All those movies did was entertain millions but engage their imaginations, but a certain demographic of "fans", lacking in social or physical accomplishments, have their sense of self-worth invested in non-quantifiable criteria like intelligence, which they feel the need to demonstrate by picking apart things they claim to love. Which is fun and fine, until it turns into a veritable industry on the internet. And they're full of bullshit for the most part. Sure, they don't explain everything, but the movies are targeted at human beings with a presumption of a degree of common experiences from which they can infer answers if they really need them. (They did it with "Lost" too. "Who built the giant Egyptian statue?" Egyptians who washed up on the island like everyone else did, is this really something you needed answered? )

So here's some things I get sick of hearing about Star Wars, because they're either wrong, or unimportant/obvious.

Han didn't really save Luke in the Death Star trench, it was just dumb luck.

In the experience of the wisest man and best actor in the series, there is no such thing as luck. Why would Darth Vader give a shit about Admiral Motti's lack of faith? Especially since he could choke him? Unless, as one in whom the Force is strong, he happens to be prone to unclear visions about his future...and he knew that somehow someone among the Death Star crew having lack of faith would be a major inconvenience for him in the near future... Like a TIE pilot who panicked over a near-miss, instead of staying on target?

It's just as likely that people who are strong in the Force sense danger, rather than hostility. Vader never sensed Han aiming at him, because he was in no danger, Han was going to miss. The danger came from his own subordinate freaking out and crashing. That's how good guys win in Star Wars, they make friends. The bad guys lose because they suck and have no friends. The one time a bad guy made a friend, was Palpatine, and he overthrew the Galactic political order and became Emperor. And went right back to being a shitty friend and not following up on that thing that worked for him. Nobody hits anything in that trench unless they have the Force, like Vader and Luke. The important thing is that Han tried, because he cared about his friend.

Obi Wan had lots of adventures with Artoo, how did he forget just like 20 years later?
First of all, he was probably lying. This is hardly unprecedented in what he says to Luke, because Luke's priorities aren't exactly in the best order, nor does he ever display anything remotely resembling good judgement where his father in concerned. Jedi are supposed to be all peaceful and serene and calm, and that's Luke in crisis after crisis in RotJ, except when Vader is involved, and then he's a screaming mess who seems like he might still be annoyed about the power converters. Telling Luke "Hey, yeah. This droid was my and Anakin's sidekick way back when," could have any number of unpredictable reactions.

Also, he didn't technically lie. He said he can't seem to remember owning a droid before. Did he ever own one? He sometimes used some, but was there any indication that they were his personal property or that he gave a rat's ass about them, even the ones who helped his ships. Everyone takes a moment out of being ecstatic their planet blew up because Artoo took some damage, but does Obi Wan ever seem to give a shit about the droid that got dismembered helping him rescue the Chancellor? Plainly, this is not a droid person, about whom we can definitively say he's lying when he claims not to have owned one. We're also pretty sure if he did own a droid, it was never Artoo. R2D2 first comes into the story as a employee of the Naboo royal household or fleet or whatever, and presumably switches teams with Threepio once their respective owners get married.

But getting back to the original point of Luke management tactics, it seems pretty clear that Obi-Wan's comment is more directed at Artoo not to spill the beans about his history with the parties involved.

Why'd they mind wipe 3PO? That was stupid retconning, or, more precisely, a cover of Lucas' ill-advised retconning.

Whatever the likely motives of the author, if it's a narrative fit, ou can't call shenanigans. That's just being true to the characters. The whole point of a story is to tie it together using things people would really do. And when you have on your hands a robot with no apparent sense of discretion, who fifty years later will still show an appalling lack of grasp of appropriate timing, and who knows secrets that could burn the galaxy, you erase his damn memory.

Also, when you have a surprisingly high-functioning, yet erratic artificial intelligence device, programmed by your universe's equivalent of Damien Thorn, you ALSO wipe its memory! This is just common sense people.

Well it was stupid to shoehorn that bit into the prequels about Annikin building him.
No, it wasn't. The whole point of the story is that Vader's kids fix what he broke. Luke, Leia, their BFF, and the droid Vader built, and his BFF. It's an extension of the theme! They wiped his memory and put his tools to good use. And it was just about the only thing that they could legitimately do to tie Leia back to her father, in case it was necessary someday. Plainly, the trio intended as much, since Bail let her go into politics, rather than Alderaanian WitSec, and fifty percent of the Jedi order was tasked with guarding Luke.

