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[Myriadis]

TFA felt pretty much like Metroid Prime to me, you know that one:

Now, TFA didn't have to prove as much as MP had to do (MP had to prove that 3D Metroid actually works, while TFA just had to prove that a good Star Wars that captures the old spirit is still possible after several decades) and I think both were really successful. They both did that by essentially reusing the old stuff and modernizing it and it worked. Only the future will tell if they do their own thing in VIII like MP2 did.

 

[norinrad]

It's unfortunate but he did sell it to Disney and should stop moaning about it and move on. Such is life, even a filthy rich man should know that.

 

[Acerac]

Probably referring to the Thrawn trilogy or something. The only real summaries we have for Lucas's version of episodes 7-9 are here. As a bonus, here are the midichlorian counts of most Star Wars characters.

Wait, Chewbacca could have been trained as a Jedi?

That's amazing.

 

[antonz]

Wait, Chewbacca could have been trained as a Jedi?

That's amazing.

That is a bullshit website. Was all made up shit by a guy named supershadow who claimed to have close ties to Lucas etc. Got to the point Lucasfilm had to come out and warn people about him because he was defrauding people selling info and other stuff.

 

[Xrenity]

I can see his point, but he made the prequels. I mean... That makes his whole opinion kinda irrelevant.

 

[kinoki]

George Lucas needs a restraining order from Star Wars. He's done more harm than good.

 

[CloudWolf]

I kinda get what Lucas is saying.

I mean, even with all the (rightful) flak he got for the prequels and all the 'poetry' stuff, it did offer us a new glimpse into the world of Star Wars and you can easily see how a good script would've made the prequels into this 'same galaxy, different story' thing. The prequels offered us a glimpse into events that were only mentioned in the OT and a bigger view of certain aspects of the Star Wars galaxy, specifically it's politics and everyday life (the entire Tatooine portion of The Phantom Menace and the short scene where Obi-Wan and Anakin are on the ground level of Coruscant ).

The Force Awakens is way better than the prequels, but I can understand Lucas being disappointed that it's basically pandering to nostalgia.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

Bless, could the man reek more of "jealous ex" if he tried?

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

Probably referring to the Thrawn trilogy or something. The only real summaries we have for Lucas's version of episodes 7-9 are here. As a bonus, here are the midichlorian counts of most Star Wars characters.

When your shit can be traced back to SuperShadow, then it's fake as fuck.

 

[Trike]

That is a bullshit website. Was all made up shit by a guy named supershadow who claimed to have close ties to Lucas etc. Got to the point Lucasfilm had to come out and warn people about him because he was defrauding people selling info and other stuff.

idk man, I've never had a tripod site let me down yet

 

[PdotMichael]

Anakin building C3PO? Really?

BOBA FETT.

What did the prequels do other than provide a back story for an already existing character? TFA introduced an entire cast of new main characters, and you are claiming that a poorly conceived trilogy featuring already established characters is more creative? So what is this fanciful, inspired direction the prequels took? Trade minutia?

If anything was "safe" it was the PT, Clone Wars + Darth Vader, how could you fuck that up?

People just love to run with the creator = creative and Disney = icecold business narrative.

Lucas completly failed to etablish a new character of worth in his three PT movies.

 

[anaron]

People just love to run with the creator = creative and Disney = icecold business narrative.

Lucas completly failed to etablish a new character of worth in his three PT movies.

not to mention that after eps 4 & 5, the main purpose was to sell toys. lol

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

It says a lot that the best character that resulted from the prequels is a 119 year old serial killer who's obsessed with pizza rolls.

 

[TheSadRanger]

Exactly. Outside of a very vocal group of sexist/racist people, I have yet to find proof that casting a black or female protagonist is something risky and revolutionary.



You still haven't explained why you think the Jedi were "forgotten" by the time of the OT. They are not mentioned, because why would they. But forgotten?

Well than name some big AAA films with huge budgets that feature black/female characters that don't come off as tokens who are sidekicks or are there for sex appeal. I think you will find it's very lopsided versus movies that have them as leads. Even Disney's own Marvel itself is self admittedly a huge offender of this.

Iron Man/War Machine: black sidekick
Captain America/Falcon: black sidekick
Black Widow: sex appeal

The entirety of the main core of the Avengers is white males who are the most powerful, and the Avengers is arguably the second largest movie franchise at the moment right behind Star Wars.

