When Revenge of the Sith came out, George Lucas was 61 years old.  He stated at that time, that another trilogy would require 10 more years of his life.  And that he didn't have that in him.  He was willing to close the saga on 6 films, because it very nearly centered around the life of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.  In the 70's-80's interviews, he was much younger and had plenty of life ahead of him, and was therefore more willing to think of and talk about a trilogy centered around Luke Skywalker after Return of the Jedi.  

And going back to your statement that Lucas "made sh*t up as he went along" while filming the prequels:

Midi-chlorians were first conceived by George Lucas as early as 1977. In this time the first Expanded Universe products were being created, including the ongoing Marvel Star Wars series and Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Lucas sat down with a member of his staff, Carol Titelman, to dictate a number of guidelines for these works, explaining various concepts of his universe. Among them were an explanation of midi-chlorians, which Force-sensitive beings were said to have more of in their cells.^[34] However, Lucas did not feel he had the time to introduce the concept of midi-chlorians. The idea would not appear in any Star Wars product for twenty-two years; Lucas chose 1999's Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace as the opportunity to first mention the midi-chlorians, explaining why some were sensitive to the Force while others were not, an issue that he had left unresolved since the original film Star Wars. Lucas incorporated the explanation of midi-chlorians into the film as part of Anakin Skywalker's journey towards understanding the Force.^[35] That Lucas had planned the midi-chlorians as far back as 1977 was hinted at on the DVD commentary of The Phantom Menace, but the details would not be fully revealed for another eight years, coming to light in the 2007 book The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film, the hardcover edition of which had, among its appendices, Lucas' notes for the Expanded Universe authors.

People wait on line 2-3 hours to get on a roller coaster that lasts a few minutes?  In other breaking news, water is wet.

By the way, you should credit the success of Titanic and Avatar to George Lucas as well.  The effects in those movies that everyone wowed over were created by Industrial Light & Magic.  The company that was founded by George Lucas in 1975 because he believed special effects could be done much better than what was available at the time.  But, he must have "fluked" his way into that too right?

Yea, it makes me think of the facebook/youtube videos I see where some random nice civilian gives the shirt off his back to a homeless person. You know, that he magically managed to video tape and post on his youtube account and gets him millions of views. Such a selfless act that was there.

Or the fake, we gave this homeless person this and watch what happens. "oh, you magically where recording the entire thing from start to finish, what luck"

The more someone brags about charity work, doing good deeds, or that they are not homophobic, they are woke, ect the more they are faking it imo and doing it for an agenda/money/ect.

Keep doubling down on that Alex Jones-level cognitive dissonance. You might have a future as a Disney employee.

The special effects company don't magically pull shot lists out of their ass, what is on screen is 100% the vision and direction of James Cameron. By the way pretty sure Digital Domain (Cameron's own company) was the lead on Titanic, not ILM, and Avatar was not ILM either. 

The success of Titanic and Avatar is purely because Cameron understand story structure, can direct action (yes Titanic effectively becomes like a Die Hard film in the third act) clearly and concisely, and understands how to build emotion in a story better than almost any director in the fantasy/sci-fi/action genre (sorry Lucas and JJ, sit down and take notes). 

I don't doubt Lucas had crap ideas like the Midichlorians going back to '77. The Star Wars OT is largely likely a product of fluke in many ways because a lot of his terrible ideas weren't possible due to special effects limitations, Kasdan writing the scrips, his wife performing a huge re-cut on the original Star Wars, his friends helping him polish the dialogue in A New Hope's script, etc. etc. etc. When he was left to his devices, we saw what he did with the prequels and it was horrendous along with forcing aliens into Indiana Jones, something neither Spielberg or Ford wanted to do. 

You want people to take notes on how to take the story from Dances With Wolves and transfer it to space (Avatar)?

Aliens and The Terminator are by far James Cameron’s best films. Those two are amazing in general and yes definitely better than all but the best Star Wars movies, especially Aliens. Terminator II is excellent as well. Titanic is still good but Avatar is just a tedious and boring Dances With Wolves/Pocahontas rip-off. Seriously one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in theaters. The only reason back then to go see it, and most definitely why it’s box-office is so huge, was the 3D novelty. The sequel if it ever happens won’t get anywhere near it and I wouldn’t bet on it getting to half of the original’s take. In fact I assume it will be a worse drop-off than The Last Jedi was to The Force Awakens. Also, multiple Star Wars films, adjusted for inflation, wipe the floor with Avatar, and the 1977 Star Wars also handily beats Titanic.

But anyway.

Yeah Solo flopped big time it seems, not even going to reach 400m, and less than half of what I expected. Sad that it’s affected by backlash because it’s actually a pretty decent movie. Strange though, the numbers aren’t good, for all to see, but when I went yesterday evening the theater was still almost sold out. And it’s not like it’s shown only once a week. Maybe it’s coincidence or it actually does well enough here in Holland.

I've ignored this thread because it pisses me off. But I thought I'd toss my rant in here anyways.

Solo was an awesome star wars origin story. It is not like other SW movies in that there is no epic battle, etc. But, it is an awesome origin story that answers who Han is, how he and Chewy met, what his relationship is with Lando, how he obtained the Falcon, etc. All of which was interesting and a good story. On top of all of that, it left the ending in spectacular fashion where they can really expand the movie universe through other 'story' movies. This movie made me excited to see what they could possibly do with other star wars stories whereas Rogue One was clearly a one-off SW movie.

The only reason this movie "flopped" was due to the media. Before Solo launched the media was still foaming at the mouth with TLJ and began tearing Solo apart by focusing on pre-sale tickets. Like WTF. That created a self-fulfilling-prophecy by creating disinterest among the masses.

The movie was awesome.

The media?  That's a new one.  It's not accurate anyway.  Sure, they reported on the behind the scenes stuff, but closer to release most of the media was on Disney's side.  And the only things I saw reported about pre-sales of tickets were positive, minus those ones from China.  They were even claiming pre-sales of tickets were ahead of Black Panther.  Most of the media even tried to come up with excuses to explain away it flopping. 

No, Solo's main problem is that the general consensus was that it was a mediocre film, which may have still seen it be a hit, except for one thing.  It released after TLJ.  A film that has many fans saying they are just done with the franchise.  And merch sales are proving that they are in fact done.

The media's attempts to downplay the effect of TLJ is kind of sad, to be honest. Not everyone disliked the film, but enough did to cause an effect. Rian Johnson's attitude and replies certainly didn't help. Remember the reactions most had to the director of that Ghostbusters reboot and his responses?

People also forget that not only were reactions to TLJ mixed, but that whole Battlefront 2 fiasco occurred a month before. It put Star Wars in a bad place in the eyes of its fans.

A Wrinkle In Time was written when most of the US was still segregated and discrimination was still legal.  Heck interracial marriages still where illegal in most states when it was first released.  Them adding a few minority characters to reflect current times and not the late 50's and early 60's I have no problem with.  Also its not like all white cast version adaptation of the book doesn't exists.  People that are butt hurt over the inclusion of minority actors in newest version can just watch the 2003 version instead.