If *you* had written the Star Wars prequels

>7. Don't have Anakin confess to genocide and still have a woman fall in love with him just because the script says so.

Not like that's impossible to happen in reality so.....

Also, basically: stick to the pre-prequel EU. That's the basic gist of my story. and some cool parts of prequel EU (say, M Andator and Procurator star dreadnoughts in ep II & III, local sector fleets and a republic navy in the core worlds, the original face that there was a gap between the clone wars and the rise of the empire/palpatine's shit of a few years, etc) Seriously i'd just do that. Retcon Yutrane-Takata tanks as being used by some confederate militias etc

EDIT:

>>@amarielah, I completely concur with that version- in the original films, Vader looks to be an elderly man under the mask, which has always made me think that his turn to the dark side was at an older age than the one presented in the prequels.

originally ep 3 was supposed to be twenty five years before episode 4, and the earlier movies further out. talk about executive meddling/fucking

EDIT: there was a decent spacebattles.com thread on this...

edited 27th Sep '10 4:25:21 PM by BalloonFleet

Star Wars prequels would have been exactly as they were if they were written by me. But that's because I'm as bad at writing romance as Lucas is.

Oh, except Midichlorians. The Force would have been explained with Jungian psychology/philosophy, not tiny critters.

^ Really? Which MBTI would be best predisposed to using the Force, then...?

Beats me! But it'd all be a blatant ripoff of the jabbering from Xenosaga.

Not familiar. But yeah, the Midichlorians Mitochondria (Parasite EVE!!!) whatever-the-hell thing just made me wince.

How do rocks have it then, Qui-gon...?

Maybe Midichlorians were just Lucas' way of showing how backwards that time period was that they really thought something like bacteria could give people psychic powers. They have expanded beyond such pseudo-scientific tripe...

... to actually just relying on faith!

No "younglings." They are CHILDREN. When I hear of "younglings," I think of lemmings or pod people. It completely killed the emotional impact.

Other than that...fix the bizarre age gap between Anakin and Padme. Have someone who's actually able to write romantic scenes for them. I like the idea of having Anakin already be a pilot, not the boy wonder pod racer. Hmm...Don't have Count Dooku be unceremoniously killed off in the first 10 minutes of Episode 3. Make Anakin not a whiny brat but a powerful, yet deeply flawed and trust-issues prone chap who you can believe would become James Earl Jones in the most badass outfit of all time.

Make the force more impressive. Have Anakin chop a mountain in half or something equally ridiculous, and then have the top half explode into shrapnel of rocks used as a ballistic weapon!

^^ Force Unleashed-esque shit. Niice as that'd have some Canon backup. Of course you'd have to rectify that in eps 4-6....

I would have had the prequels written by the people responsible for Darths And Droids.

1. Anakin is born somewhere inside of the Republic and a Jedi from the first scene of the first movie.

2. Padmé is a Jedi.

3. (thanks Mr. Plinkett for this idea:) Jedi are changed completely. Most of them are knights in the traditional medival sense with shining armor (something along the lines of Vaders suit and what Anakin and Obi-Wan are wearing in TCW with capes and helmets (all individual designs). Instead of only lightsabers they can have every weapon they wish to, like laser crossbow, laser mace, laser halberd, laser something, but the most common weapon still is the saber. Some Jedi are more like monks from Avatar - The last airbender, able to stand up in fights only with the force, never using a lightsaber (Yoda would fit in this category nicely). Love is allowed, being pissed off at each other must be avoided at all cost, as this leads to the dark side.

4. Grievous, Maul, Dooku and Mandalorians have bigger roles.

5. Seperatists are not motivated through profits they could gain from war and are more like concerned citizens that think the Republic should be changed, but the military leaders are all complete monsters. Dooku is part of the Mandalorians and they are a culture of supersoldiers, living to conquer. Maul is part of a spartan-like culture only in it for the war, also Maul is some kind of deformed man. This is part of the traditions of his planet to make some of their best warriors more like the gods they worship. With the transformation they get the title of Halts. Currently there are Halts Maul and Halts Opress, living on a volcanic/Mustafar planet.

6. Grievous is a mad chancellor of the republic who was thrown out of office for his idiocy and insane ideas, like turning everyone into cyborgs. When he was thrown out he made his wish come true.

7. Something about Palpatine not being a mastermind. He was politician and wanted to become chancellor, but never had influence in the incidents that lead to it. He also was never a Sith, he was used by some other person pulling a Grand Theft Me, or he repressed some of his memories.

8. The whole conflict parallels to the second world war. A thought bomb, a bomb made through force energy, was made by rogue Jedi (including Anakin) to destory Halts Mauls planet late during the trilogy.

