Abrams talks on Lucas's treatments

I think she was being diplomatic regarding the developmental process. Using teenagers would put a whole different spin on the ST, as it would be reminiscant of the PT instead of the OT.

It amazes me that Lucas wanted to go that route after it hampered his storytelling in the PT. The younger the characters are, the less character development you can do. TPM suffers because Anakin is a 10 year old kid, so there just isn't much you can do to flesh his character out. They find him, they realize his potential and then that's it. If he were 20 years old in TPM like Luke was in ANH, then you could actually explore the character more and Episode 1 may have been a better movie.

Thanks god Disney bought Lucasfilm, as Lucas's line of thinking using teenagers again tells me he had no idea what went wrong with the PT.

 

Yikes! I'm sorry but the right call was made. Thanks for all the suggestions george but back to your retirement please

 

Here is the link to the article in The Atlantic that was referenced in the MSW article. It is a pretty good read

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...ar-wars-vanity-fair-the-force-awakens/392669/

 

This was the major issue i had with TPM, george wanted to created an Anakin story yet TPM was not able to run with anakin as the lead, so it just became such an aimless story that created probably the stupidest "bet/wager" in movie history with that watto and Qui-Gon scene, just to bring anakin into the story line.
TPM literally does not have a lead character because of how he wanted to tell one story.

 

I wouldn't have minded TPM even with younger actors telling the same story but Jake was probably not the best option. I actually liked one of the other kids from the screen test from the behind the scenes doc. I don't know if Lucas' dialogue was that much worse than the OT but the actors just didn't have any life or character; with a handful of exceptions of course. Unfortunately, two of the leads (Hayden and Natalie) just didn't work and there really was no chemistry on-screen with them. Even the behind the scenes stuff didn't seem to show much fire between them. We'll see how TFA pans out but just from all the behind the scenes and social media stuff from Daisy and John, it seems they genuinely had a good time and got along well.

 

Sometimes we need to be saved from ourselves. It was time. George created the universe and for that I'm appreciative, but it was time to pass the baton.

 

Y'know, as much as people bash George, we have to give him credit for creating Star Wars. Star Wars would have never existed if Lucas never created it. But, with that being said, some of his newer ideas are pretty bad to say the least. I would think he would've learned his lesson with the PT that audiences just don't want to see a Star Wars movie that has a cast of very young characters that is aimed primarily at children. I'm glad to see Disney showing George some respect, they are going to make billions off of his concept after all, but I'm also glad to see that they aren't afraid to reject some of his ideas.

 

You bring up good points, I especially like the idea of the first half of the film showing young Anakin and then a jump forward to seeing him a bit older. That would have made me enjoy the film a little more and there would have maybe been more time to focus on the Anakin/Obi Wan relationship throughout the next two films.

 

I'm not actually aiming that post at Jake, far from it. It was George Lucas that didn't know what he was doing, its not Jakes fault that Lucas created an unworkable story for TPM, Jake was just the unlucky bastard that got stuck with it.

 

George Lucas can be compared to any great athlete. In his prime he was awesome. There were not many better. Just like as an elite athlete ages and loses a step, so did George. That does not take away from his greatness and what he accomplished. He created the world of Star Wars. A great world we and millions of others love to this day. We are all grateful. But like any great athlete it is time to step away and that is what George has done. Now it's time for someone else to take over and continue the great legacy George created.

 

looksl ike just what I was starting to think is now confirmed

all they did was change a few characters around

 

He would have messed it up for sure, Lucas seems obsessed with constantly wanting to bring new fans into Star Wars but the truth is you don't need to pander to small children to gain their interest. I was waaay younger than luke when i first saw star wars but i still related to him and enjoyed his story.. you don't need him to be 10 years olf for 7 year old me to relate to him. and as people have said before theres not much you can do with child actors if you want their story to develop over several films.

TPM was a waste of a film as Anakin does almost nothing in the first film (apart from accidentally winning a war) it should have started with him being 16-18.. and thus being truly "too old to begin the training" a moody, dark and dangerous teenager.. but incredibly strong in the force and un-ignorable by Qui-Gon.

 

Hindsight is 20/20 but I agree. TPM would have been much better with an older Anakin. AoTC could then have focused more on the actual Clone Wars and Anakin's badass skills and ROS showing his fall.

 

Which I think they decided to work from scratch. They had Lucas' outlines and Arndt's partial script (assuming he turned something in). They must have really not liked anything and thought it would be easier for them to just throw it all out and start over.