My favorite Sci Fi book author rips into Star Wars (B5 mention_)

[Hal_10000]

Well

I think what frustrates a lot of people about the prequels is that they had a great movie within them. And all we got was a good movie. Slice a lot of the politics out (they aren't suited to the crude narrative of Star Wars); slice out the distracting family reunions; have the conflicts more direct and self-contained within each film so you can focus more on Annakin's progression to the dark side -- his inability to control his phenomenal powers slowly corrupting him until all he can see is power. Make him into a Michael Corleone type figure, who is slowly but thoroughly corrupted by power until he cares for nothing else -- even to the point of killing those he should love. A character like that is still be sympathetic in some ways. By trying to force our sympathy, Lucas overplayed his hand.

[JohnFourtyTwo]

I think Catherine Tramel said it best in Basic Instinct when she was explaining writing/lieing to Nick. She said something about suspension of disbelief. It has to be believable or the readers won't believe it either.

[Andrew_Swallow]

Africa is full of heads of state who come to power as (apparently) good people and then turn evil - death squads, stealing all the countries money and other immoral behaviour. Just tell the story of a couple of them set in the future.