I think there were a couple of reasons why the Force changed between movies. They aren’t necessarily good reasons, and my explanation isn’t necessarily correct. In Episode 4, Obi-Wan tells Luke that the Force is an energy field created by all living things. In Episode 5, Yoda teaches that life creates it, makes it grow, and its energy surrounds and binds them. In Episode 1, Qui-Gon says that midichlorians are found in living cells, and it’s their biology and interaction that creates the Force. This retroactive continuity change doesn’t exactly negate what Obi-Wan and Yoda were saying, and I think it has several narrative advantages when watching the movies in chronological order.
First, Qui-Gon, like most Jedi Knights, is an arrogant, sometimes duplicitous character, secure in the knowledge that the Force is his ally and whatever the Jedi want is the best for everyone else. He’s confident that whatever doctrine he learned is Truth, that the Force can be quantified with devices, and the higher a midichoridian count, the better. He is posthumously proved wrong on all three points as the Jedi fall from power. The Jedi weren’t infallible, their devices didn’t pick up the Sith in their midst, and the Force doesn’t help the Jedi if someone is using it for the Dark Side.
Secondly, in an interview, Lucas said he wanted Episode I to reflect themes of symbiosis. Most of these themes were presented in a manner that was…what’s the opposite of subtle? The Gungans and human Naboo people shared a planet, the pod racers raced their pods, the Trade Federation relied on their robots. So…there’s that.
Thirdly, as Anakin’s character arc parabolas to tragedy, the concept of midichlorians shows his potential that by the end of Episode 3 will be forever unrealized. When Obi-Wan chopped off his arms and legs, and they stuck him in a walking iron lung, Anakin literally has fewer midichlorians than he used to. (“Quick, I need to drop twenty pounds fast. What do I do?” “Cut off your leg.”) He won’t be the most powerful Jedi EVAR that he wanted to be, so he might as well remain dominated by the Emperor.
Fourthly, Obi-Wan and Yoda take a more natural look at the Force in later episodes because they have had humility forced upon them by their earlier defeats. They might be strong with the Force but they don’t take it for granted. When Anakin’s son comes along, Yoda doesn’t fill his head with talk about how high his midichlorian count is, because they went down that road before and it didn’t turn out great.
That’s how I see it, anyway.
I think it was a proof of concept more than anything else. The Special Editions were in many ways practice for ILM to gear up for the prequels. Lucas had the deleted scene he really wanted to use back in the day but didn’t have the time or money, they wanted to test how well they could rotoscope over existing footage of someone else (of someone that looked wildly different), to try to create a Hutt in CGI instead of the army of puppeteers they used in Episode 6. It wasn’t terribly successfully realized and it was narratively redundant, but I think they got something out of it.
You have a complicated setting, with so many factions and concepts, and the only frame of reference is the original movies. A lot of the dialogue (which, in every Star Wars movie, is unique but not great) had to set up the setting, and some bald exposition was the way they chose to set that up.
That said, I think there’s a ton of ambiguity in the prequel movies! Most of them are wrapped up in the character of Palpatine. Palpatine is one of my favorite cinematic villains, because by the time of the prequels, he has engineered every possible conflict so that either result would be a win for him. Does Padme get captured by the Trade Federation or manage to get the aid of the Jedi in Episode 1? Doesn’t matter, he’ll profit from it. Does the Separatist movement beat the Jedi and the Clone Army in Episode 2? Doesn’t matter, he’ll profit from it. Did he engineer his kidnapping at the start of Episode 3 and did he want Count Dooku to get killed by Anakin or vice versa? Doesn’t matter, any way will benefit him.
Additionally, many explanations that are delivered by characters in the prequels are later found out to be wrong. Were their explanations wrong all along? Was the Dark Side clouding their judgement? Their blindness is thematic of the hidden decay and decline that the Republic experiences at this time of fake history.
Depends on what you mean by all details, but I really don’t think so. The closest he had to be mapped out was the prologue of the novelization that was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. Many of the details were unused characters or scenes of previous drafts. The plotting in Episodes 2 and 3 was mostly connecting the dots between 1 and 4. Some sequences (like that droid factory in episode 2) were added at pretty much the last minute because Lucas thought the pacing needed another action sequence. Additionally, the special effects teams made up several vignettes that were approved or denied as production went on.
Probably, yeah, but there are still several LucasFilm people in key positions, including Lucas and producer Kathleen Kennedy, that would prevent anything too drastic to be changed. Probably. A reboot of the whole series in a generation or two might be great, might suck, and would definitely be possible from the rights holders.
Yeah, I think that’s why he’s taking a more hands-off approach to the new sequels. He’s had critical and financial setbacks before: More American Graffiti, Willow, Howard The Duck. I would think that the thing that really hurt him was that Red Tails flopped (I haven’t seen it yet but never heard great things); he had been trying to get that running for decades. Now he’s in his 70s, he has a family, including a newish wife. He probably has retreated from the day-to-day Star Wars running, even though that’s what made him his fortune.
I think if anything, Episodes 2 and 3 were made more closely together than Episodes 1 and 2. Episode 2 cut way back on Jar-Jar, at least.
I thought it was pretty cool. The Jedi aren’t quite as good against an army as they thought they were; their battle plan was flashy and ineffective, much like the Jedi. Count Dooku exercises an old-school courtliness when he calls for a pause in the fighting for a brief parley. That’s something out of a medieval story, and I liked it. Then the flying cavalry shows up, and the battle develops into a front pressing on the Separatist ships, cutting off their retreat as best they can.
Don’t quote me, I think the clones don’t—or if they do, they’re easily editable by the cloners. The stormtroopers are more like farmboy Luke Skywalker, regular joes drafted from the backwaters of the Empire, who think that they’re fighting for a good cause and don’t mind a little collateral damage.