They’ve already been reconned away in my head.
It’s the main reason that I am so fond of the game Knights of the Old Republic 2. It’s a rushed, hastily cut game with annoying glitches and holes, but the plot and the character of Kreia are excellent IMHO. I’ve never been able to come to any logical conclusion other than that the Jedi are fanatical idiots, superior to the Sith only by virtue of not being Darwinian thugs/cardboard cut-out evil. Any monastic cult that preaches the extinction of love and attachment for its adepts is kinda fucked in the head. That’s not “balance”, it’s the absolute opposite of that.
Don’t forget the casual attitude towards mind-controlling innocent bystanders. The bit where Qui-Gon tries to force Watto to sell the ship part for what he considers worthless credits shows that the Jedi’s attitude towards business negotiation is ‘take it or I’ll force you to change your mind’. That’s pretty chilling and unpleasant, but is presented matter-of-factly. The bit in a E2 where Obi-Wan casually mind controls the death stick dealer to ‘rethink your life’ shows a casual attitude towards other people’s free will. Again, it’s supposed to be a throwaway ‘don’t smoke, kids’ joke, but comes off pretty sinister if you think that people manipulating your mind on a whim is not a good thing.
When they’re going around just casually poking into people’s minds like that, it’s harder to feel really bad when they finally do fall in E3.
That’s introduced pretty effectively in KOTOR 1, for that matter, which does humanize the Sith and hints that there may be a point there. 2 fleshes it out a bit more, and it’s a shame the game wasn’t really finished. The last lines of the Sith code are already used at great length in KOTOR:
“Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.”
There’s a positive element there. It’s not “I’ll kill everyone,” it’s a mantra of personal empowerment. The guys at Bioware had to come up with a metric shitload of content to fill the game, and it forced a bunch of Star Wars fans to think this through.
A better screenwriter could have made the Jedi Order in the prequels seem old, sick, corrupt and gross, but a few minor changes isn’t going to cut it; we’re talking about a very different story.
I could think of a thousand different reasons why that’s a good idea, but here’s just one out of a thousand; imagine how having Yoda NOT on the Jedi Council, but on the outside looking in, improves things:
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It makes the character of Yoda consistent with Yoda from Empire and Jedi. The prequel Yoda is a completely different character who says vague “wise” things but is violent and kills helpless soldiers and acts stupidly. The original Yoda was a wise old hermit, a classic character, who seemed to hold weapons in contempt and was caught unawares by nothing.
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It makes Yoda a much more interesting character. Rather than being just another Council idiot who doesn’t know what’s going on, Yoda now stands in opposition to the Council. You can have a bunch of arrogant elitist assholes saying “Durrrr durrrr, we know what’s right” while Yoda says “Look like a bunch of assholes you will” and leaves for Dagobah in frustration. There’s a war coming? Not his circus, not his monkeys. Wars not make one great.
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It allows for the correct of so many other plot problems I don’t even know where to start. For one, it means you don’t need the inexplicable “our powers are weakening” nonsense if you just establish that the Council are arrogant dicks and are authors of their own demise.
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It would actually allow for onscreen portrayal of the kind of fatigue, apathy and corruption that leads to dictatorship, which the prequels currently don’t have.
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It means we don’t see a CGI Yoda with a light saber, which was the stupidest fucking thing ever.
I still say that if you absolutely must have Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, he should be standing perfectly still, forehead wrinkled in concentration… while his lightsabre whirls around him like a squirrel on amphetamines.
I agree that would have been interesting to see, but it doesn’t work with the plot timelines. Anakin hasn’t been properly turned yet and that’s the big crescendo in Episode 3. You might be able to weave in him being trained by Obi-Wan (which is absolutely required since it’s explicitly stated in the OT) with him getting some suggestive comments from Palpatine or playing on his impatience and impulsiveness during the training but you can’t outright make him trained as a Sith from the get go or else the entire story breaks down.
