This is what I’d like to see, too, but not just for Anakin, but for the Sith as a whole. What is the Sith philosophy? Why would someone embrace the Dark Side? How do they justify it to themselves? In the movies, the Sith exist simply to destroy the Jedi. Which they do. So what’s step two? Once the Jedi are removed, what do the Sith want? And why did they have to destroy the Jedi to get it? In short, I want some scenes like the ones on Dagobah, but between a Sith Lord and his apprentice.
Rip off the story of Shaolin Temple.
A young slave escapes the camps of a cruel and despotic ruler after seeing his parents murdered. On the verge of death, he is discovered by monks who take him to their temple, where he is cared for. While living at the temple, he discovers that these monks aren’t regular monks, they’re super-powerful fighting monks. Filled with the desire of avenging his parents’ deaths he begs the monks to let them join their order so he can learn their deadly skills. At first they refuse because they doubt that revenge is on his mind while their martial skills are not meant to be used for such things. Eventually, he manages to convince them and they let them in. He proves a tremendously gifted fighter. Brazen by his newly-acquired skills, he escapes the temple to assassinate the despotic ruler. However, clearly over-evaluating his skills, his plan fails. The evil lord is now out for revenge and having identified his attacker as a monk, sets out to destroy their order.
In Shaolin Temple, the monks end up defeating the evil general, the avenging youth repents and all is well. In the Star Wars version, however, after a long and arduous war, the (Jedi) monks are wiped out. In Shaolin temple, the bad guy is a rogue general and the Emperor is portrayed in positive light. In the Star Wars version, the Emperor is, well, the Emperor. By luring Anakin to his side with the promise of revenge, he gets rid of two threats: a general/leader/disciple who had grown too strong, and a group (the Jedi) who were a latent threat to his rule, all while gaining a new powerful apprentice.
The Jedi are first and foremost monks, they don’t do politics. Yoda was always a hermit.
We already know the end, but a gifted script-writer could really bring out the sense of dread of seeing a good person falling deeper and deeper in hatred. The drama is in seeing Obi-Wan and Luke’s mother try and fail to keep him from the dark side.
I’ll stick more-or-less to Lucas’ story with the following changes:
Without Lucas writing stilted dialogue, we bring in someone who can give this rather talented cast something to chew on. Mitochlorians are right out (because they’re hella-lame) and we stay focussed on the mysticism of the Jedi and the Sith. I like the idea suggested above, that our little Ani is already developing an ominous, foreshadowy tendency to cause other podracers to mysteriously crash while clutching their throats. Qui-Gon questions Ani about it after the race and he just shrugs it off, claiming to know nothing about it. The rest of Ep I plays out pretty much exactly as it did, but with Jar-Jar bumping into stuff in the background, and not so much in the foreground.
Ep II also plays out much as Lucas made it, complete with Anikan and Padme falling in love, Obi-Wan discovering the clone army, Jar-Jar standing up in the Senate and proposing that Chancellor Palpatine be given sweeping control of everything (because, on a personal level, I really like it that Jar-Jar is responsible for the Republic’s downfall), and the big Jedi v. droid army finale with Mace pulling his lightsaber on Dooku and saying, “This party’s over, motherfucker.” What? Doesn’t everyone automatically add the “motherfucker” at the end of all Sam Jackson’s lines? Key differences: when Ani wipes out the Sandpeople village, he doesn’t go home to cry to Padme. Instead, he tells no one and only says that he found his mom’s body. The other big difference is that Dooku does not so easily dispatch Ani in their duel. Ani’s use of the Dark Side confuses Dooku and forces him into a much more defensive mode of combat until he finally hacks Ani’s arm off. Again, I think that some less horrific dialogue can be rescued by our actors – I mean, Natalie Portman is liable to win an Oscar one of these years, as is Ewan McGregor, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Hayden Christensen gets a nomination or two before he’s finished. At the end, we have Padme and Anikan marrying in violation of the Jedi code and it that much more ominous because he’s already hiding secrets from her as well as the Jedi Order.