Don't they have e-mail in a galaxy far, far away? Yes, since they used it to send the plans to Leia's ship. But obviously they prefer Skype or Facetime, since their cameras are much better than ours. How would interstellar e-mail work anyway? Given that even our inferior galaxy is quite capable of tracing and tracking calls and transmissions, sending Obi-Wan a distress signal on a planet currently being orbited by a Star Destroyer is just asking for the Judland Wastes to get turned into a glass parking. With the ubiquity of sensors and detection devices, face to face is probably the safest method of communication in a lot of ways. And since most of the movies are about covert operations, that makes sense.

Chewie deserved a medal.
No, he didn't. He had no agency. If Han had said "Screw Luke, we're paying off Jabba and heading to Space Bermuda with the rest of these boxes of money," Chewie would have done that. Han and Luke made the heroic choices, and Chewie did what he was told. He got to be in the ceremony, because Han's cool about that stuff, but he didn't deserve a medal.

The Jedi are hypocrites, since they use mind control.
Well, we don't actually know how it works, so that's jumping the gun, isn't it? But isn't it funny how we never see the Sith using it (I don't know or care what they do in the books or Knights of the Old Republic), when that sort of thing should be right up their alley? Unless they can't for some reason, because it doesn't work with the Dark Side of the Force, which is all about anger, fear and aggression. Meanwhile, a lot of what the good guys say about the Force has to do with "binding the galaxy together" and stuff like that. They're all about the caring and being one and that kind of thing. So what if their mind trick is actually just something like that? Notice, they don't usually give orders, they state a fact, like they are asserting a reality. What if they are using their honed empathy and unity to impress upon the subjects just how IMPORTANT this state of affairs really is, and what depends on it or how much they care? This concept gets communicated to the subject on such a deep and profound level that they can't repeat or express or explain why for just a moment, they chose to agree with the Jedi's certain point of view, but for that brief point of choice, the subject was of one mind with the Jedi. The sort of people shown to be immune are pretty much greedy assholes, one of whom admits it flat out by saying only money changes his mind. Qui-Gon wasn't trying to cheat or steal from Watto, he was just trying to get him to accept actual legal currency. Watto didn't care how important it was to Qui-Gon and the universe and everything that he be allowed to buy a hyperdrive and take the queen to safety. Bib Fortuna was brought to accept that Luke really needed to speak to Jabba. Luke wasn't deceiving him either, since unbeknownst to Bib & Jabba, talking to Luke and giving him what he wanted was Jabba's only hope of surviving that day. Luke knew it, and he conveyed that to Bib. But when he tried to do the same with Jabba, Jabba couldn't open his heart enough to feel what Luke wanted to make him understand. His loss. Obi-Wan does the same thing with the stormtrooper cops. It's no skin off their ass that they let him & Luke through, but the Jedi is going to try to prevent lots of pain and destruction, and at some level, even stormtroopers get it. Obi-Wan's use of that trick in the prequels was entirely benevolent. He tried to reform a drug-user. We never see what the guy does, but he told him to reconsider his life. This wasn't the Firestarter dad telling him to go cold turkey, it was a cri de coeur to a youngster whom anyone could see was heading down a horrible track. But he was calm, because he's a Jedi, and perspective is what they're all about.

Luke's a mass murderer.
No, he's not. The Death Star was self-defense. Everyone who died on the Death Star chose to be on a superweapon that was all about overkill and collateral damage. Or they didn't, but since Luke didn't put them there or force them to be aboard, it's not his fault. Jabba's crew was also something he went out of his way to avoid. He gave Jabba every chance for a peaceful resolution, but was rebuffed. That's what he was taught - "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack". It doesn't mean that he can only parry, and never strike, but it does mean he can't pick a fight without going to the Dark Side. And he doesn't. He keeps on offering Jabba a chance to make amends for his wrongful imprisonment of Han & company, but it would be just as evil to let Jabba get away with it, so Luke does the only thing he can, catches the plank he's pushed off of, flips back onto the skiff, catches his lightsaber (which is not as random or clumsy as a firearm, and has a defensive function), and sets about freeing his friends and blocking the shots attempting to kill him. When absolutely everyone on the sail barge chooses to side with the evil slug, instead of the magic-wielding self-defending killing machine, in apparent commitment to evil over and above their own personal safety, he makes the tough decision to blow it up for the safety of his friends, since they've all demonstrated their commitment to killing said friends.