I agree. This is why “it’s not explicitly stated” is a weak criticism to me. It’s super obvious that the Jedi are fundy psychos.
Unexpected Dresden Files…
Argh…you had me right up until the end there.
Seriously, this is an amazing change. Having Yoda be a naysayer both raises his prominence in the overall story and allows for Luke’s training to become an opportunity to reset the Jedi orthodoxy to something more pure. Perhaps instead of a hermit yelling at the Jedi from his lawn Yoda could be the primary headmaster of the Academy, basically Dumbledore to the Council’s Ministry of Magic. Windu as Fudge. Yoda’s shaping minds but ultimately outside of the political power structure. Perhaps at some point the Council tires of his bellyaching and fires him which is what allows a dark force to enter and start manipulating Anakin on behalf of Palpatine.
BUT…I admit I fucking loved Yoda with a lightsaber. It’s silly, but good silly.
If you ever get a chance to make this movie, give me a nudge. I’d drop $20 to see it.
I know, right?
I’d have turned him at the climax to Episode 2. Give him a whole movie to stomp around as the villain.
I don’t know how many of you have read The Book of the New Sun, but Severian’s journey from apprentice-torturer to big-time badass would be a great template for Episodes 1-3.
That would be difficult to pull off, particularly for the audience… unless the story is from Obi-Wan’s POV and it’s more about Obi-wan’s escape from Vader’s grasp, culminating in Vader’s horrific injuries and the suit (like E3 actual) and Obi-wan making good his escape as a sort of victory, rather than the defeat it was effectively portrayed as. The Jedi are mostly wiped out/annihilated early in the movie (maybe the culmination of the first act), and then the rest of it is the escape story so the audience can still somehow walk away feeling good instead of… Nooooooo!!!
In fact, as I believe someone stated up thread, the whole prequel trilogy should have been from Obi-Wan’s POV. Might have also helped the audience to get past the whole “How are the Jedi not seeing this!?!?” part of Anakin’s corruption by Palpatine. I mean, we would obviously know it’s happening, and there would be plenty of opportunities to insert hints, indications that something is not quite right, but more mystery goes it would really have helped keep the reputation of the Jedi intact, if that was in fact Lucas’ goal, rather than to portray them as part of the problem leading to the Republic’s collapse.
Itself not a bad idea.
Making Darth Vader into Space Jesus was a stupid idea. Darth Vader in the OT was the bad guy. Great character - as the bad guy, as a supporting character. Structuring the entire story around him just throws the whole damn thing off balance and results in monumental idiocy like him being the product of a virgin birth.
Well, considering Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford are even older now than they were when they made VII, VIII, and IX, and that Carrie Fisher has passed on, I really don’t see how George Lucas can do justice to the story any longer. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Didn’t. The time to be involved is gone now. Is he planning to digitally recreate the key actors? Are Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo a part of this vision?
Well George can’t do anything now - he doesn’t own the property anymore.
Though if one decides to do a trilogy on the ‘next generation’ there isn’t really any need to have Luke, Han, or Leia (you can say they’ve passed away, or are somewhere else in the galaxy). And if you do need them, you can recast - or have Luke ‘force voice’ stuff.
I really do think the best move now is to diversify. Put the entire ‘Skywalker’ thing in a box under the bed. Move on. Do other stories. New stories. New genre. It doesn’t all have to be space opera. Hell, do a low-budget Star Wars rom-com, for heaven’s sake.
But what’s needed isn’t something to ‘fix’ what’s been done. That’s just climbing up our own asses. Do something entirely new and allow some up and coming directors to take shots at the Star Wars universe. The next Taika Waititi or even Quentin Tarantino is out there right now and would love to take a crack at something like that.
I would have agreed with you years ago,but watching the films again the over all story line was well done. The plot is cohesive and well done and makes sense from start to finish. The new films have no plot at all.
I don’t know. Normally I’d agree here, but the sequel trilogy is SO bad that it practically destroys the IP for all time. New stories will be tough to pull off.