9. Anakin is brought to the dark side because of his pragmatic nature, always wanting to take the easy path (like destroying the world of Maul to put a stop to them, instead of fighting like "civilised people"), and through Dooku/Palpatine.

10. Anakin interrupts the birth of Luke and Leia. Padmé dies because of his dramatic entry but Anakin doesn´t care for the woman that betrayed him. He takes Luke with him but Obi-Wan is able to flee with Leia. Leia is brought to the king of Alderaan by Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan infiltrates the imperial palace inside the plaanets cooooorrrreee to take Luke away from the monster Anakin became. They have a duel inside the crumbling castle with lava lakes, that ends in an incident similiar to the finale of Vin Diesels Double Team.

11. The republic army consists of normal people. Mandalorians and Mauls people are using clones of themselves.

12. The movies all take place during the war.

13. Mace Windu is an actual badass and not just sitting on his fat ass in the temple all the time.

14. Ahsoka is incorporated as Anakins morality pet and as surrogate character to ask for explanations of things like space politics.

That should be all of my most prominent ideas.

edited 1st May '11 4:29:16 AM by NavyTrooperFenson

• Either combine Maul and Dooku or have them work side by side. It's a waste of a character to have an apprentice in the first part and then kill him, then have another apprentice for the next two parts.
• Instead of having Qui-Gon killed in the first part, keep him around for a little longer.
• Take the characters that were supposed to be comic relief and make them not comic relief since Lucas handled this poorly.
• Make Watto less of a damn Jew. Was that really necessary.
• Make Anakin a little bit older, so that he doesn't appear the same age as an actual newbie Jedi and the council have reason to not accept him—he's too old.
• Instead of Sebulba being the jerk, make Anakin the jerk. He wins the pod-race by nearly killing him, so that we see that there is, in fact, something wrong with this guy.
• Find ways to film the movie without having to use so much of the greenscreen.

And that's only some of the improvements I can think of.

EDIT: some more:

• Change the reason why Anakin joins the dark side completely: Say the Jedi's philosophy is to solve problem in a fair and honorable manner, while Anakin wants to solve his problems in the quickest, easiest manner he can, no matter how dirty it is—like when he nearly killed Sebulba. He keeps showing this pattern over and over, which puts him in conflict with the council. Eventually, Anakin joins the dark side because he feels that with their ways he can help the Jedi defeat an enemy.
  • Perhaps it is the dark side itself that is the enemy! Anakin decides that he's going to joining the dark side and destroy it from the inside, and this plan tragically does not work.

edited 1st May '11 6:31:53 AM by annebeeche

• The Jedi Order are asked to find a peaceful solution to illegal Republic slave trading on Tatooine. Liam Neeson and Obi-Wan Kenobi are the ones chosen for the undertaking. Upon approaching the planet, their craft is shot down by unidentified fighters. Their chief task is now to escape the planet, but they have no money for repairs (or a new craft).
• A slave boy, Anakin Skywalker, works at Jabba the Hutt's technical workshop. Neeson and Obi-Wan walk in after hearing that it is the only place for replacement parts and try to strike a deal. They don't have the money, but Anakin suggests that he could pay some of it out of his pocket if they could guarantee a way off the planet for him.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi enters a podrace using Anakin's vehicle and wins (narrowly) via his talents with the Force, earning a substantial amount of money. Jabba personally refuses to accept it and orders the Jedi captured. After being captured, the Jedi escape and recover their lightsabers, but not before collecting information on Jabba's operations — his workshop is a front for slave trading, which funds an illegal clone army for the Republic.
• The Jedi (and Anakin, come to think of it) almost escape before being accosted by Darth Maul, who is overseeing and ensuring operations on Tatooine. Liam Neeson is struck down and Maul escapes Obi-Wan's counterattack.
• Liam Neeson survives his encounter with Darth Maul, but realises that it is too much work to watch over Obi-Wan and Anakin while combating a Sith resurrection. He exits the Jedi order for the sake of freedom in both methods and intelligence. Before that, he has Obi-Wan take the Jedi trials. Obi-Wan then takes Anakin as his padawan.

That's the outline for Episode One, in any case. Liam Neeson ends up as a double-agent sort of dude, kind of in an intermediate position as Christopher Lee claimed to be in. But he's legit. Also, Sean Bean is a Jedi.

• The very first thing I'd do (besides, of course, performing genocide on the Gungan race) is ditch the idea of pre-Vader Anakin as a main character. No matter how Vader is portrayed in pre-Vader form, he's bound to be a disappointment. Keep him as a major influence on events, but in the background. Let the camera pan subtly over his ship as it flies off to some important mission or other, maybe even see him with a flight helmet on, but never show his face!

