I think the original poster got it right on. George Lucas didn't do anything past '77, except give the finger to his fans. Lawrence Kasdan is a great screenwriter, and it was him that made ESB, along with the brilliant directing talents of Irvin Kershner, the best film in the Star Wars saga. George Lucas did work on the script of ROTJ, and we all know that that movie, though still great, was inferior to the first two. I don't know if the rest of you agree, but I thought that AOTC was the best of the PT, and I did a little research and found out way. Lawrence Kasdan worked on the script for AOTC! That's what made it better than the other two. (Still not a great movie.)

I saw others on this thread discussing the Yoda fight scenes. I thought this was the stupidest thing about the PT's, and its what pushed me to hating the movies. Yoda is an old, dying man in ESB and ROTJ. He's obviously been old and handicapped for years and years. How did he get so old in the twenty year gap between 3 and 4? If I were making the PT, Yoda would still be in them, but he'd only really be seen in the Jedi council room, and he sure as hell would never wield a lightsaber. (Too powerful to use a simple weapon like that.) Seriously, the timeline in the PT screws everything up. Yoda is old. Very old. And he should have acted just as old in the PT. I would have still had him confront Sidious in ROTS, but not with lightsabers. Both of them were too powerful for lightsabers.