For reasons that escape me, Spike is running the Star Wars hexology in an apparently endless loop. ESB is on right now, and they just introduced Yoda, which is what inspired this thread.
Anyway…here’s the challenge. What would you do to change Yoda & Obi-Wan so that they are less, well, buffoonish, with as few alterations to the series’ overall plot arc?
(Obviously Jar-Jar Binks can only be fixed by a bullet to the back of the head.)
I would’ve thought a bullet to the front of the head was the only solution. Also, what story arc?
I agree with most of the recommendations made in the 70 minute episode 1 review on youtube regarding Obi-Wan. Yoda I would’ve made much more passive, much wiser, and possibly even backing obi-wan on the training of anakin from the beginning, going against the other jedi. I think it would’ve put a neat redemption subtext on them for ESB and training Luke. Definitely would’ve ripped out the fight scene.
Of course, I think they also should’ve kept the one guy’s comments from the beginning, saying Vader was a sorcerer and had a lot of people not even trust them. But that would be a massive rewrite.
The reviews that Dr Chicago is referring to? Implement every single thing mentioned in those reviews.
Just because the story is frequently, ah, ill-thought, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Is this the review you’re talking about?
Holy shit that’s good.
The 70-minute review doesn’t really make a lot of recommendations except to effectively switch the roles of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn, which, to be honest, is a great idea but wouldn’t change the fact that the rest of the story is idiotic.
Fixing Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy would involve substantially rewriting the entire story; assuming you did that, you need an Obi-Wan who actually goes through what Obi-Wan in ESB describes; a talented Jedi who takes Anakin Skywalker under his wing and trains Anakin but fails to see the danger he presents. The Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy originally DOESN’T want to train Anakin at all and never acts consistently with his own role - he’s passive as a young man and becomes foolhardly as he ages. We see no friendship between the two, only animosity. The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin is very poorly presented, with more exposition than example, and we just don’t see enough of it. They barely know each other in Ep 1, spend most of the movie apart in Ep 2.
As for Yoda, the character in the prequels is just totally different from the character in the original trilogy. The original Yoda was a mystic. His ally was the Force, and a powerful ally it was. The Yoda in the prequels is a bureaucrat with a violent streak. He can’t see a Sith Lord right in front of him but he’s great at killing people with a light saber.
Yoda shouldn’t have been on the Jedi Council. He shouldn’t have carried a light saber. It just didn’t work at all. He should have been on Dagobah, being all mystic-y. He should have had a working relationship with the Jedi - maybe they send the REALLY awesomely talented but headstrong recruits to him to be trained by the very best, and the Council wants Yoda to come join them but he won’t because he doesn’t have any interest in Republic bullshit and he’d be wasting his time with such malarkey. Let the Council be run by ineffective bureaucrats; let the new characters like Mace Windu cover that. Yoda should have been the near-legendary Jedi super-master on a faraway planet, like the kung fu master on top of a mountain, who dispenses his wisdom only to those who really, really deserve it and who doesn’t fuck around teaching children how to fight target droids with light sabers. Light sabers should be beneath Yoda’s contempt, as in fact they were in the original films. And when Obi-Wan came to Yoda begging for his help in stopping Darth Vader and Palpatine, Yoda should have said no, and explained how Vader was restoring balance to the Force (what the fuck that meant was never explained, so here would be a great chance) and maybe how the Republic brought this on itself or this was the way of the Force or SOMETHING wise and sage - not crawling through a damn ventilation shaft trying to get the drop on Palpatine.
Maybe have Obi-Wan age realistically.
In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan was played by Ewan McGregor who was thirty four years old and looked like this. The original Star Wars is supposedly eighteen years later, yet Obi-Wan is played by Alec Guinness who was sixty three years olf and looked like this.
Living in a broiling hot desert will age you pretty quickly.
One simple solution…Make Yoda speak halfway normal like he did in the original trilogy.
I understand the backwards talking that made Yoda who he is, but if you watch ESB and ROTJ he only speaks weird about half the time…the other half he gets his point across like normal.
Fast forward to the new trilogy and everything Yoda says is ass backwards. EV-RY-THING! It’s super annoying and in no way what Yoda actually sounds like or means.
One problem- we’d never have gotten to see Yoda vs. Dracula.
The two main changes I’d make to the Old Jedi Order are to make combatants the distinct minority, and to remove the rules that Lucas probably invented specifically to enable Anakin’s fall. Yoda can still be the head honcho among the Jedi, but most of them should have the mindset of advisors, investigators and protectors of the innocent, not starfighter-flying, droid-slaughtering badasses.
