In my opinion, 1-3 should have covered the Clone Wars, as 4-6 covered the Civil War.

that blank, stupid puppet look is hilarious. and it didn't work for Hayden Christiansen either, did it?

some sad cunt will buy it.

ATOC/ROTS - ???? What are they fighting about? Who wants what and why? Forget Palpatine for a second ... what the hell is anyone else fighting about? Some planets want to break away from the Republic? Or, they want to defeat the Republic, take it over?

Aside from the horrible writing, the kindergarten humor, the plastic look to all the cgi, etc., the problem I had with the sequels is that I didn't have a clue what the hell everyone was fighting about. If someone can explain it to me (without using throw-away explanations like "the Trade Federation was evil" or "they wanted more power" or, um, "they hate us for our freedom"), I'd appreciate it. Who (besides Palpatine) who wanted what why?

The sentence is technically accurate, but do you see my problem here?

What the hell were the Separatists fighting the Republic about? What, they wanted to Separate? And the Republic wouldn't let them? Was that what was happening? And if so, who the hell cares? Tattoine apparently wasn't part of the Republic, and no one was tearing their hair out over that in the movie.

If it's "quite easy to follow," fine okay, then explain to me what the Separatists' beef was. What, they didn't get the tariffs they wanted from Naboo, so it's go time?

Something like that?

I think they need to add in a scene in ANH where Obi Wan says to Luke, "Yeah, probably about ten billion people died in the Clone Wars, give or take a planet."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, everyone went ape shit, killing each other everywhere."

"Huh, what was that about again?"

"Oh, some people thought taxes were too high or something, and the other people were like, 'Screw you!' and started making clones. Then the centuries-old Republic fell, all the Jedi were killed, and the Empire came to power. Apparently, some people don't like taxes."

"Oh ..."

When the first trilogy wrapped (Ep. 4,5,6) it felt complete. The hero rises from anonymity, suffers some challenges and loss, and topples an empire against all conceivable odds. Wicked. Roll credits. Over.

Then in my 20's I remember hearing news that Lucas was resurrecting Star Wars and doing an "origin" series, telling of how these characters and conflicts came about. Awesome. With today's technology it'll be more badass than ever before.

I remember lining up with all the geeks. Camping out even. This was going to be the best nostalgia trip ever. I longed to feel seven again, and this was my big chance.

I recall leaving the theatre after Episode 1 and thinking "why was that so lame?" Sure it was nice to see the logo again, hear the music and laser blasts. But why were the characters so wooden? The story so limp? It should have been so much better. It was a total mystery to me. One that remained unsolved until a few years later.

Luckily the prequels got better. Never reached the heights of their predecessors, but they did imporove. Episode 3, for me, finally achieved the same level of badassness I remember experiencing with the first. You know, the goosebumps of seeing Vader and shit.

But then a curious thing happened. I finally collected all three of the prequels on DVD, and sat down one afternoon to watch all the "making of" featurettes. It was fun. I'm in the TV biz, so watching the pre-pro and stuff is always a blast. Anyway, something stuck out for me in that footage I'll never forget.

It was a shot of Lucas and Spielberg on one of the backlots somewhere, and they were inspecting the stupid droids. You know the ones that always said "roger, roger." (Idiotic, I know. I'm even embarassed to even repeat it.) Anyway, here are these two cinematic giants, standing inspecting these things. And Lucas is just going bananas over their design. He's saying "isn't that cool?" or something like that. And The Beard is just standing there, nodding and agreeing and smiling the whole time.

And I thought to myself "that's it!" That's what the problem was with the prequels. Nobody, not once, not even his good buddy Steve Spielberg, ever took him aside and said "are you serious George? You're going to have these stupid fucking things running everywhere going 'roger roger' to each other? What the fuck is that!?" "You've gotta be shitting me. You're going to have an alien Rastafarian character named Jar-Jar following the heroes around as the comedy relief!?" "A kid is going to fly one of these up to space and single handedly take down the Imperial mothership? Fuck off."

The whole thing was just Lucas basically getting to relive his filmmaking youth, on his own dime. And everyone was along for the ride, raking in fat cash doing his bidding. But at no time did anyone tell him he might be shortchanging himself or the fans. Nobody had balls big enough to tell him he was wrong in so many ways. And that was a shame.

Because if Lucas had played it differently, and been the "guru" who hired writers and directors with serious credibility (kind of like what they're doing now with the Potter series, and look at how much stronger it's getting) then we could have actually had a great prequel trilogy on our hands.

And I really could have felt like I was seven all over again. Only this time with a lot more badassness.

Now we have these Clone War things. And yeah, it's Star Wars and it's kinda fun. But after Lucas squandered all my hopes and dreams for what the prequels could have been, these will have nowhere near the relevance or reverence they should receive from me. Or from the next generation.

And so instead of finishing with a big galactic bang. In the end Star Wars, as a concept that was once awe inspiring, will probably just fade quietly to black.

Answer: because the PT is cool. Reviewed moderate to awesome depending on which film and who the reviewer is, the films made BANK.

EPIII won the Peoples choice awards for Best Film and Best Drama.

Fanboys can piss and moan all they like, but lots of people really like the PT.

Now, though, because of Lucas and his painful lack of taste and ability, I basically hate all the films. All six. I can't even watch the original trilogy anymore, knowing who the guy in black armor is. I can't push the taint of the shit-stained prequels out of my mind.

And now this. Seriously, Jabba's son? That's fucking idiotic. That's one of stupidest plot ideas ever. Perfect for George, though, huh?

For me the magic is dead and buried. Fuck Lucas.

Thank you.

there were two big plot twists for me in the original trilogy...those HOLY SHIT moments, and Lucas destroyed them.

1. "Luke, I am your father." ...which is ruined for anyone who watches 1-3 before the original trilogy because you SEE anakin become vader.

2. Luke and Leia are brother and sister...which is ruined when you hear Padme name the fuckin' kids before she dies.

and that's not to mention the shit cgi, misuse of Sam Jackson, and horrible acting in the prequels from almost all involved. it's almost unbelievable to me that the same guy responsible for the original trilogy is also responsible for the shit that is episodes 1-3.