To everyone who hates the Star Wars prequels, how would YOU have done it better?

Cafe Society
1

The year is 1996, and through some crazy divine intervention, George Lucas has decided that he is no longer going to direct the Star Wars prequels. He’s going to stay on as producer, but he wants you to take over as director/writer. He hands you a very rough draft of the three movies and tells you to get to work.

But he’s got some rules:
He still is all crazy about CGI, so there’s gotta be plenty of that.
The basic main story of the movies must be followed. The first movie is about the Battle for Naboo and meeting Anakin Skywalker. The second movie is about Anakin and Padme falling in love and the start of the Clone Wars. The third is about the rise of the empire and Anakin turning into Darth Vader.
You can’t get rid of any major characters. Sorry, this means you gotta have Jar Jar Binks.

So what can you do? Pretty much everything else. Change cast, change character’s personalities, change dialogue, change/get rid of events (you can get rid of the podrace if you want). The only real canon you have to follow is that of the original three movies.

So, what would you change. What would get rid of? Most interestingly, what you keep the same?

2

Way to suck all the fun out of the room.

3

Hayden Christensen was so god damned awful as Anakin that it made me curse God for giving humans the gift of speech. Virtually ANYONE else in that role would have been an improvement. Keanu Reeves would have been an improvement. In fact, I’d cast Keanu as Anakin just because it would be hilarious.

The one thing that pissed me off the most in all the prequels was the whole mitochlorian explanation of the Force. They took a mysterious, zen-like power, something that should have been innate and poorly understood by non-Jedis, and instead dumbed it down and gave it a biological explanation so unimaginative morons wouldn’t scratch their heads over it. I hate the entire concept.

Fuck it, I’d make every movie rated R, ramp up the comedy, and include a sex scene involving Jabba the Hutt.

4

Although the ridiculous dialog and superfluous CGI are a problem throughout, the main issue I have is with the story.

The prequel trilogy makes a mistake in portraying Anakin in an overly sympathetic light. Darth Vader is a ruthless killer, ranging from offing his underlings for minor infractions to blowing up entire planets of innocent people. Sure, every killer was once an innocent child, but from a storytelling perspective it’s not something we need to see.

Ep I has Anakin as a happy little child who misses his mommy. We’re supposed to feel sorry for him as he leaves his home, and yet also keep in mind that he grows up to be a megalomaniacal villain. The Jedi counsel doubt him, and see that he has potential to go down a dark path. In any other story we’d boo them and be sure that righteousness will prevail and Anakin will show them. The problem is, we already know that the stuffy old authority is absolutely right. Every time Anakin is set back, are we supposed to hope he overcomes, or laugh vindictively because we’re aware of his evil future? Just who are we supposed to root for?

The prequel trilogy really should focus on Obi-wan. He’s the most sympathetic figure throughout the whole ordeal. He realistically agrees with the counsel’s assessment of Anakin, and only takes him reluctantly as his pupil out of respect for his master’s dying wish. In fact, it’d probably be better if Anakin didn’t even show up until Ep III, but since that’s against the rules, have him show up in Ep I, but show the childhood parts as flashbacks. Actually it’d be nice of all of Ep I and most of Ep II could be reduced to flashbacks, but I guess that’s against the rules too.

If we don’t get to fix the main story, then I dunno, then just fix the dialog and the over-reliance on gimmicky CGI characters, I guess.

5

Someone posted a great re-imagining of the prequels here once. The best change involved having them find Anakin when he’s a few years older…12 or 13.

6

-Start with anakin at the age he was in the third movie, the kid was annoying as hell

-Need a Han Solo type character, i would sugest expanding Jimmy Smits role to fit this

-Make the Jedi less stupid

-More Darth Maul, he was pretty cool

Theres really not a lot to work with if we can’t remove Jar Jar or change the story at all.