As far as proof look at any top ten/twenty grossing movie list the past few years from boxofficemojo and you'll find that hardly any of those movies have non white lead characters. Hell let's list off some from this year alone. I won't list em all cause cg movies don't count.

Jurassic World: No black characters and white male standard hero as lead.
Avengers:AoU: Already explained this
Hunger Games: I don't even know if there is a person that's not white in that entire series tbh
Furious 7: multi ethnic montage of a cast. the furious franchise is more of an exception than the rule

Hell I'll even list some of 2014's top grossing films

American Sniper: white male lead with mainly white characters
Captain America: same as Avengers, black sidekick, white male lead is the most powerful
Hunger Games: already explained, in fact in the prequels they probably made all the other people who had different skin color fight each other first which explains why almost everyone in the series is white.
Transormers: the main characters are cg robots and Mark Wahlberg
The Hobbit: no need to explain
Guardians of the Galaxy: white male lead

So it's racist pointing out that there are few/next to none big blockbuster movies that have a black males as the lead character or a female lead that doesn't focus on sex appeal? Or that most big blockbuster movies are predominately filled with white people? And ya know what, I'll even give comic book movies a pass since it's source material comes from stuff that was created in the 60s/70s.

There's been a weird gap for black actors emerging to make it big in Hollywood for a while other than Michael B.Jordan who just did his first big movie and his credits are pretty slim. Because Denzel, Foxx, and Smith have been slowing down for a while now.

Like I said earlier, is this due to franchise properties like Marvel, Tolkien, Hunger Games, Hobbit having primarily white characters due to their source material? Probably so, but I don't believe it excuses it entirely.

And it is revolutionary and risky having a black male lead and a female lead in this case, especially with her being white. Did you ever think that those two characters might have a romantic relationship in the future of the series? That's a pretty damn ballsy thing to do for a franchise as huge as Star Wars.

 

[Ushojax]

People just love to run with the creator = creative and Disney = icecold business narrative.

Lucas completly failed to etablish a new character of worth in his three PT movies.

That's what it comes down to. TFA has a lot of flaws but the characters shine from the first second of the movie, audiences got attached to them straight away and want to see their story continue. Nobody ever gave a shit about the cardboard morons from the prequels. Anakin and Padme were supposed to be some kind of tragic couple but one is a repeated child murderer and the other marries him despite knowing that. Just pure garbage.

 

[cilonen]

When your shit can be traced back to SuperShadow, then it's fake as fuck.

I'm sure it is but Lucas does have this streak of the ridiculous in him though. The whole saga started from a short story he wrote called "The Journal of the Whills" in which a young apprentice is trained as a "Jedi-Bendu" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. It's as if in isolation he doesn't realise half of the names and concepts he comes up with are ludicrous.

On the other hand he has the ability to put out incredible pure cinema pieces and make a film like THX 1138 which is so minimal and bleak dystopian that it's at completely the other end of the spectrum in terms of tone, pace and storytelling.

I wouldn't put it past him to have come up with something equally as baffling as those plot summaries.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Sure but we also got Naboo, Coruscant, Kamino, Kashyyk, Utapau, Mustafar and some cool looking background planets.

Coruscant and Naboo were in all three prequels (and make up a majority of the screentime for the combined trilogy) and were both added into Jedi, and Kashyyyk is practically just Endor (Endor was supposed to be the Wookie home world, both are forested tree house worlds ruled by bear people, and both were featured heavily in major turning points of the last film in each trilogy). I'll give you Utapau and Kamino, but Mustafar literally exists for the sole purpose of adding in a shit-ton of lava to Obi-Wan and Anakin's duel, which is part of the reason that fight was so dumb, so fuck it.

That's what it comes down to. TFA has a lot of flaws but the characters shine from the first second of the movie, audiences got attached to them straight away and want to see their story continue. Nobody ever gave a shit about the cardboard morons from the prequels. Anakin and Padme were supposed to be some kind of tragic couple but one is a repeated child murderer and the other marries him despite knowing that. Just pure garbage.

Yup, the cast is absolutely where Force Awakens shines brightest. It's an absolute triumph in that aspect, to the point where it's easily enough for me to overlook the film's flaws. Personally I would put Rey, Finn, Poe, and BB on the same pedestal as the original cast. Meanwhile most of the prequel trilogy characters range from bland to bad, and certainly aren't anywhere near as memorable/loveable.

Jurassic World: No black characters and white male standard hero as lead.

