re: Watched the phantom menace for the first time in years

I absolutely fricking hate George Lucas. Hate.

He's a complete piece of shite who is arrogant and completely disassociates himself with anyone who challenges his creativity.

Not only did he create an abomination of a prequel trilogy, but he's done everything he can to destroy the original trilogy because he thinks certain additions make the movies better. The changes he's made are complete crap and fans are still waiting on a remastered theatrical version of the star wars trilogy all these years later. The ghost of Hayden Christiensen appearing in the end of RotJ is one of the dumbest decisions in film history, and Lucas should have been given a lobotomy afterwards.

Hate may sound like a strong word, especially for someone who is responsible for the Star Wars universe existing in the first place, but just because you create something doesn't mean you will have its best interests in mind for the future and Lucas clearly doesn't.

The Phantom Menace was absolutely awful, and I am still trying to pick my jaw up from the floor all these years later after the realization set in that he made an even worse film with Attack of the Clones.

The entire prequel trilogy is riddled with characters we don't care about, having conversations we don't care about, involving vomit-inducing dialogue, on 95% Bluescreen/Greenscreen sets with zero life and believably. Yoda from Empire Strikes Back is one of the best characters in cinema history, and he gets completely neutered in the prequel trilogy, while all of his Jedi pals sit around and have conversations while sitting in chairs twiddling their thumbs. It's a fricking soap opera.

Why did Lucas successfully direct a good film in the original episode IV? Who knows. Maybe because his ideas weren't rushed at that point like the entire prequel trilogy. Lucas was very hands off for episode V and that was easily the best movie in the series. He started meddling with the direction of episode VI, and there was a noticeable drop off in quality from episode V, but it was still a great movie. The prequel trilogy was just rushed crap, with a director who was largely out of the game for almost 20 years. This is probably just looking into it too much though as its likely Lucas is really just a massive sellout.

Fortunately the prequel trilogy can be ignored because Disney is pretty much pretending like it doesn't exist. I just hope they have the balls to release some re-mastered original theatrical versions so I can watch some untainted star wars someday.