There comes a time when artists and directors need to step back from their work and just let it exist. To continue to go in and tinker ruins the whole. Also, it looks really desperate. Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace isn’t a “classic” in the good sense of the word. Rather, it’s a classic example of an out-of-touch filmmaker who can’t let go. Please learn from history, George.

Like these films didn’t.

The Twilight Saga

To further dump the carryalls of Twihards, Summit re-released each of the Twilight films in the weeks leading up to the release of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. As added incentive to lure fans away from the DVD copies they already own, the films were updated to include introductions and interviews with the cast. That and the promise of not having to worry about cat hair getting on everything.

Avatar

As a fan of kajillions of dollars, James Cameron had to take the opportunity to squeeze more from Avatar. The film’s original run was cut shorter than he’d have liked when it had to be pulled from 3D theaters to make room for Tim Burton‘s Alice In Wonderland. The solution was to bring it back for fans to catch in August after the summer’s big releases simmered down. The re-release featured an additional nine minutes of footage which sadly didn’t focus more on hot tail sex. The added footage revolves around the death of the brash dickhead Na’vi hunter Tsu’tey, whose demise in the original cut did seem a little unceremonious. The new footage also introduces us to the Sturmbeest. Sounds like pretty cool additions, but would he have added these scenes if not for the Alice In Wonderland push? I could have just as well waited to see deleted scenes when the film was released for home systems.

Check Out 8 Things From ‘Star Wars’ More Unethical Than Han Shooting First

The fact that people actually paid to see this crap, most likely for a second time, is almost too much to comprehend. So in the interest of warning the public at large to avoid this sh*t show at all costs, we’ve created an honest movie trailer for Phantom Menace 3D. Will it help? Probably not. But at least we’ll go to our graves knowing we did our part.

Click the Image Below To See 45 Fan-Made Tributes To The ‘Star Wars’ AT-AT Walker

I’ll let the be-flanneled Ewok tell his side of the story:

The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

So there you go.

And here are the two versions in question:

This should, as George Lucas pointed out in his THR interview, prove that you are a bloodthirsty monster that let your insatiable need for gore cloud your judgment. Let’s consider the matter closed. Especially in the comments.

In the year 35, Watto of Tatooine wrote to his former slave, Anakin Skywalker, and requested the he come back and work in his shop.  Anakin – who, since being rescued and raised by the Jedi, had moved to Coruscant, had found paid work as a Sith lord and was now ruling the known universe with an iron fist along with Emperor Palpatine – responded spectacularly by way of hologram transcribed below (a letter which, according to Bothan spies, he dictated).

Coruscant

August 7, 30

To My Old Master, Watto, Mos Espa, Tatooine

Sir: I got your letter, and was surprised to find you had not forgotten Anakin, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can.  Apparently you missed that I have long since become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. I thought my troops would have burned you to a skeleton when they were on Tatooine a few years back, but since they didn’t shoot down an escape pod that contained devastating information about the Empire, I guess it’s understandable that they missed my order to turn you into a smear, too. Although you sold me to Jedi who taught me how to use the Force and a lightsaber, you were still an asshat, and I was pleased at the thought that you had perished. Although you never actually hurt me, I would have been pleased to find you had suffered. I never missed my old home, it was a hole, and you might want to tell the bots, the Jawas and that fat woman with the six boobs that hangs around your shop to keep their distance; the crater that will be left in your wake will be substantial. In fact, the whole planet will be gone. And they aren’t Jedi so I won’t be seeing them in the next life. I still recall the last time I saw you. You looked (and smelled) like shit.

I was wondering what you thought you could offer me; you smelling like a flying turd and me being telekinetic. I am doing tolerably well as the vice president of evil. I don’t need money, and I get the best food available, period, and a comfortable space station with my now deceased wife, Padme, – the folks called her Senator. And I even have a son, Luke, although we are not on good terms. Obi Wan says the boy has a good head for a Jedi. I am feared, as it should be. I overheared others on Alderaan saying “Darth Vader was a slave.” But I feel no disgrace (plus, we blew the shit out of Alderaan.)