False, Jurassic World did have a black character, one with a non-insignificant amount of screentime at that. It's just he was completely and totally superfluous to the plot, to the point where he actually completely disappears 20 minutes before the end of the movie never to show back up (except for perhaps a non-speaking background role in the very end), despite realistically being fairly important in the canon (he's Owen's friend and the other lead raptor tamer).

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Edit: Shit, meant to edit this into the above post.

 

[Madness]

he needs to move on, get over it george.

don't sell it if you don't want people to have it.

No kidding. I mean had he not sold it, he could've done what he wanted, but he let Lucasfilm suffer for ten years doing nothing but slight revisions that just kept pissing off fans, the last thing he did was Phantom Menace 3D conversion and release in theaters, but that wasn't anything special at all.

He's just mad that Force Awakens has already made Disney billions and the series has moved on without him.

 

[archangelmorph]

What you can't see is the gun pressed into George's leg under the table...

 

[The Shadow]

I say now what I said way back when TPM came out: George Lucas is a fucking idiot.

I love Star Wars, but it was truly a collaborative effort to bring the original trilogy to the big screen. When he had full control, it was a total and utter disaster and a fucking lazy one to boot.

Best thing to happen to Star Wars was the sale in 2012.

edit:

It's not just movies that he's fucked up either. https://youtu.be/-dnSORl9_oI

 

[Kalentan]

Honestly if this thread has shown me one thing. Is that the salt Lucas produces is but a spec against the cosmos size salt that the fans produce while claiming the spec to be bigger. You would think with the utter crazy hate passion some fans have for him, that he personally kicked their dog or something.

Also more attempts to seemingly try and rid George of his part in making Star Wars. Hell, some of the best Star Wars stuff that was even better than even the originals, came in the Clone Wars show that he was heavier in involved with. A point, it seems, many seem to purposefully ignore.

I'm not saying he's perfect. George is far better when he's involved in the creative process but doesn't write nor direct. Yet that still is very important.

Also why are there people still forgetting he donated the money he got from the sale to charity and trying to make it seem as though he ran off with it?

 

[cebri.one]

To his defence TFA is a

Spoiler

copy of IV

so i can understand what he means with a retro movie.

 

[PdotMichael]

That's what it comes down to. TFA has a lot of flaws but the characters shine from the first second of the movie, audiences got attached to them straight away and want to see their story continue. Nobody ever gave a shit about the cardboard morons from the prequels. Anakin and Padme were supposed to be some kind of tragic couple but one is a repeated child murderer and the other marries him despite knowing that. Just pure garbage.

People don't realize that TFA is general so well received because it put the focus back on the characters and their journeys, something that made the OT so great and what the PT lacked completly.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

I love Star Wars, but it was truly a collaborative effort to bring the original trilogy to the big screen. When he had full control, it was a total and utter disaster and a fucking lazy one to boot.

To be fair, he did at least try to continue down the collaborative route. He asked Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Howard to direct Phantom Menace, and had asked Kasdan to return as well.

Which makes me sad, because now I can never stop imagining what a Spielberg/Kasdan Star Wars movie could have been like.

 

[AzureSkies]

That is a bullshit website. Was all made up shit by a guy named supershadow who claimed to have close ties to Lucas etc. Got to the point Lucasfilm had to come out and warn people about him because he was defrauding people selling info and other stuff.

oh man, supershadow? that brings me back. I used to have a friend who would eat up everything on his site.

I actually felt pretty bad for him. He wasted a lot of ink at school printing one of SuperShadow's scripts as evidence.

 

[True Savior]

He is completely right.

as basura as the phantom menace ended up i gotta say the podracing sequence/homage to ben hur was immensely more exciting than ANY of the action sequences in force awakens.

there's a lot of shit in those prequel movies but there's also inklings of more interesting ideas in there too. given to different directors like he should have and reworked scripts they would have been great.

but then again that's a lot like saying if the movie wasn't bad then it would be good, which is just redundant lol. i think abrams was the right choice for the money but also kind of boring and unsurprising with the outcome. the only thing I'm really happy with from him is the casting of all the new characters and the look he gave it. it's a smarter decision than any of the star wars saga (aside from grabbing harrison ford from nowhere for a new hope). these people are either already showing solid performances and getting more popular (isaac, gleeson, driver) or were on their way sooner or later, like boyega or possibly ridley.

TPM is straight up a better movie than TFA.

 

[Comfort Jones]

It says a lot that the best character that resulted from the prequels is a 119 year old serial killer who's obsessed with pizza rolls.

I lol'd. Rewatched some of that stuff right before I saw TFA today ahahahah.