Luke doesn't contribute anything to the plot of the last movie.
Because if they weren't preoccupied with Luke, Vader & the Emperor would totally have sat back and let Han take down a legion of their best troops and their shield generator with it, or let Lando and Ackbar take out the Death Star and their fleet. Clearly, he was totally irrelevant once he was done being the sine qua non of Han's rescue.

Lucas tries to shoehorn way too much from the original trilogy into the prequels.

What was in there? A cameo by Chewbacca, when Yoda visited his home planet, that we'd have never noticed if Yoda had not addressed Wookie # 2 by that name. An insertion of the Millenium Falcon in the background of a scene, that I never even saw, even with Lucas pointing it out during the director's commentary. A childhood frenemy of Anakin being named Greedo. Jabba the Hutt kicking off a big sporting event on the planet he rules... because that's not a natural or normal thing that ever happens. Jabba and Chewie had no dialogue or interaction with any main characters. Vader and Obi Wan were in there, because that was the story we were promised. Yoda was introduced in the OT as a figure from their backstories, so he was kind of necessary, and in fact, his role was actually a degree removed from the literal description he was initially given, i.e. "the Jedi Master who instructed [Obi Wan]". So he really wasn't inserted into the prequel trilogy any more than he needed to be. Some people cite the duel he fought with Count Dooku, but Yoda's character and interactions are largely informed by his reputation. Most people say that you should 'show, don't tell' when establishing a character, and that fight was pretty much the first thing we got that "showed" why this guy is the most highly regarded individual in the Jedi order, with much of Dooku's dialogue throughout confirming how their performance is an indicator of their comparative power. So it mattered and had a reason to be in there.

I already made my case for Threepio. And Artoo goes with that.

It was stupid to hide Luke on his father's home planet, under his own name.
If it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid. As for the plausibility of the strategy or its success, Tatooine is established back in Episode 1 as a planet whose inhabitants are not easily detected by the central authorities in the Republic. Watto was adverse to accepting the legal tender of the state, and he only cares about money, so presumably it wasn't for some ideological or sentimental motivation, ergo, they are far enough out in the boonies that the money of the only known polity has trouble passing. So what the odds that the paper trail of a person whom Vader does not even know exists, will come to his attention? And their name is a real word, making it more probable that an unrelated person would share it. And even if he did notice that his step-brother is raising a nephew with Anakin's last name, what does that mean? It means he has to confront a point in his life when Anakin was a better version of a human being. It might mean he has to confront feelings and love and stuff. And if not, SURPRISE JEDI MENTOR DESERT HOBO ATTACK PREEMPTIVE DEFENSE OF AN INNOCENT BABY! Not so hot for Vader now, is it? Vader might think he's hot shit, but Obi Wan beat his ass like a rented mule the last time they fought before his hermitization, and even in their final confrontation, Vader didn't get any clear advantage, until Obi Wan took a dive. So it's not like they left Luke all vulnerable or anything.

Ewoks
They are A. for kids, and B. not at all what their superficial resemblance to teddy bears might make one assume. A major theme in Star Wars is that things aren't all they appear to be at first. A desert hermit turns out to be a former general and hero, a whiny teen holds the galaxy's last hope, and a big-talking bush pilot fresh off the farm does what the cream of the Rebel pilot corps seems to consider impossible. A planet seems devoid of life, moments before it claws half the hero's face off, Imperial analysts dismiss a settlement as unlikely to be significant, when it is the rebel base they are actually seeking, and a little green frog guy turns out to be "a great warrior" and Jedi Master. Oh, and a bunch of cute, harmless seeming teddy bears turned out to ferocious and brutal warriors capable of going toe-to-toe with an entire legion of the Empire's best troops. Wicket was probably luring Leia into a false sense of security to eat her until she proved her warrior chops by taking out the scout trooper, so he brought her home for dinner in the good sense, and even got her decent Ewok clothes. The dumbasses who fell into an ANIMAL trap, they're probably not worth the effort, and protein is protein. Oh, and the Ewoks bait their traps with meat. They prey on carnivores. Big carnivores, who need a huge piece of meat to tempt them, and a five-person sized net to hold them. And they apparently hang around where they expect carnivores that large to pass, ready to fight them with primitive spears. Which reminds me of an anecdote I read somewhere about troops in the third word trying to put down an insurrection, when an armored car returns to base with a spear stuck in the side. One soldier scoffs at the sight saying "how can these idiots hope to win fighting armored vehicles with no better weapons than spears", to which his boss replies "How can we hope to defeat people who are willing to fight armored vehicles with no better weapons than spears?" Those guys they can't hope to beat are the Ewoks. They aren't stupid, they know better than to fight out of their weight class, but they're close by and ready anytime a non-furry person finds themselves vulnerable. They knew the vulnerable point in the shield generator's bunker, and even figured out the diversion to get the guards away from the door. A single Ewok, on his first ever speeder bike flight, figured out how to stabilize it, before crashing into anything. It's a PG movie, featuring kiddie characters, of course they're not going to show the Ewoks taking the casualties they must have. But those kick-ass little bastards pressed the attack to the end. They were sufficiently confident in their own strength to try taking on an imperial walker in a tug of war. They lost that one, but they had alternate (and more successful) traps as back-up. And for all that they look plump, who has ever seen an anatomical diagram of an Ewok? How much of that mass is muscle under those fur coats? How did they build that elaborate tree-top village with access to no sophisticated tools or machinery? They are plainly not stupid or as clumsy as people like to write them off. They actually had hang glider technology, and had the manpower to booby trap a number of paths with large enough logs to beat walkers, overnight.