7

First movie starts with the Clone War in full swing. Obi Wan Kenobi is sent on a mission of Naboo to rescue Senator Amidala, before the clones can over-run the planet. There he meets a hot shot, Han Solo-esque pilot serving in the Senatorial Army named Anakin Skywalker. He enlists Anakin’s aid in rescuing the Senator, and they flee the planet with the clone forces hot on their tail. Recognizing that Anakin is remarkably strong in the Force, he begins teaching him how to use it, mostly out of necessity due to their dire circumstances. Anakin and Padme fall in love. They manage to get to safety, destroying some key cloning installation or warship along the way, and the movie ends with Anakin and Padme’s marriage.

Second movie, Anakin has become a Jedi, and Amidala is pregnant with their children. Anakin is called away on an extended assignment to the front lines, escorting Senator Palpatine. The assignment is the final offensive against the Clone Army, and Anakin wins victory after victory against them, which provides the action backdrop to this movie. But Palpatine also poison’s Anakin’s mind with suggestions that she and Obi Wan are having an affair with each other, and that the kids might not even be his. He intercepts her messages to him, and edits them to increase his suspicions. Finally, he somehow manufactures evidence that “proves” her infidelity. Palpatine then contacts Padme, and tells her that Anakin is in trouble, and needs her help. She leaves her infant children in Obi Wan’s care, and flies to Anakin’s side, where Anakin, convinced that she’s been unfaithful to him, strikes her down and turns to the Dark Side completely.

In the third movie, he’s Palpatine’s apprentice. He suborns the Senatorial army he commanded in the second movie, and uses it to seize control of Coruscant, and destroy the Jedi Temple there. Palpatine uses the crises to convince the Senate to grant him executive powers, and rushes the remaining Senatorial forces into combat with the rebellious forces. Palpatine is essentially in command of both armies, and conducts the battle so as to maximize casualties on both sides, effectively destroying both forces. He uses Anakin’s treason as evidence that the Jedi have been behind the Clone Army the entire time, and uses this evidence, and the precarious position the Republic is in, now that they’ve lost most of their army, to have himself made Emperor. He promises to rebuild the military and finally crush the Clone Masters. Meanwhile, Anakin leads his elite strike force against the Jedi Temple, and slaughters many (adult) Jedi in combat, seeking Obi Wan and his hidden children. He finally confronts Obi Wan in the volcanic caverns beneath the temple, where Obi Wan defeats him in single combat, but must flee before the temple is overwhelmed by Anakin’s forces. Anakin is thought dead by both sides. Obi Wan flees the temple with the Skywalker children and several surviving Jedi. Palpatine recovers Anakin’s body, kept alive on little more than hate and anger, and rebuilds him as Darth Vader. Darth Vader pledges he will hunt down Obi Wan and the surviving Jedi, and purge the galaxy of the Order entirely. He does not mention Padme, or their children - that part of him was burnt out beneath the Temple. Or so he thinks.

The End.

8

Part 1: At the very extreme least, Anakin is in his late teens or early twenties when we first meet him, and already established as a skilled pilot of growing reputation. Also, some degree of moral ambiguity is already present, including him using the Force (even though he doesn’t realize it) to win the pod-race, even to the point of making competitors crash. He is not a slave and he does not have a living mother, let alone one who became spontaneously pregnant. All references to “midichlorians” are dropped, though it can be hinted that sensitivity to the Force is hereditary to some degree. Also, drop all notion of the Sith being limited to two people. That’s just dumb.

Part 2: Drop all notion that the Jedi have to live some monk-like existence. Rather, Jedi Knights can and do maintain family ties (passing reference to confirm that Obi-Wan does indeed have a brother named Owen, with whom he is in semi-regular contact). Jedi Knights can marry and have children, but they must sever (or at least vastly reduce) such emotional burdens if they wish to be promoted to Jedi Master and serve on the Jedi Council. Anakin’s marriage to Amidala is not a problem in itself, and certainly need not be a big secret, but he wants it all, marriage and council membership, and is increasingly irritated that he’s being blocked. This is the wedge Palpatine uses, promising to set up a new Jedi Council, with a happily-married Anakin at its head, once the current council of fogeys and rule-lovers gets pushed aside.

