PT What would you add/subtract to make the Prequels better?

I would take away some of the poorly written dialogue between Anakin and Padme, specifically during Episodes II and III.

I would slightly alter the fight between Mace and Sidious (if seen it a bunch and read posts regarding whether or not Sidious let it all happen) because I'm still a it confused.

And I would add about 15 minutes to Revenge of The Sith. I love ROTS, but I feel as though the ending was rushed. I know the run time was well over 2 hours, but I think another 10-15 minutes could have helped the pace at the end of the film.

 

There are awkward lines, but even the OT has some pretty lousy dialogue and awkward lines. The difference is people learned to love them in the OT and vilified the prequels for it (double standards). To be completely fair, the Han/Leia relationship worked a lot better than Anakin/Padme and didn't suffer from awkward dialogue. IMHO I think GL was trying too hard because Titanic was a love story and it surpassed SW at the box office thus it became a mini obsession to surpass Titanic. AOTC and ROTS could definitely have been improved by a better writer for those specific scenes. It's not that the love story is unbelievable (some claim it is, but I don't see it like that), it's just the poor lines in those scenes makes us cringe. Or laugh. Or if you've seen the films enough times, you just ignore it. But it is still there. In the OT, I never did like the 'your worship' references although some would argue that Harrison Ford makes it work. The "he's my brother" exchange was lame in ROTJ. In SW her "you came in that thing? you're braver than I though.... he certainly has courage" bothered me as a teen because it's lame. But like I said, people love the bad lines in the originals for whatever reason.

As for ROTS, I hated it in 2005. Saw it on HBO later than year and couldn't finish it. After seeing it recently, I think it's my favorite SW film at the moment. Don't know what was wrong with me in 2005. I think the ending was fine, it did what it needed to do.

 

^^ I definitely agree that the OT has some pretty lousy dialogue, especially between Han and Leia "I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain" etc. Most of the dialogue between them is very good, but I do agree that the relationship between them worked better than with Anakin/Padme. Perhaps it was some of the prequel dialgoue or just the chemisty between the actors. And I'm not trying to hate on either trilogy, but I just think that the bad dialogue in the prequels didn't work as well as with the OT.

 

I used to think Han and Leia were fun, but I was rewatching ANH & TESB recently and caught myself thinking that it's all very silly. In ANH, they can barely stand each other. In ESB, they're suddenly madly in love? What happened in between? We couldn't we see more progress? And many of their lines are really corny. They get a pass only because of the chemistry and a general "fun" level. Besides, they don't bring the movie to the standstill they way the Naboo scenes do.

Portman and Christensen actually had a few good scenes together AOTC (the picnic and most of the stuff after leaving Naboo). If only GL toned down the purple prose on Naboo...

 

Same thing happened with Luke and Mara.

 

She kissed her brother.

 

Yuck!!!!

 

I would add more of Anakin's origin. More on his birth (planet because we know that he and Shmi come to Tattooine from somewhere else). They were "sold" as Anakin told Padme, so there's a definitely a story there. We meet Anakin when he's 9 years old seeing him as an infant and toddler would be interesting especially with his "force powers".

 

it's almost like you didn't know.

 

maybe as a flashback, if possible.