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as Qui Gon Jin bought me back when I was a kid. I propose a test to see if I should bother sending a detachment of Imperial Walkers to that dust ball to turn you into agonized plasma or not by asking for the wages for the time me and my mother served you. At unlimited resources for me, and not being dead for my mother, I served you faithfully for 10 years, and my mother, what was it, 40 something? Before that, our earning would amount to you being SO f*cking dead. Add to that the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for me being born, clothing and feeding us, and the year or two my mom took care of all your shit before you sold her. Please send the money Smuggler’s Express, in care of Mango Fett, fabulous Bounty Hunter and Designer. Here I am nigh a supreme ruler with the full powers of the dark side at my disposal; but on Tatooine, there was never a pay-day for the human slaves any more than for banthas and dewbacks. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud a laborer of his hire. (and your is coming pretty fast)

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Leia, who is now grown up and I hear wears metal bikinis. You know how it was with that Twi’Lek chick over at Jabba’s. I would rather stay here and be waited on hand and foot than to… Okay, I can’t keep up the charade. My kid’s not going to Tatooine, and you’ll be dead shortly after reading this.

Say howdy to Qui Gon when you are dead and thank him for winning me from you.

From your old servant,

Anakin Skywalker Darth Vader

So we took a stroll through his film resume and pulled pics that required he look absolutely ridiculous. In the process, I found myself getting mad at movies that feature his real hair. All your favorites are here, from rocking an uber-metal beard to being covered in butterflies. The man truly has no vanity.

Not all film franchises are this successful. Of course, there are classic prequels that pull it off, there are others that just miss the mark entirely and wear their commercial ambitions on their sleeves. Here are examples from both camps.

While he admires the films’ technical achievements, he has “trouble with them on several different levels,” like story and character development.

Yikes. Those are pretty important levels.

So, in summation, this is a news story because a guy involved with the original Star Wars films hates the new ones just as much as we do. Why are we reporting this? Because Goerge Lucas hasn’t suffered enough for what he’s done.

Seriously, dude. Pod races? Seriously.

Mara Wilson – Matilda

Date of Birth: Jul 24, 1987

Mara Wilson found fame at a young age in films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th Street. She then went on to take the lead in Matilda for director Danny Devito. Nowadays, she’s old enough to knock back a few limoncello’s with the slurry little halfling.

Jonathan Lipnicki - Jerry Maguire

Date of Birth: October 22, 1990

Okay. He’s not quite twenty-one yet, but he’s pretty close. Besides, this kid was huge for a year or two. You don’t think he was chasing the dragon at all in that time? How else would you explain The Littlest Vampire?

Liam Aiken – Stepmom

Date of Birth: January 7th, 1990

Remember this kid? He was in everything. Stepmom, Road to Perdition, Sweet November, Lemony Snickett’s, and Good Boy! These days, he can be seen in the new television series, A Gifted Man, as well as down at the local watering hole.

The technical team who worked on Mars Needs Moms also had a hand in the first Star Wars prequel. At the press junket for Mars, ILM character animator Huck Wirtz said there are a lot of ships to whiz by your face in 3D.

“George loves to bring things past the camera so much, like in the space battles,” Wirtz said. “I’m sure all that’s going to be great.”

So if you have to sit through Phantom Menace again, at least it will be interactive. Visual effects production designer Doug Chiang said the 3D would work both ways. “When we were actually working on that film, 3D was always a secondary thought,” Chiang said. “But a lot of the shots, in terms of how George directs, are really immersive in that way.”

Stereoscopic supervisor Anthony Shafer is actually working on the 3D conversion. He can’t talk specifics, but suggested we think about the scope of those elaborate scenes in which Jar Jar is dancing through the shot.

“Just generally, the compositions that George chose are wide and panoramic and somewhat of a feast for the eyes and very first person perspective,” Shafer said. “That movie plays really well in that.”

The Phantom Menace in 3D attacks theaters February 10, 2012.