I could at least sorta understand where he's coming from if the prequel trilogy wasn't so fucking lifeless and horrid. I cannot believe a human being produced those films with a real love for film making in their heart when the camera work is borderline nonexistent and its plot reads like something a 12 year old wrote. Like it's genuinely hard for me to praise anything in those films outside of the soundtrack and that's not coming from a place from nostalgia seeing how I basically grew up with those prequel films.

 

[Blade30]

To be fair, he did at least try to continue down the collaborative route. He asked Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Howard to direct Phantom Menace, and had asked Kasdan to return as well.

Which makes me sad, because now I can never stop imagining what a Spielberg/Kasdan Star Wars movie could have been like.

It's kind of mindblowing that Spielberg never did direct a star wars movie, especially when Lucas was starting doing the prequels.

 

[SpotAnime]

Lucas completly failed to etablish a new character of worth in his three PT movies.

Qui-Gon Jinn was great. Darth Maul was great. Mace Windu was great. Dooku had potential. Lots of great new alien characters like Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba. Just off the top of my head.

What you can't see is the gun pressed into George's leg under the table...

Iger shot first.

I say now what I said way back when TPM came out: George Lucas is a fucking idiot.

I love Star Wars, but it was truly a collaborative effort to bring the original trilogy to the big screen. When he had full control, it was a total and utter disaster and a fucking lazy one to boot.

Best thing to happen to Star Wars was the sale in 2012.

I agree the Disney machine made Star Wars more lucrative than it had ever been since the OT, so financially it was a win. But the future years will be telling. TFA was the fourth best movie in the franchise, third at best. And that's primarily because it stuck to the OT framework. No one will know what George would have done with Ep VII, but we do know he hired an Academy Award winning screenwriter to pen the new movie, and that he was the one to get Hamill, Fisher and Ford on board. Who knows what he would have come up with, who he would have pegged to direct. We do know he was tired of the criticism, so perhaps he would have turned over the director reigns, and it would have been interesting to see his short list.

I'm more excited to see what Johnson and Trevorrow will come up with, and I think those movies will be the true indicators of whether the franchise is in good hands. But I'm not excited for the potential burnout of having yearly installments of the Star Wars franchise.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

It's kind of mindblowing that Spielberg never did direct a star wars movie, especially with the prequels.

The big reason for him passing on Phantom Menace was Private Ryan. If it weren't for his commitment to that, he probably would have. And I think after Lucas went all-in on Phantom Menace the trilogy became too much "his" for it to be handed off to anyone else, even his ol' pal Steve.

It is a shame though, since I think at this point Spielberg will probably never direct a Star Wars movie. Kicking off the revival with Force Awakens could have been plausible, but I don't see him signing up for the "revolving door" never-ending series the franchise is transitioning to (especially since he keeps himself constantly attached to new things years out anyway). Probably will be mostly less-seasoned directors at this point, except for maybe the odd spin-off.

 

[MrCunningham]

What you can't see is the gun pressed into George's leg under the table...

He probably regrets not selling the franchise at a higher price. Four billion was an absolute bargain for Disney.

 

[FeD.nL]

To be fair, he did at least try to continue down the collaborative route. He asked Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Howard to direct Phantom Menace, and had asked Kasdan to return as well.

Which makes me sad, because now I can never stop imagining what a Spielberg/Kasdan Star Wars movie could have been like.

Yup. And TPM really just needed someone to tell George Jar Jar and midichlorians weren't the best of ideas and a simple pass of Kasdan through the script and we would have ended up with a pretty great SW film probably.

For all it's faults TPM still has some amazing designs, music, and sequences. Compared to TFA the final act does a much better job of juggling the different battles going on.

 

[sono]

Can someone please explain what he means by the phrase "white slavers" in that context, I am not familiar with that phrase at all. Thank you.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Can someone please explain what he means by the phrase "white slavers" in that context, I am not familiar with that phrase at all. Thank you.

This. So confused by that quote.

 

[Zissou]

Qui-Gon Jinn was great. Darth Maul was great. Mace Windu was great. Dooku had potential. Lots of great new alien characters like Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba. Just off the top of my head.

Can you explain what you liked about Qui-Gon or Darth Maul?

Spoiler

Who are Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba???!

 

[Sixfortyfive]

history will not be nearly as kind to TFA as the immediate hype fuelled aftermath. it's a decent enough night out at the cinema, but also a milestone for all the most cynical and cannibalistic hollywood trends.

