How could the Star Wars prequels be better?

I just couldn't buy that in a story.

What is the official explanation for the dark siders that show up in the prequels? I know Dooku left that the Jedi, but what was the canon (EU) explanation as to where Ventress, Maul, and others came from? Seems like there weren't any Sith or Dark Jedi until around the time of Clone Wars.

Maul was kidnapped by Sidious and put through Hell.

The canon explanation for Ventress is that she was raised on a hell-planet, then taken as a padawan by a Jedi who saw her Force potential. Her Master died in battle, and Ventress' anger caused her to fall to the Dark Side.

Ventress was not terribly unique in this regard. Prior to the prequels, a number of Jedi fell to the Dark Side without ever allying themselves in any way with the Sith.

That said, remember that in Episode II, the Jedi completely dismissed Dooku as a suspect in the plot to assassinate Amidala. He was formerly a high-ranking Jedi, so the other Jedi thought it inconceivable that he was involved.

There's a difference between a darkside force user and a Sith.

The Sith are a specific faction of powerful darkside users. They know what they're doing. Dark Jedi are just amateurs.

Being a Sith is more than just knowing how to use force lightning.

Did that kind of distinction exist, even the EU, prior to the prequels?

I agree with the ones who said what they did with CNN was amazing. I think this is all to the Humongous expectations Star Wars had from everyone. I believe everyone expected them to be even better than the originals. Otherwise I see them as pretty good a sellable movies.

In regards to the thread question, I'd be inclined to echo an opinion that's been in the thread. Obi-Wan (perhaps in his first adventure after Yoda finishes training him) should have been the one who discovered Anakin, who would himself be a bit older. Obviously, Qui-Gon Jinn could still be in it, but he'd be the dissenting opinion on the Jedi Council who eventually convinces them to allow Anakin to be trained.

Of course, the whole story would need to be subjected to pretty significant changes. Unless a Jedi is killed by Darth Maul at the end of Episode I, they have no reason to believe the Sith are back and allow Anakin to be trained as Qui-Gon's dying request.

As for the Clone Wars, I guess there should have been more of a gap between Episode II and Episode III, though that's obviously unnecessary unless one is considering the simply ridiculous amount of EU stories set in the three year gap.

I might have further ideas later. It's really hard to say what would work, and it's comparitively easy to identify stuff I don't enjoy very much about the prequel movies.

Dunno, I personally like the idea of Obi Wan being doubtful of Anakin as ideal jedi material, then warming up to him, then finding out he was wrong about Anakin all along.

Of course, I'm going along with my own idea of Anakin being a little older, and a little messed up from the very beginning.

Hey, I have a new idea: instead of being killed by Darth Maul, his trust of Anakin is the reason why Qui-Gon dies?

I personally like the idea of the reason why Anakin is so powerful is because he's seriously brain damaged.

I'm still fond of the idea in the ROTJ novelization, with Kenobi admitting it was his own arrogance regarding his abilities as a teacher. It creates a parallel of with both him and Anakin while putting in interesting spin of the original trilogy of Luke of him avoiding the fate of his father and managing to make up for Ben's failure by getting through to Anakin in a way Kenobi wasn't able to.

It may not have been expanded upon but Obi-Wan did say as much in the actual movie with the From a Certain Point of View speech "I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong." Obi-Wan felt absolutely horrible over the fact that his actions and him training Anakin lead to the "dark times," one of the most powerful moments in the prequels was Obi-Wan's crying in agony over what Anakin did and what he had to do to him. Now that I think about it, deciding that Anakin and Darth Vader were two seperate people was probably the way he coped with it all and not telling Luke about was a matter of sheer pragmatism, how easy would it be to bring it up?

It would make for an awkward attempt at trying to gain Luke's trust in being his student in the Jedi arts.

Kenobi: Don't worry, I will be your master. Soon you will learn the ways of the Force. Now granted I was your father's mentor and under my tutelage, he not only was seduced by the dark side, but helped the Emperor hunt down and murder every other Jedi, but you know, rookie mistake, what are you gonna do?

edited 24th May '11 2:11:08 AM by BorneAgain

I think it would have helped if Lucas made a movie that was more for the original Star Wars fans that had grown up, and not their kids that are probably more likely to be entertained in spite of the cheesy, cheesy Narm and questionable acting.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of the opposing forces in the Clone Wars. While you can easily explain the Republic armies turning into Imperial forces (and some into Rebels) its tricky to figure out exactly what happened to the other side.

Were they all wiped out? Banished to where they came from? All separated from each other, and placed into individual custody within the Republic? And if any of those are the answer why aren't they ever brought up by anyone minus quick references to the war itself in A New Hope?

The thing is, I'd be nice to have some aspect of them that survives in some form into the original trilogy, so that even beyond the rise of Palpatine and the heavy militarization of the Republic, the Clone Wars had an even greater impact than that.

I've been toying around with a concept in my head that the Mandalorians perhaps led the invaders in Clone Wars, but the vast amount of fighters and soldiers were largely pirates and criminals on the edge of the galaxy whose numbers were inflated by cloning. Plus that ties into the decay of the Republic as it was the Senate's inability to enforce law and order in those territories that allowed such a dangerous force to rise up to begin with.

When the Republic does win the war, the Mandalorians are largely wiped out, but much of their armies desert and eventually end up in the Republic planets, most of them becoming criminals and bounty hunters, as there's little chance they'll find legitimate work once their past in the war was discovered.

Thus while there was some underground criminal elements (smuggling, slave trade, illegal spice runs) in the core worlds, the number skyrockets in the years after the Clone Wars, and many of the crapsack elements of the galaxy circa the Original Trilogy can be traced back to the Clone Wars.

