And Lucas was DEEPLY involved in Empire. The notion that his back was turned on it is completely incorrect. You should read 'Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal Of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back' from 1980.

It's small things like that (along with a host of other things) that pulls you out of the environment and reminds you that you're now in a silly place.

…and yet he thought that there was a future in 'space trade federation' and 'space senator' toys. You know, for kids.

Episode VII will be a huge event. It draws on three distinct groups of fans: those who saw the first trilogy in the theater, the kids who saw the second trilogy and loved it, and all the kids who watched the Phantom Menace cartoon on TV. (Curious about the animated cartoon, I watched it; and it's good. For what it sets out to do, it accomplishes.)

I imagine the filmmakers working on these projects love the material (okay, Harrison Ford grew tired of the character — that's on the record). The filmmakers bring out the best movie they are capable of; now, how does marketing influence their decisions? That seems to be the main gripe the writer of this review has, that the concerns of storytelling were sacrificed for marketing. Good point — and Drew Taylor makes it well. Admirably so, because while we will gripe in the comments telling him to grow up, he has the courage to sign his name. The comments writers can avoid any real repercussions of their commentary.

Speaking to Taylor's criticism of marketing, it's possible to argue that it was there from the very beginning: Lucas made a deal with the studios that ensured him licensing of toys before Star Wars became a blockbuster. It's no secret that Lucas makes the majority of profits from merchandising. Theatrical ticket sales just don't make billions of dollars. DVD sales won't generate that kind of revenue. Streaming online certainly doesn't. The money Lucas made selling toys he plowed that back into moviemaking with the creation of Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, THX sound. The innovations at ILM lead to nonlinear editing software, and pixel-editing that became Photoshop. And Computer Generated Graphics: we're all aware of Pixar's beginning as a computer graphics division of Lucasfilm.

For great stories and characters, sure, maybe a novel, or comic book, will allow more license to create the best possible story. Movies are a very expensive product to create, and due to that expense, they require the creator to have the business savvy to make a licensing deal — like Lucas did when he secured all rights to merchandise. The toys sales built the studio. One critique of the toys: they become oddly fetishized. But that's their status: pop icons.

For whatever bad that may (see The People vs. George Lucas) (also: Star Wars on Trail) result from being isolated by wealth and power, Lucas handled his power without falling into darkness. The man is a philanthropist. He has created Edutopia and plans to finance a new art museum in San Francisco.

A. The Prequels are not great but they get better as they went along, until you reach Revenge Of The Sith, which is as good the original trilogy. And all the Prequel films are good movies. They're all real Star Wars movies.

B. Revenge Of The Jedi is, in turn, not as good as Empire and Star Wars. Mainly it's the first act at Jabba's Palace, which is full of cool ideas badly executed. (The movie as a whole has, in terms of pacing and narrative, some pretty poor editing.) But everything from the arrival on Endor to the final battle (which still holds the title of Best Space Battle Ever) is pretty damn good. It even reaches real greatness.

C. George Lucas is a good writer, and a very good director. And thank god he basically co-directed JEDI alongside Richard Marquand, auteur of "Defense Of The Realm", "Jagged Edge", and "Hearts Of Fire." It's pretty much the same thing Lucas did on all the Indiana Jones movies, by the way, and Revenge Of The Sith, except there his collaborator was Steven Spielberg. Slightly better director then Richard Marquand.

C. Go watch THX-1138, American Graffiti, Kagemusha, Powaqquatsi, and get a life.

What, you mean except Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu and Darth Maul?

This was supposed to be a rough, dark descent into madness and evil for Anakin Skywalker. The tone of the scene where Palpatine first tells Anakin about the possibility that a Sith lord could will the midichlorians to create life was eerie, like it was supposed to be. The dialogue sucked, but the tone was right…

There's a scene where Padmé and Anakin are in different places, and the shots cut between the two. There's a lot of unspoken emotion and tension in that scene, and it works. Also, no dialogue…

The moment where the padawans ask Anakin what they should do, and Anakin silently powers up his lightsaber… evil. Again, because Anakin had no dialogue, the scene worked in its creepiness factor…

The only parts of the film that really were horrible were the overly-expository bits of dialogue. Lucas should have hired someone else to take care of the screenplay, because even Ewan McGregor or Samuel L. Jackson sounded disappointed as they were speaking those lines. At least Jackson put his passion into it; McGregor was still channeling Alec Guinness too much for his acting chops to really show through. If Abrams is able to take the seriousness of the film and keep it serious without cute-ing it up (it is Disney, after all), then we should be good. But the mythos has to remain intact, and the dialogue has to be top-notch. Hire Diablo Cody for a start.

At the end, Star Wars was always a kids film series that's duly nerds take to seriously and complain way too much about. So to say Return of the Jedi ruined Star Wars is the equivelant of saying Lucas raped your childhood. Grow up, stop being moody and enjoy the much needed lighter and warmer part of the trilogy.

IMO the only main characters that could have been killed off within the flow of the story would have been either Luke or Lando at the end when the Death Star blew up. Killing Luke would have been a bold choice and I was actually somewhat surprised he survived as there were rumors leading up to the release of the movie that he did not survive. He would have died a hero, taking out the empire and saving he entire universe. Killing off Lando wouldn't have been that big of a deal, and supposedly there were rough cuts of the movie where he and the Falcon didn't make it out, though that may have been just a rumor.

As for the 3-pronged climax of Jedi, it was absolutely AWESOME and includes probably the best space-battle in Hollywood history. Even with today's computer special effects no one has topped the Jedi space-battle IMO. It was the pinnacle of model-making special effects, and its like will never be seen again. Anyone who couldn't follow what was going on, well, I can't help you. It wasn't very hard to follow.

Jedi wasn't perfect. If you want to complalin, there were far too many muppets in Jabba's palace and the Ewoks were definitely a questionable choice. But don't blame Jedi for what happened in the prequels. Nothing that happened in Jedi caused midichlorians or Jar-Jar Binks or the stupid plot holes or terrible acting of the prequels.