All you need to know about Ewoks is right there between the lines. The imperials wrote them off, but the movie didn't end with stormtroopers playing music on ewok body parts. Yub fucking yub, bitches.

Gungans
You don't hate them, you hate Jar-jar. You know who else hates Jar-jar? Qui-Gon Jinn, and all the rest of the Gungans (remember, heesa been banished for crashing the boss's heybibber). Just watch Qui-Gon in his interactions with Jar-jar; either Liam Neeson is being uncharacteristically unprofessional in allowing his annoyance at having to act opposite a CGI character to show on-screen, or Qui-Gon was no more amused by Jar-jar than we were. The point was to show how he valued life and stuck with people who did him a solid, that he was not the type to turn his back on you, not because the Jedi Council says so, or even if you're a clumsy & shrill idiot with the table manners of a hungry hungry hippo. And in the end, keeping Jar-jar around allowed the queen to contact the Gungans and acquire the necessary ground forces to draw out the Trade Federation army. The point is that Qui-Gon's hunches and instincts pay off in the end, no matter how many "useless lifeform"s the gang has to cart around the galaxy. This is important, because most people's attention is going to be on the seemingly wrong move to insist on training Anakin in spite of the Jedi Council's misgivings, and in contrast to what we know Ani will eventually do with that training. Unfortunately, he never got to follow through on account of dying. It goes to show that Anakin did not have to go bad, that a man who was generally right about those in whom he took an interest saw something worthwhile in him, just as Jar-jar proved useful, long after his apparent expiration date.

And clearly they listened to us, since Jar-jar was hardly in the later films. Yes, there was the bit where he proposed giving the chancellor the first special powers that would lead to the imperial takeover, but isn't that what we would want? Whom would we prefer to blame for being the Emperor's patsy and dupe than one of the most reviled characters in the franchise?

As for Boss Nass' apparently convenient choices to help Amidala and promote Jarjar, that makes sense too. As Obi-Wan points out, they're stuck with the Naboo, and once their queen makes the appropriate gesture of respect to prove she's willing to meet him halfway, it proves the Naboo will make better neighbors than the Federation, so he joins in the fight to liberate his homeworld. Plainly, there are deals going on here, otherwise, why is he the chief honoree of the triumphant procession? He was conspicuously absent from the battlefield, and there were no glowy bubbles for Anakin, Obi-Wan, Tanaka, Tarfuls or Jarjar, who actually did fight. Unless Boss Nass was accepting the award as representative of his people, in which case we are witnessing the Gungans' political ascension as a race. Before the events of the war, they were all but ignored on their own planet, which was named after the other species that lives there, had no say in the selection of the ruler, nor apparently any representation in the Republic Senate. That's why Boss Nass was so hostile to Obi-Wan's admonishment that the Gungans were linked with the Naboo. He didn't suddenly start helping because happy-feelings and it was time for the third act, he held out for political recognition, and the next film shows it has worked. Even if the Senator for the planet still comes from the Naboo, it is the one Nubian politician most likely to be acceptable to the Gungans, and they have a representative, who has speaking privileges and can propose legislation on the Senate floor. That would also explain his sudden promotion of a clumsy idiot as bombad general. Tarfuls was still there to do the practical work of running the show, but Jarjar as the figurehead was Nass' own gesture to the Naboo. And since it was a diversionary expedition, that was not expected to defeat the batte droids, Nass could use the Naboo-friendly Jarjar as his scapegoat, so their people don't blame Nass for the deaths he used to buy himself a seat at the table.

