows smoothly thanks to the simple frame.

Now, the PT has all this mucking about with political crap, I mean, there even wasn't a Great Big enemy until the last portion of AOTC! Even in TPM, the conflict wasn't there much. The whole PT had half-assed political stuff, which made the flow of the other bits of the story, you know, not as nice.

[PainRack]

Now, the PT has all this mucking about with political crap, I mean, there even wasn't a Great Big enemy until the last portion of AOTC! Even in TPM, the conflict wasn't there much. The whole PT had half-assed political stuff, which made the flow of the other bits of the story, you know, not as nice.

I'm not so sure about that.....

The Phantom Menace did introduce us to a "phantom", Lord Sidious and he served as the enemy throughout the entire series. The "I should be watching your career with great interest" essentially spawned the whole threat portion of the entire series.

I think some of the problem definitely was editing. ROTS was too fast spaced, to the extent that development of the characters and story got hampered. We never exactly see how the suspicion of Anakin about Padme, Obiwan, the jedi council and etc happen onscreen. This happened in the novelisation.
TPM on the other hand was far too slow. The fact is we only have a Naboo crisis that's taxing the Republic and Anakin introduction into the galaxy epic.Yet, the movie took its time to "plod" through the events.

Still, my only real grief with the PT is the lightsaber fight in AOTC and ROTS. It looks as if the whole budget was focused on Anakin fight with Dooku, Anakin fight with Obiwan, with the remainding lightsaber combat just receiving desultory attention. Mace Windu epic battle with Palpatine for example just wasn't exciting, and apart from the cool display of Force powers from Yoda vs Palpatine,the fight itself was just boring compared to other action films with swords.

I'm not asking for technical proficiency, but when the fight seems to consist of Palpatine snarling and growling with the good guy swinging his stick left and right, that's just downright disappointing.

[Elfdart]

That's a fair point. But it's hard to deny that the prequels lack a certain amount of "polish". Many scenes look as if they would have benefited greatly from a bit of tweaking or re-editing. Whether this is due to a lack of negative feedback or something else, I still argue that what the prequels needed was a lot of minor tweaking.

I think about 90% of the problems with the prequels could have been solved with better editing. I noticed that ROTS had a much better flow to it, and had a new editor, Roger Barton (who worked for James Cameron), which I think is more than a coincidence.

[Mange]

While I think that TPM is the weakest in the bunch, I think that the Lard Biscuit presents some really good arguments in favor of the movie (avilable here).
AOTC has the cheesy romance, but to be fair, the original movies were cheesy themselves and AOTC is, in my opinion, a far better movie than ROTJ which without the Emperor scenes would feel even more a remake of the original movie.
ROTS has lots of memorable scenes (for example Order 66, the duel between Anakin and Vader) and dialogue (for example "Do what must be done Lord Vader, do not hesitate, show no mercy"). As a whole, I'm pretty satisfied with the Prequel Trilogy.

And that's exactly my point. Kasdan, Kurtz, and Kershner helped him out and it shows.

I really don't know to what extent Kasdan helped Lucas out besides brushing up dialogue and scenes. If one looks at the excerpts (in for example the Annotated Screenplays) and full screenplays from TESB and ROTJ which can be found for example here, one can find that many scenes were left totally unchanged from the way it was originally written by George Lucas in earlier drafts.

[Edward Yee]

I mean, there even wasn't a Great Big enemy until the last portion of AOTC!

Come to think of it, that's exactly what I was thinking about Darth Maul! As much as he became known in fandom, I'm not sure that he should have become most notable just for elements that aren't aspects of the character persona(lity)... that is, the appearance, the weapon, and the fighting performance (which may or may not count as "acting").

[Sarevok]

He was a great pilot when Obi-Wan met him, then he became "the best starpilot in the galaxy". Which part of the prequels contradict this? I realize most people thought they were both the same thing (starfighters all the way), but which part actually contradicts the statements?

The fact that we never see Anakin being the greatest star fighter pilot in the galaxy ? Obiwan said Anakin was the greatest star fighter pilot not a star pilot. Driving a home made racer on a impoverished backward planet nobody cares about does not make one a legendary pilot. Argueing about meaning of the very word pilot to make sense out of a movie is pretty weak dont you think ?

Even Lucas realized that the famous pod racer arguement wont work hence he gave Anakin a scene as fighter pilot. Too bad it was it was like Dee Dee piloting Dexter's robots and blowing things up by pure cartoon luck. Lucas tried again in ROTS. It's hard to fail with Anakin shooting his way through a titanic fleet battle over Coruscant. But Lucas pulled off the impossible by focusing on buzz droids instead of dog fighting.[/i]

[VT-16]

The fact that we never see Anakin being the greatest star fighter pilot in the galaxy ? Obiwan said Anakin was the greatest star fighter pilot not a star pilot.

He also says "When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot." Once again, this can go many different ways, not just "starfighter pilot". You can't use your own expectations as evidence of a continuity error.

