This is my first post here, I have been browsing for years off and on. I love the more mature discussion.
I enjoyed the prequels in general but I don’t think they were great by any means. I like Episode 3 the most and thought it was an interesting take but the execution fell short.
Like a lot of people, I imagined something entirely different, from the aesthetics to the plot and everything else. From an aesthetic look, I thought everything from the battle of Geonosis until the end of ROTS matched what I thought. Episode 1 and parts of 2 felt like an entirely different franchise from the looks category.
I had a pretty young mind when speculation began but I thought a few things:
From the ESB novel, the Jedi and the republic fought Mandalorians and their clone armies. However, when Princess Leia told Luke he is too short for a stormtrooper, I thought stormtroopers could have been clones as well. It was called “the clone wars” not “clones vs droids”
I figured the emperor played both sides, but thought there was possibly a sith council/ order (at the time I had read the word but didn’t know what it meant, I just called them bad/dark Jedi) For me the rule of 2 was interesting but overall was just too much added to an already convoluted plot. I didn’t think there would be thousands of Jedi, maybe a few hundred at the most. I just assumed the emperor would use both sides to eliminate the Jedi and sith, including potentially his own master.
I also thought we would see open field battles, Jedi and troops vs dark side user and troops.
Lastly the portrayal of Darth Vader as a young man missed the mark. The speech patterns didn’t line up very much. I also thought Vader, based on some of his OT dialogue, would have joined the dark side out of a desire to bring order to the galaxy. Never would I have thought that he was crying over a woman, and literally killing kids over trying so save his wife. Really odd and didn’t line with up with his original portrayal. I thought padme would have been a really minor character who left anakin when he was starting to get weird and she didn’t tell him she was pregnant. She has the kids, leia remembers her, and after her body returns to its pre pregnancy weight, she confronts him or whatever and she dies.
I have other thoughts but maybe another time, this post getting a wordy.
Ok, it’s good to be here. Love the forum.