The problem I have with your hypothesis tho is it's "Joss Whedon"'s this "Joss Whedon"'s that. (maybe this is just a promotion ideal for the movie) and I haven't delved back into the behind the scenes of the series to see if there are people helping him out. but right now the whole thing is being portrayed as a one man show. ...and after what happens in the movie, it's yet to be seen where the series is going. but right now Firefly was/is awesome, the movie I felt was too short. could have been a much better 5-7 tv show arc spread over a whole season.
as for Lucas, yeah he seems to be missing a few voices behind the scenes to give some ooomph. (but those kind of stories don't usually come out as the movie is being made) It's interesting, in the Ep3 commentary, to hear some negative words come out of f*ck*ng McCallum's voice. he's always so pro-Lucas, but he sorta gets into how certain things didn't work out, weren't working or needed to be dropped (not to his liking sometimes) to get the d*mn movie done. Lucas might have really putzed around more then he did, if no one got on his back to stay on some schedule. Hopefuly some stories out of production staff will give us a sense of how far out into left field Lucas actually was, he had the possibility to do anything (Jar-Jar was going to be a character like a puffin fish at one point), things could have been alot worse. but inthe end it's a different type of story.
As for the prequels, it will be interesting to see what the generation who grew up on them takes with them into adulthood.
SW is Lucas's toy, and he's an adult, how could you convince him that certain things needed to be slapped down?
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