I do really like the idea a couple posters have presented of him being driven to Jedi genocide by way of Padme, however; that's an extremely sympathetic motivation and in many ways the only way his character, as a whole, could make sense as a mature, non-insane human being. Works even better if he thinks the JEDI killed her. Don't have some pathetic child slaughterfest, though... make his vendetta a slow, patience one that continues throughout the ages as he systematically kills them off.

• With Vader out of the picture, there's more room to focus on other things, like proper space opera and non-teenage character development. Have the Jedi Council be seen from the outside by an average joe Han Solo expy, explicitly note the corruption inherent in decades of power and rule that later lead to their downfall. There's a reason they imploded, and it's not just because Palpatine is a brilliant evil mastermind and Vader is a murderous sociopath.

• Focus on the flaws of the Jedi also leaves room for Palpatine to be more than just a black hat bad guy. Give him some serious character development and a plausible, sympathetic motive for turning to the Dark Side. Focus on the tragedy inherent in an endless cycle of master-apprentice betrayal that both sides enter into willingly because they're just that desperate. Have Vader's transformation a tragic accident that no one on either side particularly wanted, and now Palpy and Vader are stuck with each other for better or worse.

• As others have also noted, the combat droids don't need to be slapstick. It's fine to have civilian slapstick droids, but combat? Really? They should be inhuman, alien, and frightening. Like the floating torture droid in the original movies.

• No trying to shoehorn in every single possible character or tie-in from the earlier movies. No R 2 D 2, C 3 PO, Death Star, Wookies for Wookies' sake, Bobba Fett precursor, etc. Yoda, if present at all, plays a much smaller part, and isn't some god moding saber-twirling acrobat, but rather, a modestly talented, hippie-esque eccentric outcast from the main Jedi due to his complete inability to conform to social norms.

• As far as other villains go - Grievous would be a copy-paste from his Tartakovsky version. Maul serves no real purpose other than to be an awesome fight scene, so I see no problem in cutting him entirely. Likewise Dooku, who just obfuscates things and draws out a shallow plot while eating up running time that could be used to give really important characters more depth. Tarkin should only be present in a minor role as one out of many up and coming soldiers, albeit more level-headed and well-spoken than most.

• Keep the Storm Troopers as the ironic 'good guys,' along with their impressive turnheel betrayal, which was one of the only really great parts of the prequel trilogy. Ahsoka can be a major character and our main representative of the good aspects of the Jedi, and then be killed off during the betrayal scene to drive the shock home.

A TLDR sum-up: No Anakin, no Gungans, scary droids, space opera wherein average guy sees Palpatine and Grievous destroy the Jedi for corruption, but overreact and also take down the organization's better parts, such as like Ahsoka. Even then, they were planning on being more merciful than they ended up being, but then Vader got into the picture with his own motives at play. Now the only way forward for them all is mutual destruction, tyranny, and betrayal - because giving up all that power and apologizing just isn't pragmatic.

I will say this, though - Gotta keep the soundtracks. Those soundtracks were epic.

Isn't pre-Vader Anakin and his transformation into Vader the whole point of the prequel trilogy?

edited 1st May '11 8:39:11 AM by annebeeche

At the time of the new trilogy's filming, yes, that was the point. At the time of the original trilogy? I doubt George Lucas had any really concrete plans or plot points sketched out. The way he retcons things and retroactively shoehorns things in leads me to believe he just makes it up as he goes along (not that there's anything wrong with that). Have you ever read Splinter of the Mind's Eye? George Lucas-approved with implied Luke-Leia romance. The man doesn't work like Tolkien.

He has been making stuff up and changing his plans around since the filming of the original story. Vader wasn't Luke's father at the time he wrote ANH. If he hadn't changed stuff around, the following two films would have been very, very different.

I don't know, I just don't think there would be any way to care about the story if you just did away with pre-Vader Anakin altogether. Pre-Vader Anakin could have been done well, but it wasn't.

In your version of the story, who the hell is the Ensemble Cast we're supposed to identify with, anyway? All I see is various parties fighting each other and a now distant villain who is difficult to care about.

edited 2nd May '11 6:13:23 AM by annebeeche

Make the battle droids more threatening, NO JAR-JAR, have Count Dookou through the whole though thing, hire a decent scriptwriter...

I'm with Red Letter Media on the clone army thing — they should be the bad guys. The good guys should come across as a collective of individuals.

Forget about the Rise of the Empire completely and focus on teams of mercs doing War for Fun and Profit, rogue Jedi, smugglers and Mandalorians.

edited 2nd May '11 8:24:38 AM by SavageHeathen

The Empire would be the good side, and the Jedi would be the religious fanatical terrorists they really are. Anakin would be a casualty of the Jedi plague and his suit would be a constant reminder of his once blind allegiance to their cause and authority.

It would give people "a certain point of view" to consider rather than the assumed "light" and "dark" analogy that's been shoved down our throats for the last 2000 years.