Yeah, this is a pretty succinct way of putting it.

It's telling that the knee-jerk response from so many in this thread is "But the prequels sucked! What does he know?!", rather than addressing the comments about TFA on their own merits.

TFA was a competent, enjoyable movie. The strength of its cast basically outweighs the shortcomings and the hollowness of its plot. I just hope that it's simply a spring board for another chapter that takes the narrative to more interesting places. Nostalgia cash-ins can only take things so far.

 

[Sandfox]

I liked Qui-Gon when I was younger, but his role in the story should've gone to Obi-Wan.

TPM is straight up a better movie than TFA.

How so?

 

[Comfort Jones]

Darth Maul was great.

Darth Maul is as much a character as a children's drawing of stick people is high art. His "personality" is essentially nonexistent. He doesn't really show any big visual difference in how he fights compared to the other two morons he was dueling, he has no motivations beyond "I am sith man and I do sith things" and it would basically be impossible for him to even have an arc without establishing character traits we see zero hints of.

How so?

Boring lifeless characters and super lazy camera work isn't your thing? Also hey guys remember Jar Jar boy he sure was fun.

 

[Ushojax]

Qui-Gon Jinn was great. Darth Maul was great. Mace Windu was great. Dooku had potential. Lots of great new alien characters like Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba. Just off the top of my head.



Iger shot first.

In what world is Mace Windu a great character? He's completely humourless, stiff as a board and does nothing important except die. Qui-Gon was good on paper but rather than being a compassionate maverick (as he was written), on screen he just seems a stupid dick. "I didn't actually come here to free slaves", he actually says that in the movie before stealing a child from his mother without any real concern for his mental well-being.

Dooku is the one who had actual potential as his backstory was interesting and they got a great actor. Unfortunately he was completely wasted, he should have been in Episode 1 arguing with the council in Qui-Gon's favour so that his turn would have meant something. Sadly George didn't bother to outline Episodes 2 and 3 when writing the first one.

 

[PdotMichael]

Qui-Gon Jinn was great. Darth Maul was great. Mace Windu was great. Dooku had potential. Lots of great new alien characters like Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba. Just off the top of my head.

None of them are even characters.

You like maybe the designs like people liked Boba Fett from the OT but they are not more than cardboard characters.

 

[Harry Stewart]

I can see why he's bitter, he's gonna get even more bitter a few Star Wars movies from now because they'll be better than anything he had imagined in creatively atrophied head and earned more money than he sold Lucasarts for.

 

[PdotMichael]

Yeah, this is a pretty succinct way of putting it.

It's telling that the knee-jerk response from so many in this thread is "But the prequels sucked! What does he know?!", rather than addressing the comments about TFA on their own merits.

TFA was a competent, enjoyable movie. The strength of its cast basically outweighs the shortcomings and the hollowness of its plot. I just hope that it's simply a spring board for another chapter that takes the narrative to more interesting places. Nostalgia cash-ins can only take things so far.

This is the OT and why people love Star Wars, so mission accomplished.

 

[Ensirius]

I can see why he's bitter, he's gonna get even more bitter a few Star Wars movies from now because they'll be better than anything he had imagined in creatively atrophied head and earned more money than he sold Lucasarts for.

Truth. This man speaks it.

 

[True Savior]

How so?

In terms of craft,imagination and execution.

 

[The Doc]

Criticism is blown out of proportion. We're talking about star wars , not pound's cantos. Episode 4 is a great sci-fi movie , one step ahead of the 5 element and one behind tetsuo and stalker. Everything came after is just conventional adventure stuff , sometimes well made ( 5 , 7 , 3 ) sometimes not ( 2 , 1 , 6 )... but tbh i loved every single movie.

 

[SpotAnime]

Can you explain what you liked about Qui-Gon or Darth Maul?

Spoiler

Who are Dexter Jettster, Taun We, and Sebulba???!

Qui-Gon was a real father figure to Obi-Wan. As a mentor he showed great poise and restraint with the force, and was everything I hoped a seasoned Jedi Master would be. Liam Neeson's portrayal was near perfect, and his craft was not just missed for the remainder of the PT, but also something VII could have used as an anchor.

Darth Maul was a true menace, no pun intended. He was mysterious in that we didn't know where he came from, how he became Sith. He was always on the tail of the Jedi, hunting them down on Tatooine with the initial encounter. And that first encounter with Jinn was awesome, two masters meeting for the first time. There was a true sense of urgency in that, as Jinn knew Kenobi and Anakin needed to run to safety, and even Jinn decided to flee and regroup, to analyze their newest foe in preparation for the final battle.

And do I have to mention the Jinn/Kenobi/Maul final battle? That sequence stands among the best sequences in the entire franchise. So viceral, so exciting. It was a major disappointment that none of the otber saber battles in subsequent films got anywhere close to the level of skill and choreography seen here.

Both characters were killed off way too early. They should have lasted through the entire PT. That's something JJ learned, I believe, in setting up the new trilogy.

In what world is Mace Windu a great character? He's completely humourless, stiff as a board and does nothing important except die. Qui-Gon was good on paper but rather than being a compassionate maverick (as he was written), on screen he just seems a stupid dick. "I didn't actually come here to free slaves", he actually says that in the movie before stealing a child from his mother without any real concern for his mental well-being.

Dooku is the one who had actual potential as his backstory was interesting and they got a great actor. Unfortunately he was completely wasted, he should have been in Episode 1 arguing with the council in Qui-Gon's favour so that his turn would have meant something. Sadly George didn't bother to outline Episodes 2 and 3 when writing the first one.

Windu was great in that he was a Jedi Master who had a mean streak but showed he had total control over his anger, and used that to his advantage. He was a warrior moreso than a teacher.

That age of Jedi, with Windu, Yoda, Jinn and Kenobi, was incredible. Not saying potential wasn't lost, because I totally think it was, but those four evoke an homage to Seven Samurai.

 

[Kin5290]

He is completely right.




TPM is straight up a better movie than TFA.

What the fuck is this even.

In everything that makes a movie a movie, TFA is far superior. It has actual characters... 0 racist caricature comic relief characters... dialogue that sounded like a person could speak it...humor that was good... diverse, effective and compelling cinematography, and so on.

Hell, even while the plots are fairly simple and similar and nobody is fond of another Death Star, the plot execution in TFA is just superior. Characters have arcs, for starters. And the set up and stakes in TPM are just stupid. What are stakes in TPM? What does the Trade Federation even want in TPM? We don't know, because nothing they do makes any sense.

 

[BassForever]

I mean I agree with his concept more or less

Why is it 30 years later do we still have x wings and tie fighters? Why are we doing more poetry to ANH then Lucas did in the whole prequel series? TFA is a great film, but it has problems the biggest of which being that it borrows far too heavily from ANH. Yes the original characters in TFA have more depth and are written better then anyone in the prequel series, but when you think Star Wars you think just as much of the characters as you do epic moments like the death star trench run or the battle of hoth. TFA is missing that and the closest thing it has basically ripped wholesale from ANH.

What the fuck is this even.

In everything that makes a movie a movie, TFA is far superior. It has actual characters... 0 racist caricature comic relief characters... dialogue that sounded like a person could speak it...humor that was good... diverse, effective and compelling cinematography, and so on.

Hell, even while the plots are fairly simple and similar and nobody is fond of another Death Star, the plot execution in TFA is just superior. Characters have arcs, for starters. And the set up and stakes in TPM are just stupid. What are stakes in TPM? What does the Trade Federation even want in TPM? We don't know, because nothing they do makes any sense.

I mean you can say stuff like that about TFA as well. Why are they called the resistance if there is a new republic? Why did R2 have 90% of the map they were searching for and why did nobody bother to check if the droid closest to Luke had any info on his location in his data banks? Why was a guy in sanitation brought on a mission to kill a bunch of random people in the desert? Also why would you comment that Finn has never shown any signs of acting out of line if that was his first mission?

 

[Comfort Jones]

Qui-Gon was a real father figure to Obi-Wan. As a mentor he showed great poise and restraint with the force

You mean like that time he charged to his death instead of waiting for Obi Wan? Or the time he wasted everyone's damn time to free a kid from slavery through a bunch of dumb convoluted scheming when he could have just as easily done a money exchange with someone else and then came back to get the part he needed?

There is literally nothing I can think of that made Qui-Gon "wise. Yeah he acted and kinda talked like that's what he was supposed to be but I would not consider the decisions he makes to be very rational.

Also you failed to actually describe Maul as a character, it's more like you gave a vague description of a plot point. A skilled warrior attacked them and then they ran away, what a "scary dude" haha wow so much potential because he was....scary? But scary why? Because he was strong? Oh right that's it, that's literally all his character is. He's a fight scene piece. He's Lurtz in Lord of the Rings. He's the heavy bad guy in Indianna Jones. There's nothing else there.