In Episode III, young Anakin has grown into a great warrior, but his ruthless, remorseless methods are becoming increasingly a cause for concern among the Jedi Council. Ani is primed to be turned by Palpatine, although Obi Wan has grown to love his Padawan and remains staunchly convinced that Skywalker is not the threat that the Council fear. Instead of sending Ani to spy on Palpatine, Mace and Yoda forbid any further contact with the Chancellor, as they think this relationship is distracting him from his Jedi discpline. Ani openly defies this order by going to Palpatine to inform him of the Jedi’s meddling and this is where Palpatine reveals himself as Darth Sidious. Here, we see Ani at the crossroads and he chooses the righteous path after much contemplation and reveals Palpatine’s secret to Mace. But, as Mace and his team arrive to arrest Palpatine (“Sith Lord Sidious – You’re under arrest, motherfucker.”), Ani has a change of heart and rushes to Palpatine’s aid. Arriving as Mace is preparing to finish Palpatine, Ani leaps into action, lopping Mace’s head clean off without hesitation. He is dubbed Darth Vader and sent forth to execute Order 66. As he storms the Jedi Temple, word reaches the Senate quickly of the attack on the Temple. Organa rushes to the Temple, along with Senator Jar-Jar to see what is going on and try to talk some sense into Skywalker. Before they have a chance to reason with Ani, he collapses Jar-Jar’s throat, killing his childhood friend. Organa escapes by the skin of his teeth as a wave of Jedi leap to his rescue and then get slaughtered themselves. The big final battle between Obi-Wan and Vader plays out, with Padme unconscious outside of her shuttle and Obi Wan takes her to safety after beating Vader. As they are flying off to meet Organa and Yoda, Padme confesses her marriage to Ani and that she is pregnant. Emperor Palpatine tells Vader that he killed her back on the lava planet. We later see Padme give birth to the twins on Alderaan – she has married Bail Organa now and is living in secret as his wife. This restores consistency in the story, as Leia notes in ROTJ that she remembers her mother from her childhood on Alderaan. Obi Wan spirits Luke off to Tatooine. The End.
I think stronger direction and dialogue would fix many of the series’ faults – Eps V and VI are pretty good films with Lucas in the background and people who know what the hell they’re doing running things. I also think that having Vader waste Jar-Jar for us would make for a moment where we can all leap out of our seats in the theater and cheer boisterously. It’s a win-win!
Why not tell the story from the Imperial point of view?
Darth Sith planned to liberate Naboo from the clutches of the evil Federation. Gunray is ordered to kill the two spies Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi Wan. Qui-Gon Jinn saves the terrorist Jar Jar Binks from a court room where he is on trial for dropping cluster bombs on kittens. After escaping to Tattooine, Qui-Gon Jinn and his concubine “Queen” Padmé enslave a young boy (Anakin Skywalker) and force him to work in a mechanical nightmare of a workshop. They then force their new acquisition to recklessly participate in a highly dangerous race and threaten to kill his mother if he loses…
Same story, same plot, same characters, but this version would be fun (and a box office bomb of course)
I don’t think there’s anything in what Leia said to suggest that the person she remembers is Padme; it could simply be Organa’s wife who died early on in Leia’s life.
That said, I really like this idea. Flesh Organa out to have more than 10 minutes at the end of ROTS, perhaps make him more of a confidant to Padme, who’s concerned about Anakin. They’re colleagues in the Senate, after all, so it’s not out of the blue. There could be a chemistry there that never was with Anakin, who I like to think subconsciously manipulated Padme into ‘loving’ him. Edit: And, of course, have him be a bachelor. No need to throw in a pointless love triangle.
Wow, that’s great!
I hate that the Stormtroopers were just a bunch of clones. I think it would have been much more interesting if all the Stormtroopers were regular guys drawn to it either from interest or necessity (conscripted, like Nazi Germany). Having them be a bunch of mindless clones gives me, the viewer, no care at all how many die (like killing ants). This was the problem I had with the LOTR movies; I really didn’t care at all about the dark armies who were presented as nothing more than ugly robots.
I think that Lucas probably uses the fact that Leia never calls her remembered mother Padme as justification for how he wrapped ROTS, but I didn’t like it. I think having her spend a few years living with the guilt and regret of having married and made babies with Vader makes that whole thing more powerful and tragic. And definitely giving Bail Organa more screen time wouldn’t hurt. Placing them as close friends in the Senate would make this work nicely, as would having young Skywalker consistently using his Jedi mind tricks on Padme to make her love him. 
Oh, absolutely.
Lucas had great big-picture ideas. He sucked bad at filling in the details.
I had a few ideas, but after reading the thread I vote Miller gets to remake the trilogy. Those movies I would watch!!
If he has to be there, how about upping his IQ and making him more intelligible? Instead of being Lucas’ leaden and intrusive attempt to add comic relief to the prequels, make him sort of a chorus to events unfolding. If he has to funny, make him a deadpan snarker whose wry and cynical comments turn out to be prescient. Also, when Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan first meet him, he’s hasn’t been kicked out of his city for being an annoying klutz but for being too much of a gadfly.
There’s a lot more I could change but frankly I got rather burned out on Star Wars years ago.
Miller’s idea is pretty good.
Like Lynn Bodoni, I never saw II or III (well, I saw bits and pieces, but I have no idea what happened). Jar-Jar annoyed me so much I couldn’t imagine giving Lucas any more of my money.
I was a kid when the first three came out. I’ve often wondered how kids enjoyed I. II, and III. To me, they were just a money-grab.
Oh, and Hayden Christensen was terrible.
