Fun fact: Mythbusters actually tested the logs, though their rig had shorter logs and not as much swing. Still pulped an armoured truck.

No joke. Redwoods are majestic and dense. There's a reason people built houses out of them.

~27lbs/cu.ft for redwood vs ~49-66 for different types of eucalyptus, which is what they tested with, but considering the shorter swing and logs I think the only question is how the hell the Ewoks got the logs up there in the first place.

They commune with the trees and earn their favor

I'm guessing through offerings of burnt flesh and ritual cannibalism, which seems to be the norm for when they encounter anything they deem godlike

The prequel were financial success's and that's where their success ends.

I still to this day do not understand the initial plot of The Phantom Menace with trade routes and taxes and why they need a treaty signed, why blockade a planet, then invade anyway. Its the movie that is supposed to setup the prequel trilogy but makes no sense.

The prequel were financial success's and that's where their success ends.

Well, no

They also gave us some of the most hilarious Palpatine moments

Who could forget such classics as

"I will make it legal."

or

"Kill him Anakin... do-et."

Seriously, prequel palpatine was the only thing getting me through Revenge of the Sith. You just have to respect his POWAHHHHHHHR, UNLIMITED POWAHHHHHHRRRR

And then there's the big hammy as **** NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! from Darth Vader while this ******* goofball is yucking it up in the corner and all I'm thinking is "wow, I finally found a relate-able character!"

The less involvement Lucas has with these new films, the better they will be.

You're talking about the guy who came up with it all in the first place.

I don't think star wars could of survived another three Lucas made films, the idea makes me queasy.

It did just fine off of six.

Not sure what your talking about but it ain't star wars.

Empire is far far the best AND had the least Lucas input..... Coincidence? I think not

I still to this day do not understand the initial plot of The Phantom Menace with trade routes and taxes and why they need a treaty signed, why blockade a planet, then invade anyway. Its the movie that is supposed to setup the prequel trilogy but makes no sense.

Wait, you seriously don't understand it?! The political maneuvering was almost insultingly shallow.

Basically:

Members of the Trade Federation get a better deal on taxes when dealing with certain governments than others. Naboo is "others".

The Trade Federation blockades Naboo in order to strangle their economy, and force a more favorable trade deal.

The Chancellor sends a couple Jedi to Naboo to straighten things out: when member states blockade one another, it's a major government weakness.

The Trade Federation knows they're doing something massively illegal, and that the Jedi will call them on it. So they panic and try to kill the Jedi.

The Jedi escape to Naboo.

The Trade Federation panics even more hardcore: they've just tried to murder Jedi who are also representatives of the Chancellor. This is an act of war against the entire Republic.

So they invade Naboo hoping to a) find the Jedi and b) force the Naboo government to quickly capitulate.

If the Naboo government had signed the treaty the Trade Federation had wanted, the Trade Federation would have basically owned Naboo. At that point, the Republic just sort of shrugs and decides that they've sorted out their own problems.

By militarily defeating the trade Federation, the Naboo are able to get a treaty signed where the Trade Federation owes damages, and admits war guilt.

Because Valorum is weak enough to have allowed an invasion of one state by another, his Chancellorship is at an end. Because Palpentine is was the Stalwart Defender of the Naboo, his prestige rises. That, combined with what is no-doubt a legendary intra-Senatorial campaign, allows him to take the Chancellorship.

Because the Republic government is shown to be unable to defend its members against the predation of the strong, the climate is ripe for Count Dooku to agitate for either succession or revolution.

I hope I don't sound condescending by saying that this is all Highschool level World History stuff.

I hope I don't sound condescending by saying that this is all Highschool level World History stuff.

You shouldn't

It's not that the politics were overwhelmingly complex, it's that our brains were off the first minute into the movie

(it was the only way to stay sane)

I still to this day do not understand the initial plot of The Phantom Menace with trade routes and taxes and why they need a treaty signed, why blockade a planet, then invade anyway. Its the movie that is supposed to setup the prequel trilogy but makes no sense.

Wait, you seriously don't understand it?! The political maneuvering was almost insultingly shallow.

Basically:

Members of the Trade Federation get a better deal on taxes when dealing with certain governments than others. Naboo is "others".

The Trade Federation blockades Naboo in order to strangle their economy, and force a more favorable trade deal.

The Chancellor sends a couple Jedi to Naboo to straighten things out: when member states blockade one another, it's a major government weakness.

The Trade Federation knows they're doing something massively illegal, and that the Jedi will call them on it. So they panic and try to kill the Jedi.

