... and if they can get interested in movies for 7-10 y.o. anymore, they probably should watch something else.



The movies aren't about politics and economics. This merely provided a background for the story Lucas wanted to tell, and that was essentially Anakin's downfall.

Lucas put just enough of the background story in the movies to keep it all coherent and form a whole with the war of the OT. Kids are not interested in trade disputes, sure, no more than they were interested back then with the background politics of the Empire. They're not bored because they sure love the silly Nemoidians!

Politics were dealt with much the same way in the OT: a background element.



Of course it's possible, but keep in mind we're dealing with a director who's repeated over and over he didn't make those movies for adults. The adults who enjoyed the prequels a lot simply watched them with the eyes of kids.



You'd be wrong there. The original movies didn't get a much more favorable critical reception than the PT, and that never stopped people from going to see the movies. The OT had fairly little impact back then on people over 16 y.o. (if you wanted to bore to death my older cousins or the babysitters back then, you went on and on with your SW obsession...), and if it draw in an adult audience, it's largely because the VFX were so unique that people wanted to see that, and parents went along with their kids too. The adults cared little for the "silly" characters and story, they enjoyed the movies because they were unique. The prequel trilogy couldn't enjoy that "novelty effect".



And what exactly was Qui-Gon if not the main protagonist of TPM, while Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padmé took the lead in the second one, and Obi-Wan in the third.

As for the space battle, it still makes me laugh personally. It was a rather funny and silly parallel to the end of ANH, all the more funny because the hapless kid is Vader. I don't mind this sort of childish humour, not when watching SW. Lucas just takes himself far less seriously than some of the OT fans.

Beside, this sort of things are commonplace in the OT. Space slug, the end of Boba Fett, Threepio as a god to teddy bears, the Ewoks in the battle and so on. Among that, having a 9 y.o. blew up a ship by accident hardly stand out as particularly "stupid".



Lucas tought Maul had become too instantly iconic, à la Vader. He went for a little more subdued villains on purpose. With Dooku he wanted an understated character closer to Tarkin, and Grievious as a cyborg was largely designed to be a transitional character (who was largely there to split Anakin from Obi-Wan). There are two main villains in the prequels: what goes on within Anakin, and Palpatine. Lucas had to be subtle with Palpatine, not to preserve "the surprise" as so many misjudged, but so Palpatine could credibly deceive the characters down to Yoda. In the third episode he steals the show. Lucas didn't want the Sith apprentices to undermine what happens in the third episode.