The basic overall story wasn’t too bad. I thought it was kind of weird that Amidala died, since Leia remembered her ‘mother’.
I would have hired someone else to do the actual writing, especially the dialogue. Some of the actors were actually very good actors, and even they couldn’t make the dialogue sound good.
There was a scene or scenes in the DVD extras, not sure if it was cut scenes, or an audition tape or both, but it had much better played romance dialogue between Anakin and Amadala, I would have incorporated more of that.
I think I would have recast older Anakin, although it’s not clear how much of the badness was the actor and how much was the dialogue.
If allowed a lot of leeway, I would have made the tragic downfall of Anakin partly due to a love triangle between him, Amadala, and Obi Wan. All the better if there was sexual tension between Anakin and Obi Wan 
Oh and more muppets. CGI Jabba just didn’t work.
Well Luke specifically asks if she remembers “our” mother. He wouldn’t care about Leia’s adoptive mother. I guess she never knew that it wasn’t her real mother, or she still has some kind of imprint of her from when she was born.
I would include some backstory on Tarkin. That five second walk-on in ROTS was disappointing. I thought it would be Tarkin who literally pulled Vader’s ass out of the fire on Mustafar, and would explain why Vader treats him almost as a superior in A New Hope.
I’d also reduce R2D2 and C-3PO to fleeting background characters, blink and you miss them. What purpose did it serve to have the same droids in the prequels? Don’t even get me started on the whole “Vader built C-3PO” travesty. I’d swap them out with Nobot and R5-D4.
It’s an idea he clung to from his original drafts of the first films. Because he created the droids based on the two peasants that thread through Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, Lucas decided that he’d keep the droids as the common element for the entire length of the story.
Jar Jar Binks looses some parts to torture particularly his tongue right at the beginning. He has to write anything he wishes to convey until the end where they give him a synthesized voice box that will turn off when anybody says shut up. End the movie with everybody screaming shut up! The princess with the clown face get’s a more dignified outfit and face for the whole movie.
Given that the relationship between Padme and Anakin went to shit and Whedon’s love of writing about relationships that go to shit I’d say you made an excellent suggestion.
First of all, it’s Star WARS so I’ll just focus on the battle sequences. The battle sequences from the original fims were well done. They felt more “real” somehow. Like someone actually planned it out.
Take the Battle of Hoth. The battle consists of a line of armored AT-ATs, a realistic distance apart, slowly advancing towards a largely ineffectual trench line while Rebel speeders buzz impotently around them in a vain effort to slow their progress. It’s not Saving Private Ryan, but you see individual Rebels getting blown to shit, both on the ground and in the air. And everything in the movie up until that point sets the stage for the battle. Rebels hiding on Hoth, Imperial probe droid stumbles accross the base, Rebels make preparations to evacuate, Imperials blockade the planet, shield goes up, first transport is away, begin ground assault.
In contrast, the Battle of Naboo was garbage. The Gungans and those idiotic droids form up phalanxes on opposite side of the battlefield and start marching towards each other Braveheart style? And WTF weapons are the Gunguns using? Shields and slings, but it’s “science fiction” so let’s make them plasma shields and slings that shoot plasma balls. Fuck that. Either make them low tech and use regular spears and bows like fucking Ewoks and fight guerrilla style or give them blaster weapons like the rest of the universe. And you have that jackass Jarjar fucking around on those tanks like a damn buffoon.
And once the Clone Wars start, forget it. I don’t care what happens between an army of droids vs an army of faceless clones and superhuman Jedi. And we aren’t watching battles play out anyway. We are just watching clips of as many potential Xmas toys as possible crammed onto the screen blasting each other.
Jar-Jar Binks could actually be useful, but get rid of the faux Jamaican accent and the faux-dreadlock ears. Binks can still be a rather witless fool, but ditch most of the overdone slapstick. He would be used to purpose in the sequels in two ways: in episode two, we would be shown just how decayed the Galactic Senate has become through the character of Senator Binks. Think about that: Jar-Jar Binks could become a Galactic Senator- THAT’s how far the Senate has fallen. And Anakin’s fall could somehow involve something Binks did that was so abysmally stupid that one of the first things Vader does is kill him.
I don’t see much purpose in the character of Qui-Gon, except maybe as a cameo. It should be hotshot maverick Jedi Kenobi who discovers Anakin, and takes him on as an apprentice against Yoda’s better judgement. Kenobi should be in his thirties when he meets a teenage Anakin, and going grey by the time Anakin becomes Vader.
Maul, Dooku, and Grevious need to be replaced by or amalgated into a single character who’s the antagonist for most of the trilogy, and his being cut down without mercy by Anakin should be better integrated into Anakin’s descent into the Dark path.
There’s got to be some other way to end the first movie other than having an enemy space fortress go BOOM.
Phantom Menace: