Ah, that’s right it did. My mistake.

Does anybody really think the 3 current movies would have been drastically better if Lucas had made them?

I don't remeber the prequels being all that great...

The prequels had a start to finish plan and cohesion. People might not of liked Jar Jar and felt Aniken was mishandled, but the prequels expanded Star Wars lore in many ways that has given much good material for others to work with (we saw a functioning Jedi order and a galaxy at war that led to the Clone Wars animated series which were phenomenal).

All TLJ did was destroy the utility of ever needing a Jedi at all. You just sent around and get blessed with being a Suzy Que because there must always be perfect balance...so why ever practice/train or develop any Jedi methos at all, if you go dark someone else in the tiny galaxy just instantly gets all your power on the light side anyway...

That was a terrible cock-tease they put in TLJ. They showed his x-wing under the water and did NOTHING with it.

I assume that shot was there so you’d think he actually cleaned himself up and hopped in the X-Wing for the final showdown.

I assumed it was a foreshadowing of his force projection fight, a hint it was a fake out. Just as Luke had no footprints on the salt world.

There is no way that ship was going fly after sitting underwater for how many years?

Johnson could have also been head faking we were going to see another "ship rising from the water" scene but with Luke as the master now.

Just FYI the prequels were drastically altered from the original story arc after how badly Jar Jar was received. In the original script Jar Jar was eventually revealed as a Sith in the second movie. Only for Lucas to lose his nerve and not follow through with it. Count Dooku was parachuted in as a replacement.

Are you taking the piss? Really? On second thought, that might have been fun to watch...lol.

The actor who played Jar Jar ‘confirmed’ it on twitter after a redditor posited the theory using evidence from Episode 1. Then he posted a photo of the abandoned script for the second movie.

Here it is on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/3qvj6w/theory_jar_jar_binks_was_a_trained_force_user/

Here is the actor’s reaction to it:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ahmedbest/status/661221044712148993

And then he posted this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ahmedbest/status/661245185452474368/photo/1

I finally saw it this past week (only due to Netflix).

Yep, it's really bad. I fell asleep 2/3 of the way through it. I have no plans to watch the rest.

My star wars background: I'm 44 years old. When I was 4, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would say, "I wanna be Luke Skywalker when I grow up" (whiny teenage Luke seemed like an adult to me). I guess I really didn't understand that it wasn't a career option. The toys and the original movies were my absolute favorite things as a kid. It was profoundly important to me as a kid. I read a few books by Timothy Zahn as a teenager, which I remember as being pretty cool too.

I eagerly awaited the the first prequel. I saw it on opening day. I walked out of the theater in complete disbelief. I think there's one prequel I still have never seen (and I intend to keep it that way).

I had pretty high hopes for the final trilogy. I was one of the people that had a very strong emotional response to the teasers for the The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens turned out to just barely be ok, but was good enough that I was interested in the rest of the series again. It was the exact same story as A New Hope, which was terribly disappointing, but Rey and Finn were great (Rey was a far better hero than Luke). I figured the rest of final trilogy (and spin-offs) were going to be moderately enjoyable for me. Even that was far too optimistic.

Rogue One's plot was typical dumbed-down-Disney garbage for dumb kids. Lesson of that story... Daddy always loves you. Ugh. I decided to stop spending money to see these things in the theater, again. I wouldn't have even watched The Last Jedi, except there it was on Netflix a couple days ago. I shouldn't have even started it. The scene of Luke tossing away the light saber? That's me with this franchise.

I wanted to ask something regarding SW (and compare the domestic box-office numbers)

TFA $936M
R1 $532M
TLJ $620M
Solo $205M

GOTG $333M
The Avengers $623M
IM3 $409M
Ant-Man $180M
Ultron $459M
Dr Strange $232M
Ragnorok $315M
GOTG2 $389M
Black Panther $699M
Infinity $671M

I have a few questions/observations

- Solo has a poor box office (no doubt) but it's not out of line with lesser Marvel movies (domestic)
but the Marvel movies cost a lot less to produce and make much more overseas

-The SW movies obviously TFA did super domestically better than any Marvel movie. I am curious, this has to be due in part to super fans seeing it opening weekend but also has to be due to a lot of repeat viewings. I wonder now if this was wishful thinking, did these super fans really like it enough to watch it multiple times and if so do they still like it after TLJ letdown?

-TLJ significant drop from TFA but that did happen with Ultron too so surely that could be expected because the buildup was not as great for the second movie.

-R1 was a good movie and did well, compare it to IM3 or GOTG2 whatnot, it did well. I think Disney thought Solo would do better just because it was a SW movie and it really crashed in that regard compared to R1

Black Panther actually did better domestically than Avengers Infinity. I didn't really know that, and it's still possible for Infinity to close the gap, but I'm not sure if it will pass BP. Also shows that Marvel fatigue is not a thing and if TLJ was good SW fatigue would not be a thing either

Correct. There's a behind the scenes documentary on the prequels where Lucas admits not having started writing the script although the production crew were already building sets.

Its good to hear I'm not the only one that fell asleep watching this smoldering garbage. Let me guess, at about 2/3 the way through must have been during that pointless casino scene? That's when I finally lost consciousness.

It must be. Or I was already fighting to keep my eyes open. I have no real memory of any casino scene.

Well, the scripts may not have been completed or may have been in constant flux, but that doesn’t mean the story board was not completed. The new series had no story board at all for a trilogy.

The prequels did a good job of setting stakes and making the galaxy feel huge. Three years past between episode II and III while the Clone Wars raged on and the credits alone in III made it clear “their are heros on both sides”...what an awesome multidemensional thing to say. Episode III started with a capital ship navel battle in space that was a great segment.

By contrast, in the couple days that past between Episode VII and VIII the galaxy simply had a reset button hit to bring back the empire. How small is the galaxy now exactly? Destroy a few planets and the entire republic folds and the first order is instantly in untrammeled control of tens of thousands of worlds? Not only did this make the galaxy feel tiny it made zero sense for so many reasons I’d feel silly even typing them up (anyone think Hux had the ability to take over the galaxy...ever...). The writers had no other ideas than to go back to the empire and resistance...ridiculous.

Even if you consider them to be the worst movies ever made, at least the prequels didn't shit all over the original trilogy. The new movies have rendered the originals completely irrelevant.

Han, the cynical mercenary loner who becomes a team player, asset to the rebellion, and gets the princess? Nope. His marriage failed, he was failure as a father, and he's returned to being a past-his-prime smuggler who "has no one left to swindle." Then his kid kills him.

Leia, the steadfast warrior diplomat, who stood alone against Vader and Tarkin and led the rebellion to victory and re-established the Rebublic? Nope. Her marriage failed, her son is evil, and her new Republic was so weak that it completely falls in the space of a week or so to the First Order, which was born of the shattered remnants of the Empire but which is somehow even more powerful, despite the fact the the Empire literally was the entire Republic.

Luke, orphaned farmboy who through trials and tribulations rises to redeem his father, see the destruction of the Emperor, and is set to restore a new generation of Jedi as guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy? Nope. His new Jedi order was weak, he was a poor teacher, and now he's a bitter old recluse. Then he dies from using too much Force, or something. The Empire that he and others gave so much to defeat is inexplicably back and more powerful than ever.

Seriously...fuck these movies. Never mind that the numbered episodes are supposed to be Skywalker movies, never mind that the two movie arc is thus far a noncohesive mess, and never mind the odd pacing and narrative lapses of TLJ. Fuck these movies for intentionally taking a steaming dump on the movies that started it all.

Which to some degree was true of the original trilogy as well, he blew most of his ideas in the first movie.

There was no real plan for follow up aside from "Splinter of the Minds Eye" which was a lower budget adventure story if audience response was lukewarm to New Hope.

pun intended.

Splinter was a authorized by Lucas and he had input in the story (they were trying to keep it cheap in case it turned into a movie) Luke and Leia are clearly NOT siblings nor is Vader his father. Further proof of this is in the New Hope deleted scenes where there is one shot in the hanger where a character states he met Luke's father and Luke will do alright.

Star Wars went on to make a metric ton of cash so all the low budget stuff got shelved.

"Midichlorians".

The galaxy at large only knows that Anakin, hero of the Republic and amazing pilot, disappeared and was probably killed. No one but Yoda, Kenobi, Palpatine, and Owen and Beru knew the truth.

