Originally posted by: obi-wan trentobi

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He said he had the films outlined. Major events, major characters, etc. I can believe that. I seriously doubt that he ever intended to even film the prequel trilogy, until around 1980 or so wherein he changed his mind. He claims to have been waiting for technology to catch up to his vision, but I personally think he was procrastinating.

He could have made the films in the late 80's or early 90's, but I think he was so burned out he wanted to do anything but Star Wars. Saying FX tech wasn't up to snuff is just an excuse, but its a valid one to justify his long wait if he wants. He just wasn't ready to take the plunge back then. The wait was fine with me, unfortunately, I hated walking out of The Phantom Menace going "I waited sixteen years for this???". I can't for the life of me believe that Lucas really had Jar Jar in mind way back when he first typed "A Long Time Ago..."

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Lucas knew from the start that Vader was Luke's father. Darth Vader = "dark" and "father" in some other language. He knew Luke had a twin, but wasn't sure if it was Han or Leia. This is kinda backed up by ESB in a way. I'm speculating that he wanted Luke's twin to be Han since... Luke and Leia kissed in ESB.

Making Leia "the other" and Luke's sister was probably the right decision. I just couldn't see Han filling in that role.

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I don't buy Lucas' statements about Greedo either, for the record. I read somewhere that he attributed Han shooting first in the original ANH as an "editing error"... which I don't believe for one second. It was completely in character for Han to shoot Greedo first in that bar. To say (or do) anything else is an insult to everyone's intelligence.

At last, we totally agree. That's good... you've taken your first step into a larger world...

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Are you being this dense on purpose? For the purposes of a story, only Anakin can pilot podracers. If I can accept the other conventions of Star Wars, this is no problem.

So Anakin is good at racing podracers, and if I recall correctly, it was said that no human had won the pod race. Not that it was completely genetically impossible for a human to win. Also, there's nothing that Anakin DID that really stood out as particularly indicative of his "greatness"; he never used the Force or did anything that was noteworthy in regard to Jedi potential.

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Luke was trained as a Jedi during less-than-ideal circumstances. Yoda and Obi-Wan were both prepared to overlook his age in exchange for him bringing Vader and Palpatine down. It was an emergency situation.

Which totally blows the whole "he's too old" argument completely out of the water. Jeez, Anakin is like a 4th or 5th grader, hardly a sage old timer. I still find the notion that the only acceptable Jedi candidates are babies to be completely preposterous. If that's the case, the Sith should find ample recruits... "Hey, can't be a Jedi? say you're TOO OLD? Well come on over to the Sith, we'll show you what the Force is all about!"

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How would you have written Anakin's testing scene? Mind you, Anakin can't really jump around yet, move objects, lightsaber duel, etc. He'd already had the midichlorian test and won a race he wasn't even supposed to be biologically capable of competing in. And anyway, to humor Qui-Gon, the Council decided to test Anakin. Anakin didn't prove himself until later in the film... and only when Obi-Wan threatened to train him outside of the Council, if necessary. So knowing all that, the Council probably agreed to let Obi-Wan train Anakin to keep Anakin under some kind of control.

Well, since you asked, I would never have written Anakin as a 9-10 year old. He would have at least been a teenager, around Luke's age, but probably just a little younger. I would have had Obi-Wan discover his Jedi potential inadvertently, such as witnessing Anakin doing stuff naturally that took Obi-Wan and other Jedi years of study and practice to learn. A little scene like when Luke first practiced against the remote in ANH, only Anakin would fare much better, making it all look easy. The Jedi would look at him with a sense of awe and fear. So powerful, but untrained, volatile, a wildcard, Obi-Wan convinces the others that they should take him and make him a Jedi, or risk him falling into the hands of the Dark Side.

Oh, and Anakin didn't "prove" himself in ANY way at the end of TPM. Everything he did at the end was by accident. He took off, accidentally, he got into the fight, accidentally, he got shot, accidentally, he went into the ship and just happened to get into sensitive area, accidentally, then he fires at the battledroids, but ends up hitting the reactors (I guess)... again, accidentally

There wasn't a single thing Anakin did ON PURPOSE during that part of the film. It was all by accident. Please, compare the scene there with Luke's trench run. Everything Luke did was deliberate and with purpose ("Luke, you switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?" - "Nothing. I'm alright!") not... "Let's try rolling, that's a good trick!"

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Star Wars has crappy dialog. Always has, always will. TPM and AOTC were more of the same.

TPM, AOTC and some of ROTJ yes, but ANH and ESB have great scripts, the lines work and are delivered with conviction and believability within the context of their characters. I defy you to name groaners from those two films.