The ENDLESS talk about trade and politics RUINED Phantom Menace
There was as much talk about diplomatic privileges and the Emperor disbanding the Senate, and the Death Star's role in the subsequent administration of the Empire in A New Hope as there was trade talk in tPM. Bad guys need reasonable motivations, and we were told enough. The Federation was forming a blockade because of taxes and trade. That establishes that they are greedy bullies. That's all you need, and that's all they said. There was no discussion of the issues, because they were not germane to the plot. The movie didn't force anything on us we didn't need. As for the politics, the film practically spoonfed the audience the bare minimum to explain how these events advanced the agenda of Darth Sidious. It also established how, in spite of the best moves of the Jedi and much heroism from the queen and Gungans, Sidious was still able to come out on top. When the good guys have magic powers, invincible swords, vastly improved fighting moves, and robot servants whose capabilities rank somewhere around that of a genie, it takes a lot to make an antagonist who seems sufficiently threatening. Well, the handful of scenes that mentioned politics in tPM basically established that this villain is someone the good guys can't do a thing to stop with all those aforementioned capabilities, who, in fact, is going to turn those abilities to his own agenda! THAT is a "baaad" guy. Nothing stops him and nothing beats him over the course of six movies, until love rears its end at the very end. It's a story numerous other properties, like the Smurfs and Care Bears, tried to tell us, just not nearly so effectively. Star Wars out-Cared the Care Bears (and Ewoks would probably out-Bear them as well)!

Boba Fett doesn't do anything.
He was the guy Vader called in to find Han and co, when the Imperial military failed him one time too many. And he did it. He saw through Han's best trick, the one thing he does that actually gets a grudging compliment from Leia. He got to Cloud City first, and brought in Vader. And he managed to get Han's body out in spite of Luke's attack, without seeming to break a sweat. And he's on a very short list of people to whose complaints Vader actual deigns to respond. The guy who once commanded a planet-destroying ship feels the need to warm Fett "no disintegrations." He might not have technically done anything on screen, but the movie shows why he's supposed to be impressive. And he died in classic Star Wars villain manner, turning his back on someone he thought was not a threat, because bad guys fixate on power, which Luke was demonstrating. When you read between the lines of Boba Fett's life, you get the story of a kid raised to be a badass warrior and mercenary, driven by his father's death to be better and tougher, until he was good enough to make a reputation to catch the eye of Emperor's right hand man. When he got a chance to work for the most powerful customer in the galaxy, he delivers in spectacular fashion, and is rewarded by being allowed to collect a huge score. The bounty Jabba put on Han really seems to live up to Greedo's threat, since it impresses a Rebel general enough to give Han some personal time to clear it up, at a rather desperate point in the Rebellion's fortunes. And that's probably the pinnacle of any bounty hunter's career. His reputation and fortune both assured, so what does he do now? Well, he hangs around Jabba's court basking in the glory for a while, and schmoozing instead of working, and loses his edge and makes the sort of rookie error that he never would have while building up the rep he had when Vader hired him. Maybe it even stung him a little seeing this new unknown hotshot come in with Han's bigger, stronger henchman on a chain, showing the (literal) balls to play chicken with Jabba himself, and win the sort of approbation Fett probably was used to getting himself from players like Jabba and Vader. So even after it turns out to be a scam, he's still smarting over seeing someone else step into the limelight, and decides he's going to one-up himself and capture a Jedi. But he's off his game, and makes some bad choices. He tries to catch a Jedi with a rope, and then ignores the danger the "captives" represent, only to end up taking a header into the Sarlaac.

As with the Ewoks, there is more of a story there than is actually spelled out for you. You just have to be willing to see it.

What about Jango Fett?
Well, I suppose they did not have to use Boba's father as the progenitor of the clone army, but it does kind of explain how every suit of armor in the galaxy looks like it came out of the same workshop of a production design or art department.

Lucas is bad at dialogue and other aspects of film making.
People make films to make money. If Lucas is wrong, which other single human being could possibly be right? And as far as art goes, we're still talking about it, aren't we? He made you feel something, didn't he? What other responsibility does an artist have? Is Lucas' dialogue better or worse than Jackson Pollack's grasp of perspective?