[PainRack]

Not to mention that in canon, Obiwan was already lying his ass off to Luke about Anakin past.

[Patrick Degan]

If Lucas is being truthful about having 20% of episode 1, 20% of episode 2 and 60% of episode 3 written back in the 70s, and with the rest he just "winged it", it's not surprising his 20+ year gap brought some weird stuff.

Yeah, well, I think we can suspect that to be bullshit. Had GL really had a master plan to this entire venture, there would never have been two Luke/Leia scenes which play a bit creepy with ROTJ's revelation that they're brother and sister.

[Darth Wong]

I honestly think that most of the criticism of the new trilogy is just slapping paint on top of a gut reaction because a lot of fans wanted a "grown up" version of Star Wars to accomodate their own aging, and they didn't get it. Instead, they got another kiddie-oriented Star Wars which was aimed at the younger generation. They felt betrayed, and so they started making up a lot of bogus pseudo-reasons why the new trilogy sucks in a manner that other films don't. It's one thing to say that you thought they could have been improved, but the sheer hatred I hear from some people comes from emo whining more than anything else.

[Elfdart]

If Lucas is being truthful about having 20% of episode 1, 20% of episode 2 and 60% of episode 3 written back in the 70s, and with the rest he just "winged it", it's not surprising his 20+ year gap brought some weird stuff.

Yeah, well, I think we can suspect that to be bullshit. Had GL really had a master plan to this entire venture, there would never have been two Luke/Leia scenes which play a bit creepy with ROTJ's revelation that they're brother and sister.

It depends on what part of the movies those percentages make up. It doesn't help that Lucas isn't the most articulate person in the world and often has a hard time telling people what he means in interviews. Another problem is that people assume that because he didn't write something down back in 1973, he wasn't thinking of it at the time.

I get the feeling that Luke and Leia were both meant to be the offspring of Darth Vader, only not in the way ROTJ did it. Lucas has a habit of rolling two or more characters into one, as well as taking one character and splittin him or her in two. I think Luke and Leia were meant to be the same character when Lucas first thought of Star Wars. On the one hand, he had the idea of a fugitive princess (like in The Hidden Fortress) and the heroic youth (a young King Arthur type) as his main character, realized he couldn't have one person be both (maybe John Waters could ) and split the character completely. He even toyed with the idea of the princess trying to rescue her long lost brother imprisoned by the bad guys.

So I think it's very anal to call Lucas a bullshitter when he says he thought of Luke and Leia being brother and sister in the beginning. He probably did.

[Jim Raynor]

I honestly think that most of the criticism of the new trilogy is just slapping paint on top of a gut reaction because a lot of fans wanted a "grown up" version of Star Wars to accomodate their own aging, and they didn't get it. Instead, they got another kiddie-oriented Star Wars which was aimed at the younger generation. They felt betrayed, and so they started making up a lot of bogus pseudo-reasons why the new trilogy sucks in a manner that other films don't. It's one thing to say that you thought they could have been improved, but the sheer hatred I hear from some people comes from emo whining more than anything else.

It was that, and jumping on the prequel-bashing bandwagon to prove how geek "cool" they were. Talking to some people, you would think that the SW prequels were complete failures and some of the shittiest movies ever. Supposedly the critics savaged them, but if you look up TPM and AOTC on Rotten Tomatoes, they got 63% and 66% respectively, both qualifying as "fresh." That's typical of movies that are overall regarded as good but flawed. And this is the fucking critics' opinion. You know, the people who are usually HARDER on popcorn action movies than the common person. And it's not like the critics themselves weren't on the bandwagon either.

Did the average person even hate the prequels? Going by the money they made, the huge turnout for ROTS, and the fact that SW is still a viable licensing franchise today (and will be for the forseeable future, with more books and even TV shows on the way), I would say no. According to some people, Lucas "killed" SW with the prequels. Give me a fucking break. You know what's a REAL example of a sequel that sucked so much ass it sank the franchise? Matrix Revolutions. Seriously, does ANYONE give a shit about the Matrix anymore, just a few short years after that movie came out? So really, I think the claim that everyone hates the prequels is a myth made up by fanboy whiners.

About the so-called "wooden" acting and romance scenes: Yes, it was bad. But who fucking watched SW for the love scenes? The love scenes were the primary criticism of AOTC, but I watched the movie again and I could swear they only took up 10 or 15 minutes. Can you name any action adventure movie out there that gets bashed for 15 minutes of subpar scenes? What really gets me is the way SW got singled out and held to higher standards for the acting. I've seen fanboys of the cheesiest, campiest, schlockiest franchises bashing the prequels for their acting. I'm talking comic books, kiddie cartoons, and Power Rangers here. Where's your demanding attitude towards acting and writing when you're watching those?

