I also liked the positive comments about George Lucas and I agree.

However, I disagree that the prequels get better. I think all are equally bad. Plus I actually get more disappointed with each because they didn’t learn as they went along.

And I must say would happily watch Van Helsing anytime instead of having to sit through the prequels again

Great podcast! As a kid, I was into everything Star Wars when it was first released. I had all of the initial figures, including the special stand you could get via mail order and the Death Star play set. I had to convince my parents that I needed two figures each of the Stormtroopers, Jawas, and Sand People to represent they were always in groups.

I read all of the Marvel comics and still have them today. I was thrilled when the comics moved to Dark Horse because the art was stronger and the stories were more mature.

I loved all of the early novels and thought the Thrawn trilogy should have been filmed. So many great stories being produced in the 1990s that I could have never foreseen how bad the prequels would be. Like Shag, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook adaptations of those novels.

Then came the day Star Wars died came. It was May 19, 1999. When we saw the Phantom Menace there was no attempting to convince ourselves that it was good. We left the theater completely disillusioned.

I returned to the theater in 2002 and 2005 with hope but always left the theater disappointed. I lost interest in everything Star Wars as the books and comics focused on the prequel characters that I found so bland and uninteresting.

Even so, I still have hope for Star Wars VII-IX and I still think that Disney should adapt the Thrawn series as a trilogy of CGI films to fill the gap between VI and VII. I guess I’m an eternal optimist

I’ve got to say, I struggled a bit with this episode. The execution was fine, but I’m so exhausted by Star Wars fandom that the subject matter could barely sustain my interest. That, and when Shag took a deep dive into the Expanded Universe, it sounded to my ear like he was speaking in tongues. I was born at the right time to have seen the six Star Wars episodes during their theatrical runs and buy the toys when “action figures” were a new thing. I’ve been there, done that, and schlepped it around in the Darth Vader bust carrying case. I just don’t even care enough about my own War stories to relate them, but I’ll probably end up seeing the first Abrams movie for the cast alone, and maybe that’ll treat my Post Prequel Ennui Disorder.

Do Star Trek.

So, every generation has its thing.

Mom of the Decade!!

I remember seeing the 1977 movie on its initial release (a week or so after it hit) and then seeing it every time they re-released it. First figure I ever got was Artoo-Detoo. Have all the soundtrack Albums. Had so many of the toys (including the Death Star play set.

Always wanted a Wedge figure (whether from A New Hope or Empire or Jedi…but no.

I still have the board games, the albums, the storybooks. Looking so forward to taking my son (and daughter) to see the new movie next year. The reason I focus on him though is that he is into Star Wars way more than his sister, and he will be 7 years old…the same age I was seeing it when it was released. Kinda karmic.

One last thought, my mom was so cool when Empire and Jedi were released, she kept me home from school to go see them opening day…the first show at the local showcase Cinema. Oh yeah, while I liked the prequel movies for what they were…they are not in the same league for me as the original trilogy.

I think the reason I enjoyed Sith the most is because during the last third, some of the familiar Star Wars trappings start showing up to say nothing of JEJ as Vader, even if he stuck with horrendous dialogue.

The prequel movies get progressively worse. Yes, Rob, The Phantom Menace is the least awful of the awful prequel trilogy. Revenge of the Sith is the worst.

Like you guys I saw The Phantom Menace multiple times in the theater, denying to myself how bad it was. (I think I saw it five or six times.) I saw L’Attaque des Clones a couple times. I saw Revenge of the Sith one time, and I almost got thrown out of the theater for laughing obnoxiously when Anakin “goes bad” and they kill Samuel L. Jackson.

Revenge of the Sith, to me, has no likable or redeeming qualities. I failed to connect with any of the characters before hand, and by the time that movie came along I just downright hated them. L’Attaque des Clones is boring and dumb, but it has exactly one scene that I enjoyed watching. I liked Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting Jango Fight in the rain, because it was something we had never seen before. There is no other point in the films where a Jedi goes head-to-head with a non-Jedi that is evenly matched.

As for The Phantom Menace, I won’t pretend to defend the story; it’s incomprehensible. I won’t pretend to defend the characters; they’re dumb. I don’t even like Darth Maul. But the movie gets two points for me: 1) It is a fairly self-contained story of adventure, and 2) Liam Neeson. The character of Qui-Gon Jinn is as poorly written as any of the others, but Liam Neeson’s natural charisma makes him watchable.

George Lucas is not good at directing people, and he makes talented actors (Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Jimmy Smits) look stupid, but Liam Neeson sidestepped Lucas’ toxicity in the same way that Harrison Ford did in the original Star Wars.

Again, I don’t like the prequels. They’re not “my Star Wars”. But I think they got worse as they went along.

Great episode, guys! This was well timed as I’ve been on a real Star Wars kick lately prepping for a SW RPG with some buddies. Fantasy Flight, the current license-holders of Star Wars RPG, have been putting out some great roleplaying material with a new dice mechanic that is very intriguing. So anyway, yeah I’ve been thinking about Star Wars lately.

If I recall correctly, Shag mentioned one time the difference between Star Wars fandom and Star Trek fandom is that Trekkers long ago figured out how to separate all the Trek material into different canons and continuities. Star Wars fans, for some reason, were never able to do that and had to cram all the contradictory and just plain stupid Star Wars material on the same timeline.

Well, the prequel movies burned me on that. I make up my own Star Wars canon, and it doesn’t include The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith. My Star Wars is Star Wars (which I’ve stopped calling A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, most of the Timothy Zahn novels and a handful of other books and comics. Dark Empire, as great as it was, does not work in the same continuity as the Thrawn books; it should be a different continuity.

Also, Shag, good on you for not calling the movies by their numeric distinction.

A few recommendations: Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron the comic book series is terrific! Dark Horse collected the whole series in three paperback omnibus editions. If you can find them for cheap, I highly recommend. Also, Dark Horse’s last series before losing the license back to Marvel: Legacy Volume II. The stories are set 140 years in the future, so they’re only tangentially connected to the original heroes, but the stories are a lot of fun. The heroes feel like underdog dregs from the far corners of the galaxy up against impossible odds–just like Star Wars.