It was also always apparent Kenobi wasn't telling Luke the whole truth about Anakin. He hesitated and looked away briefly before the "betrayed and murdered your father" even as a kid it was obvious there was more there.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye was just a backup plan.

A clumsy way of explaining different levels of Force sensitivity, and certainly no one's favorite plot point.

Still doesn't even approach the level of character assassination from the new films.

He was a Jedi, who took no partners nor had children.

The exchange was in a very offhand "hey I know you dad, we both worked in the steel mill" kind of way.

Since the story was "dad was a pilot on a spice freighter" that fits in more with the guy in the hanger than a Jedi or dark Sith lord.

Perhaps.

But Luke knew he was the son of Anakin Skywalker at this point, and I'm sure it would have come up in conversation with a squadron leader before they just threw a farm boy into a fighter for a major attack. The only one who had ever heard the "spice freighter" story was Luke. Kenobi even tells him that Owen made that story up.

That brief exchange makes perfect sense in that context.

With a rag tag group of rebels facing a death star you think they are going to be picky about who is willing to get in a fighter?

They are all dead men walking if the station wasn't stopped.

You think they aren't going to use one of the dozens of mechanics or support staff before some rando that just walked in the door, unless he has some compelling resume?

Writing started when Alan Dean Foster was working on the novelization of Star Wars in 1976 and had access to all Lucas documents.

"Foster's contract also required a second novel, to be used as a basis for a low-budget sequel to Star Wars in case the film was not successful. Though Foster was granted a great deal of leeway in developing the story, a key requirement was that many of the props from the previous production could be reused when shooting the new film. Foster's decision to place his story on a misty jungle planet was also intended to reduce set and background costs for a film adaptation. According to Foster, Lucas's only request upon inspecting the manuscript was the removal of a space dogfight undertaken by Luke and Leia before crash-landing on Mimban, which would have been effects-heavy and expensive to film."

Lucas clearly did not consider Luke and Leia related at this point in history and the myth of Lucas having a three story arc all planned out from day one is exactly that, a myth.

I believe in the movie it was stated that is what he wanted for his reward for saving Leia and she granted it.

Again, if you are facing certain death you have nothing to lose.

Not to mention from the story perspective of Luke on his hero's journey, this is just one facet of that trip.

Midichlorians were Lucas’ attempt to assasinate the entire cool, mystical universe built up in the OT. If you find yourself making excuses for midichlorians, it’s time to take a long look in the mirror. You don’t have to like the new stuff to admit that Lucas went off the rails long, long ago.

^^ THIS! ^^ That was one thing major things that really killed Phantom Menace for me.

Just looked up some history about Empire Strikes Back which I had not done before, some notes.

1) Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him.[21] They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.

2) Lucas made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts,[27] both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo encased in carbonite and left in limbo

3) Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father;[29] there is not a single reference to this plot point before 1978. After writing the second and third drafts of Empire Strikes Back in which the point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin Skywalker was Ben Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by The Emperor (who was really a Sith Lord and not simply just a politician). Anakin battled Ben Kenobi on the site of a volcano and was wounded, but then resurrected as Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Kenobi hid Luke on Tatooine while the Republic became the Empire and Vader systematically hunted down the Jedi.

the prequels also mishandled more than that. Did you forget about the midiclorian fiasco?

A huge writing error on Lucas part, somethings are best left to the imagination.

Not at all. That 60 seconds of screen time they took up in Phantom Menance just didn’t bother me as much as they did you. Lucas was considering adding some science fiction into his fantasy story and it didn’t work out. I think racer_x addressed the issue best a few posts up from yours:

Regardless, and though it’s not the cool thing to say, Phantom Menance did a lot of things really well, things that Ryan Johnson and KK couldn’t do with more attempts, money and time.

1) PM ushered in a new technology, high end theater digital surround sound. PM was to theater sound quality what Avatar was to 3D. People forget this but the pod race was a show case for the debut of these systems and was designed for them. Speaking of sound, the sound track of PM was incredible, duel of fates was phenomenal...TLJ had nothing so memorable.

2) PM had an incredible villain that dons the covers of video games and comics two decades after his debut. Does any one think emo Kylo holds a candle to Darth Maul?

3) the battles had stakes. Jinn’s death was shocking at the time and meaningful. The immediate follow up death of Maul also surprised many (yes, I’m aware that in canon Maul survived...which was basically a retcon).

