It seems to me that the problem for many people about the prequels is that they have all read too much of the extended universe and too many fan magazines. If you have a preconceived notion about what they prequel story was supposed to be - yes the obvious one where anakin is 18, a jedi in the space navy, etc. etc - and you knew that palpatine was the emperor and padme was amidala and you knew that Darth Maul was supposed to be the new bad ass villain, then I guess you could be disapointed. Not enough Darth Maul, too much Qui Gonn, and the mysteries obvious. Whose fault is that?
I don't think it's the fault of the EU at all. Watching the Classic Trilogy gives you preconcieved notions of the backstory that is then shattered by the PT.
Qui Gon Jinn was an interesting character and Liam Neeson was probably the highlight of Episode I, apart from the cool saber battle at the end. That he was killed off didn't bother me in the least. The question to ask is, why was the creation of his character necessary in the first place? We had no idea in the OT that any such character ever existed.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to instead have a mature Obi-Wan Kenobi and have him act like Qui Gon Jinn acted? And have him live. Instead of introducing three throwaway villians for the prequels (Darth Maul, Count Dooku and General Greivous) why not instead have a single strong villian (like Vader played in the OT)? That would allow for more of a character arc and such. But it seems Lucas either can't write complex characters and so he has to skip around, or he deliberately wanted to fool the fans into thinking that maybe THIS character is the major villian, no wait, maybe this one is, etc. to keep them guessing.
Because obviously, we aren't going to assume that Obi-Wan or Anakin get killed in the PT, because we see them in the OT... so any villian he introduces we're going to wonder what happened to him, right? Why not use some established villian, like Jabba, or Tarkin or something? Or make a group of "Sith" and have Palpatine just be one of them and not the mastermind all along (like he's just had to take over after the others are killed or maybe he kills them, that would have been interesting).
Anyway...
Don't assume that being a prequel hater means you are an EU lover!
Likewise the prequels all set up certain expectations that were then shattered with each new movie to come out.
And Lucas himself also contributed to the "preconceived notions" via his statements in interviews, long before the EU works started being published.
So the fact that the story changed was not the fault of fans who believed Lucas, or the EU writers who were just echoing Lucas' wishes or working within boundaries that he himself set for them back then.
The PT doesn't gel with the OT because Lucas made them that way... nothing more, nothing less. He could have tried harder to make them go together when making each movie, but he didn't.
When the prequels were set to be made, I didn't really know what to expect. Once TPM was out, I was prepared for the entire EU to be chucked out and frankly I didn't care, since I didn't like the direction the EU was going at the time anyway, and I considered much of it to be subpar crap.
Of course the Prequels didn't exactly prove to be much better than a lot of the EU (except in terms of spectacle afforded by budget mind you) but I consider it more genuine a Star Wars experience simply because it's made by the same creator as the original movie. He also had far more control over the prequels than he did of the OT (then again, he could have taken more of a hand in ESB and ROTJ than he did, but he chose to delegate to others, so it's his "Fault" in that case too).
It's not my fault that Lucas came up with Darth Maul. It's also not the EU's fault, since they didn't even concieve of the character before his introduction in TPM. I was not "disappointed" that Darth Maul appeared, now was it my fault that he was underused as just a throwaway villian. Lucas again chose that himself.
I never read the "Shadow Hunter" EU stuff that portrayed Maul as so awesome.
The fact is, nobody had ever heard of Darth Maul before TPM and he was introduced and killed off in the same movie.
I also avoided spoilers before TPM. Obviously I saw this black wearing, devil faced guy with a double bladed red lightsaber in the official trailers, so I knew somebody was going to appear like that. But I didn't know he'd be killed off. I didn't consider the movie a failure because it killed him, anymore than I consider ROTJ a failure because Boba Fett died (and didn't die in the spectacular fashion that Fett fanboys would have wanted).
Again, the creation of expectations and the shattering of those expectations are purely Lucas' fault.
It's a good try to say that fans had unrealistic expectations, but seriously... doesn't hold water.
This post has been edited by KurganX: 07 January 2007 - 12:09 AM