Well, no.
All of the stuff he mentioned is exactly what happened in the EU. So as I said, it’s probably a whoosh. 
Because that character is pure unadulterated cringe.
This doesn’t exactly seem super consistent with a fun space action movie.
“Let’s throw in some psychotraumatic explanation for why this character and the plot are illogical” is, perhaps, a less ideal solution that writing the movie to not be illogical.
Neither does a father cutting off his son’s hand in a duel, but sometimes good action movies, even the fun ones, need to acknowledge the dark side of things to have an impact. And considering many of Rose’s subplots seemed to fly in the face of “fun space action movie” (eg: animal rights and the military-industrial complex that figured so prominently on casino-world), her character absolutely could have used a little balancing to help explain why she seemed so… unbalanced. PTSD fits, and helps to humanize the character and make sense of some of her less sensical commentary and decisions. She’s someone who has lost someone close to her, has felt death closing in, and yet feels compelled to take on the weight of the galaxy, to save it from evil. There’s a great character inside of all that setup, screaming to get out if only the screenwriter would allow.
Others have touched on it. What made the OT great was that they were fun movies that had a lot of action with a simple plot. Good guys v. bad guys. White hats v. black hats. Good will win in the end versus evil.
The prequels changed all of that. It shows the Jedi being arbitrary, duplicitous and suffering from bureaucratic inertia. You almost don’t blame Anakin for wanting to leave the Jedi because of their silly rules in not allowing him to be with Padme. You almost for a minute think that his mass murder of children is somehow okay.
No, no, no. I don’t want to think about this duality of man when I watch these movies. Darth Vader is evil. Obi-Wan and Yoda are good. Full stop. Many fans at the time talked about how Lucas was trying to make an analogy to our invasion of Iraq. Never do that. Never have a movie that is supposed to be a permanent fixture about a political question of the day. You can see where he tried to do that and just ruined the OT because of it.
But even with all of that, the prequels made an attempt to be somewhat reasonable and in the same universe. As far as the sequels, I cannot imagine if someone had intentionally set out to destroy the OT, that they could have done a better job than what Disney did. Calling them an absolute abortion would be an insult to abortions.
I hated every character. All of them. Even Luke, the guy you always rooted for, they made him a mean, corrupt, and disloyal old bastard, again, not sure if he really is the good guy. It was literally a destruction of one of the greatest movie series of all times and it was a self inflicted wound. I wished that every character would be killed. I would love to see a statement that yeah, those three movies never happened and make three more in their place.
This is one of the few things that was GOOD about the prequels.
To each his own, I guess, but one of the fun things to me about the OT was being able to unambiguously root for the Jedi. After the prequels you weren’t so sure, so who do you side with? The Empire? Nobody? That’s not very fun.
Phantom Menace came out in 1999, two years before we invaded Iraq. Attack of the Clones came out in May, 2002, less than a year after we invaded Iraq, and well after principal filming was complete. It would be literally impossible for the trilogy to have been intended as an analogy of the Iraq war, and the interpretation doesn’t make any sense even ignoring the linear flow of time.
That said:
This is also wrong. Lots of great, enduring sci-fi has been based on temporary political situations.
Edit: sorry, my dates are a little off: PM came out two years before 9/11, and AotC about 9 months after. We didn’t invade Iraq until 2003, well after both movies were in theaters.
Lucas admitted it:
https://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/16/cannes.starwars/
‘‘In terms of evil, one of the original concepts was how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship,’’ Lucas told a news conference at Cannes, where his final episode had its world premiere.
''The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we’re doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.
Literally no part of that article supports your claim.
I didn’t just make this up. Feel free to disagree, but many, many people said it at the time.
Can’t link it directly. Chicago Tribune
Can you explain how Lucas made two movies that are meant to be an analogy to something that hadn’t yet happened when the films came out?
The third one came out in 2005. I didn’t mean to imply that all three were analogies.
Which undercuts the idea that the problem with the prequel trilogy was that it drew on current political events: Lucas made two shitty movies without trying to do an analogy - odds are pretty good the third one was going to be shitty regardless of what current events might have inspired him.
Well, my main objection of the prequel trilogy was the blurring of good and evil, mostly in the third installment. The Jedi were not all good. The Sith were not all evil in all cases, just sometimes pushing back against the arbitrary Jedi rule. If the Iraq War played a part in that, even subconsciously, then Lucas let a temporary political event ruin a story which should stand permanently.
But it isn’t my intention to hijack the thread about that certain point. My issue is that in real life people typically have mixed motives. In a movie, especially a fantasy one happening in a fictional galaxy a long time ago, far far away, I want to have good guys I can unambiguously root for.
I’m fine with the blurring of good and evil. Just not when it’s done hamfistedly. Like, “Ohhh, look, these arms dealers sell to the resistance/Old New Republic as well as the First Order! I guess that means we’re just two sides of the same coin: the capitalist war machine!” Except then none of the rest of the franchise supports such an equivalence (except perhaps the PT, which also hamfistedly tackled the blurring of good and evil).
One good thing about getting a new trilogy is the myriad of people who have never seen the old ones watching them in preparation. Of all the people I know in this situation the overwhelming majority put “Revenge of the Sith” among the top three movies in the series, most at the very top.
I agree with this. There was just no explanation as to why the Jedi rules than Anakin couldn’t be with the woman he loves makes him go full on evil. Just say, “Your rules suck, and I’m going to be with Padme. If you don’t like it, then I’m out the door. Fuck off.” No need to murder children and decide that you want to join the counter organization and somehow have your face keep getting cartoonishly darker.
I’m not really sure that’s something that the prequel trilogy actually does, at least not on purpose. I mean, they do lead a slave army, and have a practice of taking young children away from their families, which are both pretty fucked up. But the movie doesn’t really seem to acknowledge this. The whole ethical question of creating a clone army isn’t ever addressed in the films (it is a bit in the cartoons) and the messaging on the child separation is murky - Anakin’s attachment to his mother is a big part of his fall to the Dark Side. Did the Jedi Order fuck up by not allowing Anakin to maintain that attachment, or did they fuck up by breaking their rule about only taking children when they’re too young to have formed attachments to their parents? I’m usually a big fan of ambiguity in art, but the ambiguity here feels more a result of the implications not having been really thought through by the artist.