Part 3: Anakin learns that in fact he can’t have it all, marriage and power, and he decides he’d rather have power, casting aside the pregnant Amidala and getting into the same pivotal battle with Obi-Wan that leaves him burnt and limbless.

9

Scrap the entire project and make episode VII. Show the children of Luke/Leia/Han Solo fighting against the Empire.

Now, when you have a fight scene, you don’t know if the hero will live or not (Gee, Obi-Wan Kenobi is fighting Darth Maul. Who will win? The villain introduced in this film or the one who makes it to old age in the original?)

No Darth Maul. He was one of the most boring villians in the history of film, with as much personality as an egg. If you’re going to have a villain, make him interesting and powerful – out-Vader Vader.

The revolution is on its last legs. No support. Only a handful of bases. Few supplies. Old equipment. Facing a fleet of Death Stars.

10

Remove little awful Ani and start with an older Anikin.

Anikin becomes Darth Vader in the second film. The third film is about the rise of the Rebel alliance.

11

You can change the story, just not the overall outline. You gotta get for point A to point B, but what happens in between can change. For example, you could have Maul or Qui-Gon both live until the third movie. You could make Jar Jar a lot less goofy, and become more of a chewbacca like character.

I definitely like the idea of starting with Anakin being older from the start, mainly so we can keep the same actor. He’s already strong with the force, although he doesn’t really understand it. Maybe he’s a powerful person on Tatooine. We’ve explored a lot of the dark side and the light side of the force, but Anakin could be the neutral side. The Jedi council aren’t sure what to do with him until they realize the Sith are coming back. So they bring him into their fold so they can keep an eye on him. He’s reluctant to leave Tatooine, but they offer him an eventual place on the council. Of course, this leads to his downfall when they no longer trust him and attempt to kick him out of the Jedi Order

12

Yeah, this is why I started with limitations. Everyone wants Episode VII or just see Darth Vader going around kicking ass. I think we’ve explored that route before, see let’s use some creativity.

13

The entire trilogy could remain almost exactly the same, if it was partially recast and directed by someone who knew how to work with actors.

I’d make Threepio be Padme’s droid, and Artoo to be Anakin’s droid.

I’d make Jar Jar’s role have a logical part to play in the subsequent plot of the next two films, instead of meaningless cameos.

I’d utilise the midichlorians in such a way as to make their existence matter. (They are not the Force itself, that remains a mysterious energy field, they are the conduit that explains the genetic factor in who can manipulate the force more easily)

I’d build the romance between Anakin and Padme more, and make it integral to the plot machinations and Anakin’s struggles with controlling his emotions.

I’d keep Darth Maul alive throughout the trilogy

I’d keep Count Dooku in the background as part of one of the political movements trying to take over the Galaxy. And then reduce the number of different factions that were just confusing the plot and dragging it down a really dull path.

I’d have Qui-Gon Jinn appear as Obi-Wan’s mentor, in a parallel with Obi-Wan and Luke.

I’d explain why Obi-Wan chose the name Ben.

No lame Arena sequence or Geonosian bug-people, but relocate and augment the full-on battle between Jedi, Sith Lords, battledroids, clone troopers, and Jango Fett. And Boba Fett would participate too.

A better sense of camaraderie between the main cast of heroes. You can believe the friendships in the original trilogy, but there’s no connection at all between the characters in the prequels, and that has to be fixed.

Have Anakin’s turn to the dark side have some kind of realistic motivation and inevitability, instead of a decision he made on the spur of the moment.

Make General Grievous more of a threat.

And lots more besides.

