[Lord Aquaman]

That was a fun read, and he did raise some interesting points.

Special Effects alone definitely do not make a film. You need a good story to fill it out, which is one of the things I dislike most about the prequels: the story is almost non-existent in a set of films that seem more interested in advertising CGI.

[jerfus17]

I don't buy that STAR WARS was meant exclusively for kids. JEDI was, sure, but not the original. The first was for folks who might get sly references to cowbow pics, serials, old sci fi and samurai movies. But mostly the serials. Anyone who's seen the old Flash Gordon serials couldn't fail to see the connection. And yeah, kids liked those, but Lucas was selling STAR WARS to those same kids, who would all have been much older when his homage came out.

If STAR WARS was exclusively for kids he wouldn't have included the bounty hunter, Han killing Greedo, the severed arm, or the implication that Leia was tortured for information.

The original Star Wars and Empire especially were not meant for kids. Remember, Lucas was under 20th Century Fox's watchful eye when he made the first films, and he didn't even direct Empire or Jedi (though he did have enough clout on the film to push the Ewoks into play). The screenplays were written by Lawrence Kasdan and Fox had tight control on what they wanted the films to be. This, I believe, is one of the reasons Lucas didn't want to direct Empire or Jedi, because he didn't have complete control over the films and they didn't turn out the way he wanted them too (which is why we got those God-awful Special Edition versions in 1997).

The beauty of the Original Trilogy (non-Special Editions of course), is that they were themed with adults in mind, but kids loved them anyway becasue kids will love anything that has lasers and spaceships and aliens in it. Lucas could have done the exact same thing with the new ones and kids still would have loved them for the same reasons. Instead, he made them like a bunch of freaking cartoons and alienated his adult audiences.
He's a complete idiot in my opinion. Just think of all the billions of more dollars he could have made if he had made them more in the style of the originals - kids would have still loved them, and the adults would have taken their kids to see them again and again because the adults liked them too.
It's too bad Fox let him have his way with these new ones - they could have been something incredible instead of something despicable.

[Frank the Rabbit]

Did anyone read his second article? Its a shame what happened to those kids.

[Mr Pye]

There's this incorrect notion floating about that just because a product is meant for children, it is allowed to be ill-conceived and shoddy.

At least the argument is often made that we find them ill-conceived and shoddy 'because' they were made for children. While this may not be meant as an insult to children, it is a peculiar statement in so far that it says nothing. It doesn't oppose that we do find them shoddy and ill-concieved, and even more doesn't even oppose that this is how it should be.

[Paladin]

You know, even though I haven't seen any of the Star Wars movies in over three years and I haven't given much of thought for it, I can still relate to the contents of the article. When I first saw the trailer for Return of the Jedi (I think it was a trailer or something, anyways it was in the original Empire Strikes back VHS that I bought back in 1997, the digitally enhanced/restored original) I always thought that the 'Ewoks' on Endor were going to be similiar to Wookies, but it turned out to be wrong.

But you know what? I think I might have had a solution for that particular situation in 1982 when the movie was being made. Instead of using midgets, why not simply go about recruiting people who're overtly tall, around 191 cm to 200 cm (6 3' to 6 6' feet) and dress them up like wookies. Peter Mayhew was 7 feet tall at his peak, and so was his Chewbacca character (with the exception of the SNES star wars game that said he was 8 feet tall), but why not simply make it that Chewbacca was a bit above average in height and that the shorter actors would have been about average for a wookiee. That might have worked.

And one little point, I'd have to defend Luke just a wee little bit, because even if he is considered whiny by a lot of fans, he was still vastly better off than Anakin. Further more, at least a lot of people can relate to Luke's position while few people can to Anakin's.