Again, just something I've been toying around with.

edited 14th Jun '11 4:02:09 AM by BorneAgain

Its something of a repeat of the Mandalorian Wars from the EU (though if you're throwing out the entire EU in this scenario that objection doesn't matter). Anyway, there is an explanation for why the sepperatists just disappeared in the canon timeline: the bulk of their armies were droids. Which means they can just be deactivated (as Anakin did in Revenge of the Sith) and then scrapped. I should also note that the Rebellion did use ex-sepperatists ships.

Know what I realised?

The PT tries too hard to be Star Wars. The OT always had the benefit of defining Star Wars via its nature — they literally couldn't break the lore because they were creating it moment by moment. This is a major reason why the PT fails. Instead of trying to be narratively, thematically and emotionally consistent with the OT, it tries to hard to world-build for the benefit of the films that are just about to happen. As if it didn't even try to be its own story.

I mean, just think about the differences in how the concept of a Jedi Knight was introduced between the two trilogies.

In the OT, we get a mysterious build-up to an "Obi-Wan Kenobi" who's power is alluded to before we even see him and his position as a Jedi Knight is only revealed after he's saved Luke. The power of a Jedi is already legitimate and plot-relevant in our minds. In the PT, we're told about Jedi and how fearsome they are to begin with via the crawl and dialogue and then some Jedi destroy some droids. We can see what the Jedi can do, but we're never actually told what they are or why.

My idea, make Qui Gon a non Jedi character, but with the same general personality. He could have a friendship with Kenobi, maybe even encourage him to disobey the council and train Skywalker.

What would that accomplish?

Especially given that Liam Neeson makes an awesome Jedi.

Fully agreed, he's the one lightsaber in the dark of the PT. His death was the real tragedy of the prequels, precisely for this reason.

"For thousands of years the Jedi Order served as the guardians of peace and justice in the Galaxy." - I would like to feel the power of this one sentence. The sheer idea that those guys have been around for THOUSANDS of years.

The fact that I never did get to feel this awe, this mystery, is precisely what defines the failure of the PT to me. It's so... clinical, somehow. The way they fall seems so.. ridiculously easy, and totally unbelievable. An order like that must have survived a gazillion of attempts at every single leader, lots and lots of internal power struggles, quite many successful assassinations. Even on their "younglings" (uck) for sure! They would freakin' know how to avoid this. They wouldn't have survived for so long if they didn't.

They just go down much too easily, and without any real buildup.

I was always disappointed that the mental aspects of the Jedi weren't emphasized in the prequels. They turned them into superpowered people with swords rather than mystical knights. I don't why the Jedi are even fighting in the front lines anyway. They made more sense to me as those directing battles and designing strategy then on the ground.

While I might agree that the mystical presentation of the Jedi was lacking, I don't think you can call their fall too easy. Its explained in the films (and elaborated on in the EU) that the Jedi have become arrogant (probably in no small part because they've survived all those attempts for thousands of years). Even then, they aren't brought down by direct confrontation, or by an assassin. They're brought down by a once in a millennia political genius. And even then, said genius had to work for over a decade to topple them, and did it with inside help from multiple traitor Jedi including a Master (Dooku) and the Chosen One. And even then, two of the most dangerous Jedi survived and managed to train the guy who brought down Palpatine and remade the Order. That's not dying easily. That's dying with Terminator levels of difficulty.

I had less issues with the prequels that most, but I'd still address the following points:

Less politics. I don't know what all the political diatribes is the prequels were for, and more importantly, I don't know who they were for. The average action figure-buying kid is not going to care about the politics of the Galaxy, and an adult would probably find it boring; get to the Jedi and Sith already! Some political stuff is necessary, yes, as we need to explain how Palpatine came to power, so things like the ousting of Valorum and the "emergency powers" could be retained, but does any Star Wars fan really want or need to hear about the taxation of trade routes?

And second, please, recast Anakin. Hayden Christensen is pretty, yes, and seemed to have been cast solely based on this. I've never heard of any movies he was in before Star Wars, and only know of one after. The guy can't act; his trying to be dramatic comes off as just plain trying too hard, and he plays what should be a troubled hero-turned-Tragic Villain as an Ax-Crazy Spoiled Brat. I will give him this, though. He does do doofy quite well, and his Anakin is only the second-least sympathetic film protagonist I've encountered, first place going to *shudder* the Beta-Testers.

edited 18th Aug '11 8:47:51 PM by HamburgerTime

^^ Except Palpatine's methods in the PT were dumb and relied on circumstance. Like Anakin's instafall to the Dark Side; he had to rely on Anakin finding out (acceptable), Anakin alerting the other Jedi (which Palpy would think of, but this could turn out really badly for him) and then he had to rely on Anakin showing up while he was losing a duel. Completely stupid. If Anakin had been slower or more obedient, Palpy would be dead before the OT. That ain't a good plan.

^ I think casting is beside the point at this stage; the dialogue was so horribly written that anyone playing Anakin would have a hard time.

edited 18th Aug '11 8:56:36 PM by MadassAlex

Yeah, honestly? I think the real way to make the prequels better is make sure Lucas isn't writing the damned script or directing the movie. The reason that Empire Strikes Back is the best installment of the original trilogy was because Lucas had the least involvement.

Not that he should've had no involvement – whatever the fans might say, he's not that bad – but I think with him, less is more. It's too bad he got to the point where he was rich enough that everyone would suck up to him and no one would tell him "dude, maybe you should get some other people in on this project so it doesn't suck so much".