Geez louise, I’m not a big enough fan to presume to re-write any of the prequels; however, I think a LOT of good would have been achieved merely by changing the actor of Anakin from Jaydn Christenson (sp?) to somebody worth a damn.
Uh, weren’t ALL the Star Wars movies intended for kids? Or were those toy lightsabers something I was still supposed to be interested in after puberty?
But quibbles aside, threads like this one never want to face the actual truth: The Star Wars franchise was George Lucas’ personal money machine. He was a multi-millionaire before the newer trilogy, and now he’s a billionaire. After the shitload of money he made selling ROTJ toys, there was never a chance of the prequels taking more adult directions or exploring darker themes the way TESB did (My fave of all of them).
That’s too bad, because the seduction of a good man by evil is the stuff of great drama–it’s a major theme in many Shakespearan plays and other famous works. Even the Bible has Jesus being tempted by Satan. Something great could’ve been made of the original Star Wars material, but it would’ve required a great artist. Lucas proved he wasn’t one of those, merely a good technician who went for the lowest common denominator in pursuit of the biggest returns, instead of pursuing any distinct artistic vision. Oh well.
As for me, I liked the thumbnail sketches in the OP, although I believe it would be a violation of the Jedi creed to work as a mercenary for anyone. I have no big ideas to add, although I like anything that prevents that annyoing pipsqueak Jake Lloyd showing up on film. Notice how he hasn’t gotten any other work since Episode I? Guess there was no shortage of wooden mannequins, which leaves him with zero other outlets for his non-talent.
Hayden. And he’s actually a pretty good actor-see Shattered Glass.
The prequels needed a Han Solo so badly. All we got were a bunch of stuck up prudish Jedi (way to take all the cool out of them btw Georgie) and no lovable rogue. There was a perfect candidate too, Jimmy Smits character should have had his part greatly enhanced as the republics top general during the clone wars (yes, AGAINST clones not freaking robots). It would have made sense since it actually matches the cannon from the first three movies (Leias message to Obi Wan: “you served my father during the clone wars”… hmm really? WHERE WAS THAT GEORGE!), and it would have given someone for the audience to cheer for that wasn’t incredibly boring like Obi wan or a whiny brat like Anakin. A few other things i would have liked to see, apart from all the other very good suggestions so far in this thread:
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COOL Jedi, what we got completely ruined one of the best concepts of the prequels. Why do all Jedi need to dress like hermits? Obi wan dressed that way in the prequels because he WAS a hermit, the old republic Jedis should have looked more like Luke in ROTJ with his cool black get up. Also, please ditch that whole no wives or girlfriends or any kind of feelings stuff, bad ass laser sword wielding hand chopper offer space knights need to be getting plenty of space poontang.
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One main bad guy, Darth Maul. Grievous was cool in the cartoons, thats where he should have stayed. Dooku… man what the hell kind of name is that?? and Saruman is scary as Saruman and Dracula… not in a sword fight. Obi should have lost his cool and lost the fight in the first movie, then we could have a repeat of Darth Maul vs 2 Jedis, this time with him losing to the combined forces of Anakin and Obi wan.
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Cool it with the tie ins to the other movies. No Chewbacca, no death star plans, no C3PO being built by Anakin.
I like Lucas and his work (a lot of people do or this discussion wouldn’t be happening) but he really could have done better. Things I would change in order:[ul]
1 Lose the midiclorians: The force was so much cooler when no one was trying to quantify it.
2 Lucas does not direct: one of the actors said that Lucas would do a movie with no actors if he could. This really shows he can do awesome visuals (I maintain that I, II, and III were wonderful in this regard) but he doesn’t handle people. Best example, listen to the director’s comments for ep. I the only time he talks about the acting is to praise Jake Lloyd!
If Lucas wasn’t responsible for the actors than a lot of the other problems would not have existed—there was great talent in the cast but it wasn’t used well.
3 Anakin is older: I agree that the kid stuff just doesn’t work here. He should have had more of an edge and real chemistry with Padme.
4 No Jar-Jar: Just a silly idea. From beginning to end
5 Lucas does not write screenplay (See #2 above)
6 “Dumb down” the technology a bit. This may be the toughest thing to avoid, but trying to show a prequel with all the new CGI gadgets (which, in his defense, would be nowhere near as advanced if he hadn’t done Star Wars) at his disposal was probably too big a temptation for Lucas. It doesn’t make sense that, during thirty years of colossal military spending, the available technology has gone backwater.
7 Make it more about people and less about robots, aliens etc. One of the appealing things about Star Trek was the use of human foreheads. Even the aliens, for the most part, were humanoid. This allowed us to see a range of emotion that is much tougher to portray without it.[/ul]
I hope this is a given for all of us in these discussion; it certainly is for me. As much as I complain about the prequels, I’d still watch if Lucas made cardboard cutouts of Wedge Antilles and Bail Organa and had them sitting on a couch farting a la Terrence and Phillip.