14

I would make three movies about people who behave like recognizable human beings, with genuine emotions, logical reactions, and personal connections that have some sort of meaning. Instead of relying on the audience to be empathetic enough to fill in the blanks Lucas is either too stupid, too lazy, or too clueless to fill in himself, I would actually strive to write great dialogue when it’s necessary, and leave out dialogue altogether when it’s not. Hell, I wouldn’t touch the plot at all. I would just make it so the characters on the screen match the plot that’s happening to them. And i would never let a character shout, “From my point of view, you’re the evil one!” Instead, I would show exactly why Anakin would feel that way.

In other words, I’d make a film for emotionally mature adults, instead of emotionally stunted children.

15

I only watched the first one. Between Anakin’s very young age and Jar Jar, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing the next two prequels.

I’d very much like to see Miller’s versions, as long as Jar Jar has a long, agonizing death that lasts through all three movies.

16

So you’d have Joss Whedon write the script too? :smiley:

17

In a nutshell…
Replace Hayden Christensen with virtually ANYONE ELSE.

18

The main problems with the movies were that the acting sucked, and that most viewers didn’t cotton on to the fact that the main character was Obi-wan. Everyone just went in expecting that it was a series of movies about Anakin and it had enough about him to make that seem plausible.

If you watch them with Obi-wan as the main character, the second and third movies are–in my mind–pretty decent. Just bland. But then I found the original trilogy pretty bland as well so who knows.

Probably the way to fix the movies would be to a) get someone else to direct the actors, and b) make Anakin not be Obi-wan’s student, but instead just some person that Obi-wan runs into every once in a while who seems darker and scarier each iteration, with a reveal towards the end that Palpatine had been slowly torturing the guy by removing friends and lovers close to him and blackmailing him into doing bad stuff the whole time.

19

If I can’t get rid of Jar Jar, I’d reduce his screen time greatly at least.

Re-cast Jake Lloyd in the first film. Perhaps age him up a bit to make the Anakin/Padme subplot in the first movie less creepy. (Yeah, I know Padme’s supposed to be 14 in Ep 1. Not buying it.) Make his character a darker and more brooding youth, not entirely abnormal, just with the slight sense that something is a little…off. Haley Joel Osment or that kid from The Ring come to mind as possibilties for the role.

I was going to say re-cast Natalie Portman due to crappy acting but then…I don’t know. Hayden Christensen gets a lot of crap for his performance in the prequels, but I don’t think he’s a bad actor at all. I think his performance suffered from crappy writing and directing, because his motivation during his transformation into Vader is all over the place, and that comes from the script.

Annnyways. My whole point is, I think Portman did a crappy job throughout the trilogy, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to bad writing.

Padme would not die of a broken heart. What a load of garbage that was. I think it would work better for her to get between the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight at the end, but get hurt far more badly, and die due to her injuries after having Luke and Leia.

I think Darth Maul was wasted as a character. I think he should have had a bigger part, been present throughout the trilogy and finally get defeated in Ep 3. I think it works better in general to have your enemies fewer, but more formidable, than to have new villains crop up in every film.

No midichlorians.

The secret of how Obi-Wan and Yoda’s bodies disappear after their deaths needed to be addressed more than the throwaway scene we got at the end of Ep 3.

I didn’t actually hate the prequels, exactly, but was very disappointed in them. George Lucas writes some god-awful dialogue, but he’s fantastic at painting a picture. The last 20 minutes or so of Revenge of the Sith is very well done, I think. The shot of Vader’s mask being lowered into place is just perfect, and seeing the Organas with Leia on Alderaan and Luke being handed over to a young Owen and Beru on Tatooine was quite moving.

On preview, I see I’ve been beat to a lot of my ideas, but I’m going to post this anyway. This is all just off the top of my head. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched any of the prequels. I know there’s more I’d change, but I’d have to think on it for a bit.

20

Hayden Christensen is not as bad an actor as these movies show. Neither is Portman or anyone else whos ever given a horrible performance in a Lucas film. Hes just a horrible director. I’m not going to claim Hayden is capable of winning any oscars but hes a decent actor.