Like a lot of Star Wars fans, I was very disappointed by the prequel trilogy. I know there have been a thousand threads on this board and on a million other ones about how bad the prequels sucked (and obviously it’s a matter of taste, so I’m sharing my opinion here) - so I won’t go too in depth about what I didn’t like about the prequels. In short, my main complaints were that the CGI was overused and too slick-looking, the movies were too kid-friendly and cute (particularly PM and AOTC,) and the overall charm of the originals (the “used universe” concept and rugged, worn look and feel of everything) was lost with the new films. In addition, I thought Christensen and Portman had no chemistry, the character of young Obi-Wan was dispassionate and uninspiring, and the movies suffered from the lack of a bad-boy character like Han Solo.
I know there are a lot of Star Wars fans here (along with fans of many other fantasy and sci-fi universes). So the purpose of this thread is to imagine yourself as George Lucas, and share what you would have made the prequels like if it was your job to make them.
I’m going to go first.
(Let it be known that I’m probably going to be violating the whole “canon” here, and while I have some knowledge of the “expanded universe,” continuity with the canon is not as important to my vision of the prequels as it might be to some others. I’m inventing some of the back story here with my own imagination. Try to think of my proposed prequels as just being counterparts to the films, and not necessarily fitting in with the rest of the expanded universe.)
I would have gone for a completely different approach, in terms of the structure of the trilogy. I didn’t like the fact that all three prequels fixated on Anakin’s character development, and I especially didn’t like the fact that PM featured him as a cute lil’ kid. So my three movies, Episodes I through III, would be summarized thusly:
Episode I. The back story of Anakin Skywalker, starting as a young man in his twenties.
It would begin with his early life on Tatooine as an erstwhile drifter. He would be taken in by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who would teach him the Jedi ways. He and Kenobi would fight in the Clone Wars as mercenaries, and this is where Skywalker would meet Amidala and subsequently conceive Luke and Leia. The whole Clone Wars would be not a slick, CGI, alien-and-robot-heavy production, but a very gritty and realistic campaign. Think Spartacus and Gladiator, but set in the Star Wars universe. It would focus primarily on human combat, since I believe the emphasis on aliens and droids detracted from the human touch that the original movies had, and mass battle scenes involving aliens and droids would involve CGI which I am strongly against. After Palpatine emerges as the victor of the Clone Wars and is shown to be clearly evil, Anakin goes to the dark side and becomes his second-in-command, Vader. (In my conception, he does not immediately adopt the face mask and helmet. He is evil, but not THAT evil yet. I wasn’t happy with the instantaneous transformation, including height increase, from Anakin to Vader.)
Episode II. The Formation of the Empire.
Everyone knows that the real reason Star Wars is so badass is because of the Empire. This second episode would concentrate on how the people of the Empire, particularly its officers and troops, were recruited and turned into a powerful military force. I reject the idea that “the stormtroopers are all clones.” I would show the Empire traveling to many different planets and recruiting men to serve as Stormtroopers, TIE pilots, and starship officers. This would serve as an opportunity to give back-story to a very compelling character who I feel the prequels completely neglected: Grand Moff Tarkin. He would be a major character in this episode, as his rise through the Imperial ranks is followed. I envision the younger Tarkin as being played by Hugh Laurie. It’s a perfect opportunity to develop the rivalry between him and Vader that is shown in A New Hope. Another character that could be fleshed out is that of General Veers, the AT-AT commander who is shown in Empire Strikes Back. He would be a young man here, proving himself on the battlefield as a Walker pilot. The main battles in this movie would be the many conquests of the Empire over the planets in the galaxy. A wide variety of exotic locales would be shown, but again, the combat would be gritty-looking, primarily human-based, and devoid of the overdone CGI that, in my opinion, cheapened the battles of the prequels. The film would end with the galaxy enslaved and devastated by the Empire, and Vader turned completely evil. He would have been wounded in one of the many battles that he fought in as an Imperial general, requiring him to wear the distinctive face mask and helmet by the film’s close.
Episode III. The story of Han Solo: his early life as a TIE Fighter pilot; his meetings with Chewbacca and Lando; his becoming a mercenary and smuggler; and the beginnings of the Rebellion.
The character of Han Solo was the heart and soul of the original Star Wars movies. His cockiness, humor and general badassness served as a perfect foil to the other figures of the story, and the lack of such a character was a severe detriment to the prequels. My Episode III would feature him as the protagonist. According to Wikipedia, Solo was a TIE pilot prior to becoming a smuggler. And everyone knows that the TIE pilots were the most badass-looking of all the Imperial units. The movie would open with a massive space battle between TIE fighters and Y-wings. Leading the TIE squadron would be an Interceptor. After the battle, which the Empire would win, the Interceptor would land and the pilot, still wearing the TIE Pilot helmet, would step out; an Imperial officer would greet him with “Captain Solo!” at which point he would remove the helmet, revealing a face that looked suitably like a young Harrison Ford. Solo would be shown as a successful Imperial pilot, but gradually becoming disenchanted with the Empire’s evil subjugation of the galaxy. On one mission, he would meet Chewbacca, whom he would rescue from a slave ship. Commanded to kill Chewie by his superiors, he would refuse, and be court-martialed. The two of them would set out as criminals-for-hire, smuggling illegal drugs and working as bounty hunters for Jabba The Hutt, whose relationship with Solo could be established in this episode. He would meet and befriend Lando Calrissian, and win the Millenium Falcon from him in a card game. He would also race Dengar in this film, a race which is described in the Star Wars novel Tales of the Bounty Hunters, which I read long ago as a kid.
This episode would also feature a young Boba Fett. I know this goes against the canon (both the one before the prequels and the one after them!) but I see Boba Fett as one of Han Solo’s fellow TIE fighter pilots who is also kicked out of the Imperial Starfleet and subsequently becomes a bounty hunter. A rivalry between him and Solo would be established in this movie, and there would definitely have to be a fight between the two of them. I’m thinking they could both be pursuing the same bounty for Jabba the Hutt, and fight each other over it.
Finally, this episode would introduce the beginnings of the Rebellion. Wedge Antilles could be given some backstory, along with Admiral Ackbar and some of the other Rebellion figures.
Note that I am not attempting to write the individual story arcs of these episodes - the summaries I’ve given are just meant to be descriptions of the settings and basic storylines of the movies I’m imagining.
Whew. That was long. Now it’s your turn. If you could go back in time and somehow be in charge of the writing and production of the Star Wars prequels, how would you do it? Would you stick to the official canon, or would you invent your own back-story? Would you focus more on Anakin, or would you try to go deeper into the backgrounds of other characters as I have? If you actually liked the real prequels and think it couldn’t have been done any better, feel free to say that too.