The other important thing is that Tatooine should be stricken from the prequels. It retroactively makes Kenobi’s choice of hiding place incredibly stupid, and does nothing but screw up the characterisation of the Jedi (leaving Anakin’s mom to rot) and Padme (falling for Anakin despite hitting every “don’t” in the book).
Simple…Make Yoda tell the truth at am important moment
He lies to Obi-wan, he lies to Anakin, he lies to Luke. He is pathologically unable to tell any truth what-so-ever. And that is most of the conflict in all 6 movies comes from.
Obi-wan should have had a test for Luke, “When you can snatch this moon pebble from my hand, THEN you will be ready”.
And Yoda should’ve been blind.
And the training should have been in a monastary that was finally attacked by the Emperor’s troops.
And Luke should have killed the Emperor’s son early on, and then run off to an outpost planet, got a job at the spaceport, and upheld justice for the simple people.
Next by separating the two character, you lose the “Hey, he killed billions of people and tortured billions more–but he took 3 seconds to save his son, so he gets into heaven.” redemption arc. Also, at the end of Jedi, Luke can avenge his dad’s death by killing Vader AND The Emperor and Dad, his tortured soul freed from Vader’s evil betrayal can show up in the fire scene at the end.
We also lose Qui-Gon Jinn. But that means we can lose Jar-Jar too, so it’s all good.
[ul]
[li]a) After the point where the “Certain point of view” speech would have happened, Obi-Wan explains that there was some minor issue with the Trade Federation that blew up into this entire thing. He and his apprentice (Vader) were in a donut shaped space-ship that was blocking a planet accused of illegally downloading MP3s or something. They were there to see if they could prevent a shootin’ war. They got led into a room, weirdly Vader stood right against the door with his back to the room as gas started pouring into the room. It was as though Vader was concealing a rebreather! Anyway, they escaped but their ship was blowed up. A young [del]smuggler[/del] freighter pilot named Anakin helped them escape by blasting through a bulkhead for the promise of a fee later. [/li]** They go to Naboo, pick up the queen and her entourage, so she can complain that like she *DIDN’T download any J-LO, it was one of her maids, and besides, she doesn’t even like J-Lo. As they exit the atmosphere they see a sort of rabbit-thing floating dead in space. Apparently he got sucked out the bulkhead when they escaped. This establishes Anakin as a hero.
[li]C) They get chased and end up on Tattooine (Anakin whispers to Amidala “Heh–what a weird coincidence. My little brother, the boring guy just moved here. If we got time, we can look him up”)…they need parts. This kid (let’s call him Qui-Gon, just for conservation of names) who’s a slave sez "Look–this creepy Jewish stereotype of a bug is keeping my mom and me as slaves. I win you the money to fix the ship, you get BOTH of us off planet-Slavery’s illegal right? Everyone agrees–Anakin vociferously, Vader sez "It’s too much trouble. Let’s just take steal the part and not get involved with the subplot about the kid. So this lets you know that Vader is up to NO GOOD.[/li][li]D) The kid wins the pod race, this earns enough money to buy the replacment parts (Jedi don’t steal). They then order the flying Jewish Stereotype to hand over his illegal slaves. The bug says no, They kill the bug and take the slaves (Freeing slaves is NOT “stealing”…unless you’re Ross Perot)[/li][li]E) They dump the kid and mom on another planet with the remains of their winnings–mom and little Qui Gon live happily ever after. Eventually Qui-Gon grows up, joins the rebellion and takes on the pseudonym “Wedge Antillies” [/li][/ul]
Eventually Amidala and company get to the Republic with their IP records to prove that they weren’t on Galactic Limewire. It looks like they’re exonorated but just then…
[list]
[li]A) Vader says “While I was on the ship, I got the real IP logs. It shows that they not only downloaded J-Lo and “New Kids on the Block”, but they dl’d “Menudo” and the movie “American Graffitti”! And his notes are signed by…the Galactic President! So that proves they were real. Right Mr President? You want to be a hero, so…just say yes”[/li][li]B) The senate erupts. The president does a “Well…I hate to take credit, but it’s important to proctect the rights of everyone so I took a more active role, with my young Jedi buddy Vader…the two of us blah-blah-blah” (He figures Vader wants a favor and hey, he gets to be a hero and Vader gets a kickback. win/win"[/li][li]C) Anakin shoves through the crowd and snatches the IP Logs from Vader. “WAIT!” he cries "Wait! I’ve…um…<cough> read…yeah…I’ve “read” a little about document forging while um…preventing people from smuggling stuff and These are forgeries! They were printed on a Galactic Xerox 2004, but they’re dated 2002!!!111!! :eek:[/li][li]Hubbub erupts as the document analyzer droid confirms it’s a fake. “I demand a vote of no confidence despite this not being a parlimentary system” Sen. Paplatine shouts. The Galactic Pres is ousted, Palpine isn now in charge and the first movie ends.[/li]
Movie two is hopeless. There’s nothing salageable at all in it. So the new plot is:
Gosh! Palpatine has just taken over and Jedi are turning up missing or dead. Obi-Wan, his apprentice, their pilot (Anakin) and ex-Princess Amidala (She’s abdicated her throne) are trying to figure out what’s happening to all the Jedi. They’re in a bar somewhere and are attacked. They get NO force warnings at all. Turns out that the weird-looking people attacking them are force-dead. The force doesn’t work on the, they can’t use the force and they can’t be detected with the force. The creatures are beaten and Obi-Wan says "We’re gonna go talk to a Jedi Master because really…what the fuck was that? Vader says “I’ll keep investigating here in the meantime.”