The Jedi escape to Naboo.

The Trade Federation panics even more hardcore: they've just tried to murder Jedi who are also representatives of the Chancellor. This is an act of war against the entire Republic.

So they invade Naboo hoping to a) find the Jedi and b) force the Naboo government to quickly capitulate.

Problem with the escape part, the Jedi rode down to Naboo on the invasion fleet, the invasion was going to happen regardless. When people say the plot doesn't make sense they may be thinking of the following:

Palpatine's plan is to use Padme to call for a vote of no confidence on the Supreme Chancellor, and win the election using the sympathy vote and get the Supreme Chancellorship.

At the same time he tries VERY hard to get the Trade Federation guys to get the treaty signed to get the invasion "legalized", therefore removing the problem and the reason for the vote. So he spends the first part of the movie working against his OWN freaking plan!

Why did he order the Trade Federation guys to kill the Jedi? That would do nothing more than label them as the bad guys to the entire Republic, giving the Supreme Chancellor no reason to hesitate to shut down the blockade with military force, once again he comes very close to shooting himself in the foot for no reason!

Palpatine was continually working 'against his own plan'. That was the whole idea: to create conflict. Some of his move may have been opportunistic, some planned long before. But the goal was clearly to polarize, create conflict and present himself as a center of stability.

We don't know yet, and may not for decades if ever, what impact Lucas's notes and designs will have on the sequel trilogy. But given that Disney is committed to keeping Star Wars going and that there will be a LOT more movies in the franchise, it's possible that they had to modify Lucas's original intent to accommodate for those.

In light of how well they've managed the Marvel movies, that's something to have confidence in them with.

Agreed. With Marvel studios, they've contracted good directors and a superlative casting team, provided them with a big bag of cash and kept their sticky fingers out of the details of the script and plot. The result is an organisation which has turned out box-office-nuking blockbusters, year on year. They know how to do 'hands off' management and they know it works.

Therefore, if they decide they do need to get directly involved in changing the script, I trust that they did it for a **** good reason. And looking at episodes I to III, I have a pretty good idea what they might have been.

He's not alone alot of directors I use to like are now turning out trash, look at Spielberg of late or Ridley Scott.

Lucas however has a small filmography and most of its bad.

I know right, look what Ridley did to the Alien series with that mess not-prequel yet somehow a prequel Promethius

He's not alone alot of directors I use to like are now turning out trash, look at Spielberg of late or Ridley Scott.

Lucas however has a small filmography and most of its bad.

Yeah Prometheus devastaed me: I was like: "aw no Ridley Scott! not you to! you are suposed to be better than that!"

Bah, first we had "George syndrome" where Lucas and Romero followed up on their original awesome trilogies with another trilogy but this time those movies sucked.

And Tarantino's movies aren't nearly as good as 'dogs and 'fiction. (And have way to much foot fetish in them)

Now Scott as well!

And i'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is sufferiing from "George syndrome" aswell. The Hobbit ain't LOTR...

My theory is that each director has one or two movies he really want's to make (usually early in his career) and then the later stuff is made because it's their job to direct movies.

No, he really, really doesn't.

TIE Pilot, please, explain.

The facts are that the two films that Lucas had the least to do with are the most loved and critically acclaimed.

The prequel films, which he micro-managed, were the least well received.

Midichorians. Natalie Portman. Jar Jar Binks. Hayden Christensen. I mean, c'mon, it's like he hit his head or something.

He also came up with the whole concept of Star Wars in the first place. He also created ILM, Skywalker Sound and THX have been involved in countless films, credits being at the end of films is his doing, he's behind LucasArts which is behind all those rereleased games on GOG everyone's so excited about, he created Pixar, made countless charitable contributions, and he's behind a lot more films than just the Indiana Jones films and the Star Wars ones this game is based on.

But because he made three films that weren't as critically acclaimed as the first three and an Indiana Jones film with an ending people weren't a fan of he deserves to be on the end of a bullying internet circlejerk for the rest of his life to the point where he sells his most famous achievements to Disney just to be rid of it, right?

(But I personally think Lucas should have his hands cut off before being allowed to touch Star Wars again.)

Maybe you should have your hands cut off if you ever want to touch something you created, that's yours, that gets popular ever again?

What I was disappointed about was, when Lucas fix/added all of the special effects no one ever bothered to fix all of the out of sequence editing errors. There was a boat load in the first two movies Star Wars and RotJ. The most obvious is when Han's gloats because the Falcon destroyed a blockade before it was even setup as they were trying to escape Hoth.