Star Wars isn't itself without being a bit of a fairytale, though.

Are we talking tweaks and changes or complete re-write?

Tweaks.

• Better actors for Anikin, preferably a child and teen that look somewhat alike
• Gungans are fine, no worse than any other alien so far, but strip some of the comic relief out of Jar Jar, perhaps his death can be Anikin's first tragedy.
• Not force-jesus
• Anikin didn't build C-3PO *
  ^{is it the letter oh or number zero?}
• More focus on the war.
• Less stupid tactics from the GAR.
• Slower build up to the empire, focus on tightening control of the republic until the change over seems almost natural.
• Don't explain the force.

Complete re-write

• Thrown everything out, Star Wars isn't a complex political exploration, we need good guys, bad guys and a plot that 6 year olds and drunken teens can follow.
• Clones are the bad guys
• No squicky age gap between Anikin and whom ever Luke's mother is now.
• Puppets and models look much better than CGI.
• Follow the hero's journey, but have Anikin take the easy way out somewhere, or give up.

It's the letter O.

Here's one major complaint I had: If somebody told me that Star Wars Episode 1 introduced a young Darth Vader as a slave on some backwater desert planet, my first assumption would be the obvious "He stages some epic escape, but his trauma and anger from growing up as a slave starts his descent into the Dark Side". Instead, Anakin showed practically no angst about being raised as a slave from birth. And it annoyed me that the freaking Jedi, who are supposed to be the guardians of freedom and justice, don't even lift a finger to help him fight for his freedom.

This is how I would introduce him:

In Episode 1, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are spying on the Neimoidians to find out about their plans to invade the Republic...but they're caught, and they get imprisoned for espionage on the Spice Mines of Kessel, a hellish prison colony. There, they meet a teenage Anakin Skywalker. We learn that he's the child of a woman who was unjustly imprisoned there years ago, and he's been raised as a slave ever since. (We never learn exactly who his father is, but given the circumstances, it's kind of logical to assume that she was raped). Over time, they figure out that this slave boy might actually possess force powers, and they convince him to use them to help them escape, promising to help him develop his powers as a free man. They team up with a Han Solo-expy (probably a noble bounty hunter or smuggler) and stage a daring escape , but Anakin's mother is killed in the escape. They then go on to help drive off the Neimoidians' invasion and save the Republic.

Over the course of the movies, Anakin tries to cope with his anger at the people who kept him as a slave for years, trying to balance it with his desire to fight for the freedom that he was denied for so long. The Han Solo-expy gradually becomes a valiant soldier with a cause to fight for, but he ultimately ends up rebelling against Anakin once he realizes what a tyrant he's becoming. Eventually, as the Neimoidians bring in allies and the invasion devolves into an all-out Galactic Civil War, Anakin is transformed as he witnesses the brutality of the war and the suffering that it brings to the innocents caught in the crossfire. He ends up throwing his support behind Palpatine, who promises to show Anakin a new world where such suffering can never happen. Too late, he realizes that to do this, he and Palpatine will have to become every bit as oppressive as the forces that raised Anakin as a slave.

General suggestions:

• Bring in the leader of the invasion at square one, and play him up as a serious threat.
• Stay consistent with the Sith antagonist (Palpatine's underling, that is). If he kills Qui-Gon in the first movie, make us wait until the third movie to have him get his comeuppance, and don't just give him a Suspiciously Similar Substitute.
• Develop Anakin's love affair with Padme early on. Don't have a ten-year time skip between their first meeting and their first kiss.

Also, there a few things that I think could have been pumped for more drama:

• The Droid Army. Instead of portraying the droids as comic-relief mooks, make them serious threats. We could go in-depth into Neimoidian society, providing some background about the droids answering to some god-like Artificial Intelligence, and include a plotline about the AI slowly overwhelming the Neimoidians to the point that the machines rule their planet a la Skynet, and where the droid army eventually becomes a pawn of the Sith.
• Kamino. Instead of just a brief stop-off at Kamino, gather the heroes together and have them go on an all-out quest for the planet (which they only know about from some dying Jedi's last message), possibly racing the baddies who want to get their first. When they get there, go into some more depth about the clones themselves. They're all raised in some labyrinthine underground laboratory and they're trained from birth to work as elite killers-for-hire. Give some more attention to the serious moral line that Anakin and Obi-Wan find themselves crossing as they decide to use them to drive off the invasion, and play up the parallels that the clones have to Anakin's past as a slave. And play up the Kaminoans' roles as amoral scientists and their disregard for the clones' suffering. Instead of allies of the Republic, they're just sadistic scientists with a commodity that they're willing to sell for a profit.

edited 20th Jul '12 6:38:07 PM by TheMightyHeptagon