"Lucas ruined the prequels with too many fake-looking CGI effects!" Uh, did you even watch the original films? While the prequels have some cartoonish effects, the originals had muppets and stop-motion walkers. Don't try to fucking tell me there wasn't any fake-looking crap in the originals. But people were able to look past that, because for the most part the effects were cutting edge. Same should go for the prequels. But fanboys even whine about the effects that are good. Most people are surprised to find out that almost none of the Clonetroopers were actual people. But when I told that to some fanwhore whiner on another board, he tried to spin some crap about how the Clones looked "really fake." I asked him to explain how, and he said their heads were massively out of proportion to their bodies. Then I compared the clones to Obi-Wan using screenshots, showing that they were not. That shut him up pretty quick.

EDIT: And where's the criticism about the CGI in other recent blockbusters? I liked Spider-Man, but some of the effects in that movie were blatantly fake. Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Carribean have their share of blatant CGI effects too.

Far be it from me to dismiss or ignore actual flaws in the franchise. I hate fanwhores who do nothing but kiss ass, and SW already has too many of those (although they focus on kissing the EU's ass instead of the movies). I just had to get this rant off of me.

[Stark]

The 'geek chic' thing, a sort of nerd-groupthink, is definately a factor here. It's cool and trendy to hate TPM - even being ambivalent isn't a popular opinion. Let no one say self-professed 'geeks' are immune to peer pressure and in-crowd grandstanding.

[Ghost Rider]

The 'geek chic' thing, a sort of nerd-groupthink, is definately a factor here. It's cool and trendy to hate TPM - even being ambivalent isn't a popular opinion. Let no one say self-professed 'geeks' are immune to peer pressure and in-crowd grandstanding.

Trekkies alone show that statement in full effect.

For me, a lot of what Mike and Elf have said rings very true. The movies aren't horrible but there were parts that could've used more polished and editing could've been better. There were lulls in TPM and AoTC that should've been edited because they added no gravitas, or even general mood, they were just there to take up time.

Another bit is many of the jokes were placed just to go "See fart joke!". A few of those snipped away would've helped the movies, but especially TPM, as well.

[Darth Wong]

The interesting thing about modern technology is that I could actually make a recut DVD of any one of the prequel movies if I wanted to, with full DVD quality (it only recodes the frames necessary to get to the nearest key-frame, so 99% of the movie would be encoded lossless). The only problem is that my authoring software can't generate 5.1-channel sound, so I suspect it would have to use the 2-channel Dolby Digital track.

[Warsie]

No Victories, Dreadnaughts, Z-95s or Old Republic TIEs for one. Not to mention the lack of OR military ships seen around Coruscant. More violence with Ep 2, maybe? Ep. 1 could be at a different time. Battle of Geonosis happening earlier in Ep. 2/more CW battles. Alderaan being damaged by Grievous maybe? Larger time between CW and Empire's Formation.

Mainly fitting in with other E.U. sources

Or make it more graphic/less 'family friendly'. That, and some things I forgot.

[Darth Wong]

Making the prequels fit in better with the EU would be the completely wrong thing to do. A lot of the EU material strays quite far from Lucas' idea of what Star Wars is. Many EU authors would deny that, but the fact that Lucas' prequels frequently confounded the expectations of WEG fanboys is proof positive that all of the WEG critics were right all along.

[Warsie]

Making the prequels fit in better with the EU would be the completely wrong thing to do. A lot of the EU material strays quite far from Lucas' idea of what Star Wars is. Many EU authors would deny that, but the fact that Lucas' prequels frequently confounded the expectations of WEG fanboys is proof positive that all of the WEG critics were right all along.

It doesn't have to fit in with everything, but a few years ago before the CW came out, I remember little things (i didn't collect much SW until a few years ago) and things like the Victories being introduced in the CW, OR TIEs, etc I wanted to see BADLY.

But it doesn't have to fit in with everything? Wouldn't you like seeing Mandators in Ep. 3?

[Ghost Rider]

Making the prequels fit in better with the EU would be the completely wrong thing to do. A lot of the EU material strays quite far from Lucas' idea of what Star Wars is. Many EU authors would deny that, but the fact that Lucas' prequels frequently confounded the expectations of WEG fanboys is proof positive that all of the WEG critics were right all along.

It doesn't have to fit in with everything, but a few years ago before the CW came out, I remember little things (i didn't collect much SW until a few years ago) and things like the Victories being introduced in the CW, OR TIEs, etc I wanted to see BADLY.

But it doesn't have to fit in with everything? Wouldn't you like seeing Mandators in Ep. 3?

Really, does it matter?

Victory Class Star Destroyers were a purely EU based creation so people for games had something to pit the rebels against instead of ISD constantly.

As for TIEs, not really. They were an Imperial symbol, having them be a Republic Symbol is just pointless, they at least tried new craft.

[Stark]

Expecting the prequels to fulfill some EU idea of the Clone Wars is as bad as any other 'nerd-chic' reason to hate them. Frankly, fanservice is stupid, and while it would have been nice to have more than the few capital ship designs we saw in ROTS, it isn't a major factor in my dislike for the movie. Forcing the movies to adhere to EU silliness is an awful idea - by ignoring it I think they did a great service.