I'm not familiar with this inconsistency. Can you elaborate?

Well there are several but I can't recount them without rewatching and taking notes. But:

The Empire Strikes Back. Hans is trying to escape Hoth with Leia who says 'You'll never get this bucket of bolts past that blockade'. The next scene is them arriving to setup the blockade. Scenes reversed.

A minutes or so longer you see a flash and Han says "see" we assume referring to the blockade being destroyed; Leia says "someday you're going to get it wrong...". The next scene is the e-web being destroyed. Again scenes reversed.

There are several like that, mostly in the first and second movies. I love the special effects but paying too much attention to that and missing simple editing was a shame.

To be fair, a rockin' fleet battle makes it possible to forgive a lot

(also the Emperor/Luke/Vader scenes aboard the new deathstar really stole the show)

the ewoks are just background noise, like the **** they shoved into the special edition, so you only have to start drinking when they get in front of the action (or when the mythic Endor wood of yore slays military-grade imperial walkers)

True that. Great space battles. I mostly love the battle in the beginning of the 4th movie too (movie number 3). The only real dumb things in both though...

In RotJ the armor the Storm Troopers wore didn't seems to accomplish anything at all.

In the 4th movie RotS the space battle was awesome BUT! How lame to have space cannons that ejected shells like some pre-World War II cannon. Really? Sure you want a broadside like the old days, fine but ejected casings and people actually sitting at the cannons. I choked laughing so hard at what was suppose to be a serious moments then the cannon was hit and exploded. What was to show the destructive power of a battle was more of a comedic scene for my group.

The rest was cool.

He's not alone alot of directors I use to like are now turning out trash, look at Spielberg of late or Ridley Scott.

Lucas however has a small filmography and most of its bad.

Yeah Prometheus devastaed me: I was like: "aw no Ridley Scott! not you to! you are suposed to be better than that!"

Bah, first we had "George syndrome" where Lucas and Romero followed up on their original awesome trilogies with another trilogy but this time those movies sucked.

And Tarantino's movies aren't nearly as good as 'dogs and 'fiction. (And have way to much foot fetish in them)

Now Scott as well!

And i'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is sufferiing from "George syndrome" aswell. The Hobbit ain't LOTR...

My theory is that each director has one or two movies he really want's to make (usually early in his career) and then the later stuff is made because it's their job to direct movies.

DAT...

Gore Verbinski hardly had anything to do with Curse o/t Black Pearl, and Coppola was not really involved in The Godfather I and II. Their later movies prove it.

What I was disappointed about was, when Lucas fix/added all of the special effects no one ever bothered to fix all of the out of sequence editing errors. There was a boat load in the first two movies Star Wars and RotJ. The most obvious is when Han's gloats because the Falcon destroyed a blockade before it was even setup as they were trying to escape Hoth.

I'm not familiar with this inconsistency. Can you elaborate?

Does anyone know what he's talking about? I've probably seen ETB 80 times and I'm not familiar with this.

Also, Portman's a joke. She was and still is a poor actor. She's a pretty face, nothing more.

To be fair, a rockin' fleet battle makes it possible to forgive a lot

(also the Emperor/Luke/Vader scenes aboard the new deathstar really stole the show)

the ewoks are just background noise, like the **** they shoved into the special edition, so you only have to start drinking when they get in front of the action (or when the mythic Endor wood of yore slays military-grade imperial walkers)

True that. Great space battles. I mostly love the battle in the beginning of the 4th movie too (movie number 3). The only real dumb things in both though...

In RotJ the armor the Storm Troopers wore didn't seems to accomplish anything at all.

In the 4th movie RotS the space battle was awesome BUT! How lame to have space cannons that ejected shells like some pre-World War II cannon. Really? Sure you want a broadside like the old days, fine but ejected casings and people actually sitting at the cannons. I choked laughing so hard at what was suppose to be a serious moments then the cannon was hit and exploded. What was to show the destructive power of a battle was more of a comedic scene for my group.

The rest was cool.

I guess Lucas was looking around for things to get away with, figured that "Hey, no one minds the inaccurate portrayal of space because WW2 with lasers is far more cinematic and looks pretty **** cool...lets get midichlorian on this ****!"

What I was disappointed about was, when Lucas fix/added all of the special effects no one ever bothered to fix all of the out of sequence editing errors. There was a boat load in the first two movies Star Wars and RotJ. The most obvious is when Han's gloats because the Falcon destroyed a blockade before it was even setup as they were trying to escape Hoth.

