In the interview, a voiceover mentions that “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” had disappointed some fans despite making close to a billion dollars. The voiceover added, “Lucas says he’s heard this before.” The “Star Wars” creator weighed in:
“What happens is the older people that see the movie get very upset with this sort of younger — you know, I won’t say we’re on the ‘Barney’ level, but on the younger aspects of the movies, and they’re in all the movies. And in ‘Empire Strikes Back,’ the same thing happened to 3PO. They hated 3PO. They said that that jabbering — if that robot talked anymore, it’s so irritating. And then I did the next film, which had Ewoks in it, and these older fans, and the older adults, all went berserk. And then in ‘Phantom’ it was about (the character) Jar Jar.”
I remember hearing older kids saying that the movie sucked because the Ewoks were originally going to be Wookies, and Ewoks were for babies. While I absolutely love Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) with my entire heart, I was exactly the right age for cute, and murder-y teddy bears fighting against evil. (I actually really liked C-3P0 as well.) I think the issue was less about whether this was made for children or not, and more that the series and the overarching story had such mass appeal that people of all ages loved it. That is always going to lead to people wanting the next one to be for them specifically. It’s always been so in fandom.
Jar Jar Binks … well, he was a disaster. That was never about an age group. My sincerest apologies to Ahmed Best. Truly.