4) people complain about the “trade embargo / hostile takevover by treatie” plot line wasn’t interesting to them but that was the subtle start to more than a decade of events (including the commencement of a civil war) needed to subvert tens of thousands of planets from a democracy to a dictatorship. TLJ just used a wave of a wand to do the same thing, and TLJ’s main plot line was “will we run out of gas!!!!!!!”....

I could go on and on but PM was just a better more complete movie than TLJ. For those that disagree, try drawing some comparisons of what you like better about TLJ over PM and think about it...sure Jar Jar’s humor bothered many but did you go home after watching TLJ and think the light saber toss or milk drinking scene were incredible comedic devices or did they hurt the story or characters that were involved (in PM the only character or plot harmed by Jar Jar’s antics were Jar Jar, such can not be said about the horrific humor we witnessed in TLJ)?

They showed it was destroyed... how is that a tease?

Dude, C3PO was made by Vader, who is the father of the only Jedi supposedly in the universe and a Princess who was a leader in the rebellion. A Rebellion which fought against Vader. R2D2 Helped Padme/Queen Amidala survive some trade federation blockade, and just stuck around for the next 7 movies. Oh and Padme is the mother of Luke and Leia because she banged Anakin who turns out to be Vader. Should I continue? Okay, Yoda just so happens to train Dooku who turns evil and leads the Separatists who also helped train Qui-gon, who trained Obi, who trained Anakin. So in a way Yoda was instrumental in finding and training Anakin.

The more you actually put thought into these movies, you will see that they handcuff the Star Wars Universe. It really is a very small scope when you consider that this is supposed to encompass an entire universe with hundreds of worlds. Yet we can't seem to tell a story without putting a damn Skywalker in there! That is part of the reason I never wanted Rey to be a Kenobi or god help me a Skywalker.

All of that is totally meaningless compared to nearly instantaneous travel and conquering and completely subjugating the entire galaxy in twenty minutes.

The Separatist movement had much political intrigue and took more than a decade to generate the power transfer (which used the existing republic governmental structure and then wacked the separastists, they were just pawns of a decade long plan). Very different from “blink, the entire galaxy has been taken over in 20 minutes...we are back to rebels v empire...err...I mean resistance v first order.”

Prequels are supposed to have some measure of character familiarity and they are always going to be handcuffed by the original material...the current trilogy have no excuse for their plot issues and small mindedness...they are sequels that simply have no story to tell and KK and RJ have no business making them.

I will say this about the treatment of Luke,

I think Rian Johnson was kind of screwed from the get go. He had to come up with a reason why JJ (in all of his infinite wisdom) decided to abandon Luke on an island in TFA. If Luke was anything like the books and expanded universe, he would have been able to get off that island instantly. If you think about it the only thing Rian could do was make Luke into a grumpy man who has lost faith and refused to fight against the First Order. Is this ideal? No, I would have loved to have old Luke out there trying to help his friends. But JJ kind of wrote Rian into a corner. Luke should have been involved in TFA.

I did think that Rian was very smart on how he approached Luke's turn from Grump to savior. I could see why Luke would not at all be happy with how the Jedi Order acted. I was mad watching the prequels... Anakin trying to get help from Yoda and Yoda was like... tough cookies young one. Let your wife die. It's the Jedi way. And how one man (Palpatine) could completely take control right under the noses of all these master Jedi. It just sucks. And that whole rule of 2 they came up with for the prequels really sucked too. I mean would it not have been a far better trilogy if hundreds of Jedi Masters had to battle hundreds of followers of the Sith order?

I am totally off track with my original point. The main problem so far with this trilogy is that there really isn't any cohesiveness. And unfortunately that will also spill into the next movie, since Rian also ended this movie in a corner. I am glad JJ will take over for the third movie, so he can deal with the mess he made.

But very little of that interesting political intrigue was shown. All we saw was bright lights and shallow battles with no real context. The majority of the movie was about Anakin moping around.

And it seemed like Palpatine destroyed the whole Jedi order in 20 minutes. So there is a theme between the prequels and the new movies.

I agree with you that the current trilogy was supposed to be something new. But I am not sure if you remember or not, but i remember a lot of drama from the fans about bringing back the cast from the OT. I don't think that was the original plan by Disney. But the fans wanted to see Han and Luke and Leia... hell I know I did. But because of this the fans handcuffed the new trilogy before it even started shooting. How do you balance the original characters with new characters? How do you kill off the old characters without the fanbase losing their minds?

Again JJ ruined this from the get go. He brought back the Empire, the rebels are still sporting X-wings, Leia is still doing the same shit, Admiral Ackbar is still a god damn Admiral (after how many years). JJ remade A New Hope, and everyone loses their minds that it's the same old same old. The Last Jedi flips the script and makes ballsy decisions on a new direction for Star Wars to take and everyone Loses their minds that it's out of character. As far as I can tell the Fanboys will never be happy.

So, I’ve heard this argument proffered before and I’ve not understood it fully. What do you mean by “flipping the script”? Surely you’re not saying simply having a character not be related to other prior characters is “flipping the script”?

Failing to deliver in a trilogy on plot points set up by the prior movie is not “flipping the script”, it’s simply a failure at being a trilogy.

Yes, on this we agree. JJ was not the right person to kick this off, but RJ screwed up what he did have anyway with the “oh my goodness we may run out of gas” plot and failure to deliver on any meaningful plot point. If he couldn’t think of anything to do with what he was given he shouldn’t have taken the job.

Yes, agreed, I’ve not liked the “rule of two”. It was okay for the prequel trilogy as that trilogy was about intreigue and espionage and politics...so small numbers of Sith were okay. But making that a permanent rule going back centuries was a foolish move by Lucas and everyone since him (including the expanded universe) has tried to ditch the idea. Heck, even his own Clone Wars animated series tried to ditch the idea.

Even if you are correct that TLJ is the worst movie of all time, it does not follow that the prequels were not also dogsh*t. They were.

The only good to come out of the prequels was Darth Maul and Ewan McGregor as Kenobi and maybe the soundtracks. Some of the world building was good. Ian McDiarmid chewing the scenery as Emperor was good come to think of it.

Portman, Hayden Christensen and the kid were annoying as hell, if the acting was any stiffer they should have just used cardboard cutouts. How can you identify with and have empathy with a character if they all suck? The basic story was flawed and uninteresting to the audience. Lucas tried to make too many connections that did not have to be made as someone else pointed out.

Vader made C3PO? Really?

Time for coffee.

The real reason people are so upset IMO, is the way they treated Luke Skywalker. (Just some of the shameful and despicable plot choices: Throwing away the Lightsaber, trying to kill Ben Solo, he had lost all hope, even calling the lightsaber a laser sword, just to name a few terrible decisions) All the other complaints (although valid) would have been forgiven by the majority of the fan base. I guarantee that if they respected Luke’s character and gave us one damn good lightsaber scene with the Knights of Ren (or something like that) where Luke could really show off his skills, then we wouldn’t be having this debate.

Yes, not all fanboys would be happy no matter what, but it sure as shit would not have split the fan base so badly.

There was an early script where Kylo showed up on the island with the Knights of Ren. While he was dueling it out with Rey, Skywalker was dealing with the Knights.

By "dealing with them" he was full on Jedi Master and stomping them all a new mudhole, by himself.

I'd paid good money to see that vs what we got. And it would have been in character, see Return of the Jedi but turned to 11.

Liam Neeson as Qui Gon was awesome as well...but he didn’t make it too far sadly.

I don't like sand!

He was rather bland in the role I thought, waste of a good actor.

Yep. What a missed opportunity. If I wanted my expectations subverted, I’d go watch an independent film or foreign film or a drama of some kind. When I watch Star Wars, I just want to see my favourite Jedi Master unleash the force, and a good old fashioned light saber duel.

As many others have said the most frustrating part of The Last Jedi is the treatment of Luke Skywalker. The same thing could be said for other original characters. Disney spins the story that Episodes 7-9 are a continuation of the Skywalker story but that's in name only to get fans of the series into theaters.

Disney purposely has wanted to force the original characters out to make room for new characters. Fine but do that in a new trilogy! Disney has literally the rest of time to make Star Wars so why couldn't they let Episodes 7-9 truly be about the original characters? Instead they tried to trick fans of the series into believing these new movies are about the original characters. Well, that's now backfired and is the main reason why in my opinion that 6+ months later fans are still talking about their disappointment with The Last Jedi and now the new trilogy in general.