Vader meets up with Palpatine to get his reward for getting the Galactic President removed from office last movie and Palpatine offers a more permanant arraingment.
Meanwhile, on Degobah, Yoda says “Engaging in dark arts and forbidden practices–clones these are and souls no clones have. Stop this you must before wiped out are all jedi!” Yoda also notes that tAnakin, the force is strong in–come back when all this is over and train you myself I will!
Movie three
All the Jedi are killed, Amidala’s preggers, Vader’s openly defying Obi-Wan, a rebellion is forming (Senator Bail Organa is introduced early on) and Palpatine is getting plot coupons to make a dark force-spell that will give him access to forbidden dark-force powers.
Eventually, Palpatine is sitting on a small island in the middle of a pool of lava surrounded by glowy force lights. Amidala is preggers and with Bail (“Get her away from here! Whatever you do!” sez Anakin) Vader and Obi-Wan are saber-fighting and Vader’s disarmed (“When we last met, you were the master…”). Obi-wan goes to stop Palpatine from completeing the ritual and vader starts to tackle him. Anakin leaps and both of them go tumbling into the lava. Vader survives, Anakin doesn’t, Obi-wan doesn’t stop the bulk of the ritual, but enough so that the emperor isn’t all-powerful. Just…powerful. Vader vows eternal revenge on all the remaining characters.
Amidala and Bail drop l’il Luke off with Anakin’s (boring) brother and then, a few years later, fall in love and have their own baby (Leia). Obi-Wan trains a bit more with Yoda and then goes and hides out on Tatooine to keep an eye on the kid, lest Vader go after him.
And in a New Hope, Vader knows exactly who Leia is when he tortures her…which makes the scene creepy in a good way.
The end.
Well, my main problem at least in the prequels is how Obi doesn’t seem bothered by all the moral problems that the light(non-emotional) side of the force has. I mean I saw that they were ok with slavery. (The clones are slaves.) Apparently the rational point of view when you come across a bunch of slaves soldiers is to use them which is kind of jaw dropping from the good guys. Of course there’s that whole thing of tricking Amidala into bringing him to Anakin. I’m guessing he also figured it’d unhinge the guy and let him win. From a rational point of view it makes sense. However from a moral sense of view it’s just abhorent. (I mean you intentionally bring a civilian into a war zone, use her for psycological advantage and that’s not even considering she’s pregnant.)
Seriously, you’d think following the light side to the obvious conclusion, IE it’s ok if it’s rational, would give Ben alot more trouble just rectifying it. (It made me see the light side of the force as a bunch of emotionless but down right brutal pricks.)
Ross Perot?
Surprisingly, that’s not true. If you take the premise that the Star Wars movies were the result of an RPG campaign that went off the rails at points, and further take the premise that the player playing Jar-Jar is an eight-year-old girl, the character actually works.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
What RickJay said. Yoda needed to be Churchill in the prequels-instead he was Chamberlain.
I’ve just surprised at the level of ignorance of Star Wars in this thread.
Yes that’s bit of a problem but the Expanded Universe material has greatly detailed the bond between the two.
The Republic literally had no army at this point, due to it being abolished by the Ruusan Reformation. They needed a few trillion clones to fight against the droids (and despite whatever Karen Traviss says THERE ARE NOT THREE MILLION CLONES IN A GALAXY WITH AT LEAST A BILLION INHABITED WORLDS) while more soldiers could be conscripted.
Much of what you’re saying destroys the basic story of the Star Wars saga which the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.
Curtis, I think it’s fair to say that few of us find Anakin Skywalker’s redemption even remotely convincing. Even ignoring the prequels, he was complicit in the murder of billions of persons on Alderaan alone. Murdering the Emperor five minutes before he died doesn’t come close to making up for it.
