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You know what I don't understand about the prequel trilogy? Well, actually there's a lot of stuff, but I'm going to focus on two topics in particular.
First why did George Lucas create the planet Naboo for these films? I consider it an incredibly lost opportunity that he didn't provide a back story and some history for the planet Alderaan instead. Ironically, pretty much the way I imagined Alderaan would look is exactly how Naboo looks. Wouldn't it have been great to see the Trade Federation invade Alderaan instead? And think of how much more impact that scene in ANH would have if the Death Star, with complete ambivalence, just destroyed a planet we had gotten to know so well in three other films. The very lack of a "Naboo" in the original trilogy seems conspicuously odd to me - so much so that its recent addition at the end of ROTJ doesn't feel right. Kind of like Lucas saying - "Oh we know we forgot to do anything with this planet in three movies, but look what we can now do through the miracle of CGI!" Heck, it would've made more sense to me if we saw all the swamp creatures celebrating on Dagobah! (I'm joking. No I don't want to see leaping lizards and dancing frogs in the 2007-edition DVDs.) Anyways, I just really regret we've learned nothing about Alderaan in the prequels.
Which leads me to my second gripe. In a similar lost opportunity, why didn't Episode I contain any scenes with Master Sifo-Dyas? Again, think of how much more impact the revelation in Episode II would have had if Obi-Wan learned that a character we remembered from Episode I was not who he seemed to be. But instead of a scene that could have been a surprising revelation (like Vader's identity in Episode IV), we just sit there scratching our heads and saying to ourselves, "Who?" Dare I say it would have made more sense if instead of a reference to "Sifo-Dyas" it was "Qui-Gon Jin"? Then you would have an easy explanation as to why he did not disappear after he died, and his reasons for training Anakin against the wishes of the council would suddenly seem more dubious.
These two plot points, among others, make the new trilogy feel like rough drafts to me. Ironic since Lucas should have had about 15 years to think about all these plot points after completing ROTJ, but it seems like he never started writing the prequels until after his important to-do list of making Greedo shoot first, Han step on Jabba's tail, and adding a Broadway dance number to Jabba's palace!