I'm not familiar with this inconsistency. Can you elaborate?

Does anyone know what he's talking about? I've probably seen ETB 80 times and I'm not familiar with this.

[...]

This isn't the entire seen but it shows part:

No, he really, really doesn't.

TIE Pilot, please, explain.

The facts are that the two films that Lucas had the least to do with are the most loved and critically acclaimed.

The prequel films, which he micro-managed, were the least well received.

Midichorians. Natalie Portman. Jar Jar Binks. Hayden Christensen. I mean, c'mon, it's like he hit his head or something.

He also came up with the whole concept of Star Wars in the first place. He also created ILM, Skywalker Sound and THX have been involved in countless films, credits being at the end of films is his doing, he's behind LucasArts which is behind all those rereleased games on GOG everyone's so excited about, he created Pixar, made countless charitable contributions, and he's behind a lot more films than just the Indiana Jones films and the Star Wars ones this game is based on.

But because he made three films that weren't as critically acclaimed as the first three and an Indiana Jones film with an ending people weren't a fan of he deserves to be on the end of a bullying internet circlejerk for the rest of his life to the point where he sells his most famous achievements to Disney just to be rid of it, right?

(But I personally think Lucas should have his hands cut off before being allowed to touch Star Wars again.)

Maybe you should have your hands cut off if you ever want to touch something you created, that's yours, that gets popular ever again?

Star Wars is/was so big now, that even Lucas shouldn't have sole dominion over it. He shouldn't have been able to cock it up as much as he did.

Star Wars is/was so big now, that even Lucas shouldn't have sole dominion over it. He shouldn't have been able to cock it up as much as he did.

Despite that fact that he came up with it, made it, and prior to selling it Disney owned it? Spare me the "Star Wars belongs to the fans" rhetoric, it doesn't. It belongs to Disney.

As for cockups, the EU's got far, far more than the prequels.

Star Wars is/was so big now, that even Lucas shouldn't have sole dominion over it. He shouldn't have been able to cock it up as much as he did.

Despite that fact that he came up with it, made it, and prior to selling it Disney owned it? Spare me the "Star Wars belongs to the fans" rhetoric, it doesn't. It belongs to Disney.

As for cockups, the EU's got far, far more than the prequels.

Yeah no, while there are some bad bits to the EU they pale compared to how soul crushingly bad the prequels are.

What I was disappointed about was, when Lucas fix/added all of the special effects no one ever bothered to fix all of the out of sequence editing errors. There was a boat load in the first two movies Star Wars and RotJ. The most obvious is when Han's gloats because the Falcon destroyed a blockade before it was even setup as they were trying to escape Hoth.

I'm not familiar with this inconsistency. Can you elaborate?

Does anyone know what he's talking about? I've probably seen ETB 80 times and I'm not familiar with this.

[...]

This isn't the entire seen but it shows part:

Waitaminit, when did Vader cry that ridiculous 'Noooooooooo' in this scene? Was that added by Lucas on the BlueRay or was that some internet troll edit?

It is sad and telling of the situation that I even have to ask.

Also, Portman's a joke. She was and still is a poor actor. She's a pretty face, nothing more.

Her performances in Star Wars ranged from bland to uninspired. On the other hand, she was mainly working in front of green screens and reading Lucas' tin-eared dialogue, and that's not a situation designed to show off any kind of range or depth as an actor.

But she's also the actress who went on to do much more impressive work in Cold Mountain, Brothers, and some other very good movies. (Admittedly she's back to wasting her time and talent in the Thor movies, but I bet her rent checks aren't bouncing.)

Star Wars is/was so big now, that even Lucas shouldn't have sole dominion over it. He shouldn't have been able to cock it up as much as he did.

Despite that fact that he came up with it, made it, and prior to selling it Disney owned it? Spare me the "Star Wars belongs to the fans" rhetoric, it doesn't. It belongs to Disney.

As for cockups, the EU's got far, far more than the prequels.

Yeah no, while there are some bad bits to the EU they pale compared to how soul crushingly bad the prequels are.

You must not have read much EU. I'm sorry, but Ig-88 Death Star, Luke asking "What would Boba Fett do?", Waru are just some examples of stuff that makes the PT look good. I mean, the entire Legacy of the Force book series featured 2 authors pretty much trying to undo what the other had written.

In what world can Texas invade Oklahoma and not have the government intervene simply because the defeated Oklahomans signed a treaty?

Lucas' corescant I guess.