Clone Wars Replacing Parts of the PT with CW Micro-Series/(Pre-S5) TCW

http://boards.theforce.net/xentemp/...-the-pt-with-cw-micro-series-pre-s5-tcw.3400/

So I decided after talking a little about my thought experiment with you all on the temps that I'm going go for GL's vision as he jotted it down as a simple note for what the structure of a set of prequel movies might be when he was still working on The Empire Strikes Back: "Prologue, Clone Wars Trilogy and Epilogue."

Given that I am partial to Ep. I and would like to keep it and I wouldn't want to try to cram all the best stuff about both Clone Wars television series into one film to keep the prequels a trilogy, it just seems like the best option for me.

I'm still really interested in how others would approach it if they were going to replace parts of the prequels with parts of either Clone Wars series. Another, more publicized version of GL's vision was also well-known at one point in which Star Wars would have consisted of 12 films, so in my mind there's really a range of 6 - 12 films people could reasonably use and even keep the whole PT if they really wanted to.

To me, it's about creating a fantasy PT that isn't quite so much worse than the OT, and I'm sorry for being so blunt about that because I know not everyone agrees but it's my opinion. And that requires removing all of Ep. II at least. I still might remove Ep. I also and do a fantasy PT with two CW films and then ROTS. For now I'm moving ahead with the 5-film GL idea described above. I'm about to start watching the micro series to figure out exactly which parts from that I'll be using and how much time that will take.

So I've decided since I'm going with three Clone Wars films for my fantasy prequels per GL's 1979/1980 ideas maybe I could stand to include the very end of Ep. II even though on the whole I really dislike it. I'm bracing myself ... because I'm about to watch the end of it to see how much I want to use. I'd like to include Anakin's scene with the Tusken Raiders, if possible, but if it means adding on too much I don't want I'll just have the battle that starts the Clone Wars at the very end. One of my biggest gripes with Ep. II is how it never really explains where the clones came from anyway, so I'm not at all worried about losing that type of stuff. It's really still a mystery at the end of the film anyway, so that can be covered inside one paragraph in the crawl. I don't really care that much about Dexter and the reference to Jawa Juice that always makes me cringe.

Is there anything else from Ep. II anyone thinks is that important?

So I watched Ep. II from Anakin and Padme landing on Tatooine onward last night, and I have to say, it was a MUCH more entertaining experience without following up on the murder-mystery and horribly-written-romance that takes up the first half of the film. Hayden Christensen still absolutely ruins the character of Anakin Skywalker for me, though...

Even though I wasn't planning on keeping that much time from Ep. II, now I'm fine with it because it's so much better without the beginning dragging it down. So my first fantasy prequel film will start with the last half of Ep. II, then go into the Genndy series, but with all the non-Anakin/Obi-Wan stuff taken out, and end with the beginning of the second Genndy series where Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight. I just need to figure out how much time that adds up to to make sure it's reasonable.

Keeping from Genndy V1: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20

Deleting from Genndy V1: Chapters 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,

It's really just split up into chapters about Anakin/Obi-Wan versus not. I absolutely love Ventress showing off her skills and talking to Darth Sidious, Mace Windu's absurdly powerful Jedi skills, and the lightsaber construction scene, but my goal here is to edit this down into a chunk of a replacement prequel movie, so the focus needs to stay on Kenobi/Skywalker. If Ventress were in the OT, I don't think we would have seen her whole back-story first, she would have just showed up as a villain, and I think it would work fine, in some ways maybe even better, like that too.

So it's about 1 hour 15 minutes I'm using from Ep. II, and 40 minutes from the first volume of Genndy. Now to go over the second.

Sorry, I think both Clone Wars series are WAY above and beyond most of what GL did with his set of prequels, in terms of both overall quality and telling the story of Anakin Skywalker, so I couldn't disagree more.

Wall-of-text successfully averted.

Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight really early on in Genndy V2, about ten minutes in. And there's no lead-in to his adventure with Obi-Wan, it just goes from the ceremony and the interaction with Padme so she knew it happened and cuts into the battle with no prior reference to it being about to happen, the name of the planet, anything like that.

I was considering cutting the Grievous parts, the last chapter of V1 and very beginning of V2, but it's part of the Jedi Council's rationale for making Anakin a Jedi Knight earlier than normal, so I'm leaving it even though seeing Ki-Adi Mundi sweating profusely because he hears Grievous' footsteps makes me want to hurl a heavy object through my television every time. YOU'RE ON THE COUNCIL DUDE.

But I digress.

So leaving in the full 40 minutes of V1 I mentioned previously plus 10 minutes from V2 plus the hour and 15 minutes I'm keeping of Ep. II, that brings the first film in my Clone Wars Trilogy up to 2 hours and 5 minutes. Ep. II is actually the longest SW film at 2 hours and 22 minutes, so I feel like I can stick in an episode of TCW to make it almost 2 and a half hours. I was planning on using The Hidden Enemy anyway to show some TCW before Ahsoka shows up, and it seems like if I end the first Clone Wars Trilogy film with The Hidden Enemy, that will be a good set-up for starting out the second one with the beginning of The Clone Wars film and the introduction of Ahsoka since The Hidden Enemy is a prequel to that. The Hidden Enemy is still one of my favorite TCW episodes, so I think that would work out nicely.

So here's what I got so far.

Prologue:

The Phantom Menace (Attack of the Federation fan-edit, if you haven't seen it yet you need to, it's SO much better than TPM and I say that as a TPM fan)

Clone Wars Trilogy:

I - Attack of the Clones (crawl explains Obi-Wan tracking a bounty hunter who's the clone template for an army mysteriously ordered on behalf of the Republic he just discovered and that Anakin and Padme are going to Tatooine because of his visions even though he's supposed to be protecting her from an assassin / film opens with Anakin and Padme landing on Tatooine and goes to the very end of the real AOTC [droid antics edited out], then goes right into chapters 1 - 4, 8 - 11, and 17 - 20 from Genndy V1, then the first 10 min. from Genndy V2, then The Hidden Enemy from TCW S1 - approximately 150 minutes)

II - ????????

III - ????????

Epilogue:

Revenge of the Sith

I watched the beginning of The Clone Wars film and it would actually be really easy to edit out the few parts where they're talking about Jabba's son being kidnapped up until the end of everything that happens on Christophsis. Even the very end of the Christophsis part with the conversation between Kenobi, Skywalker, and Yoda where it becomes official that Ahsoka is a Padawan would be easy to edit to remove all references to the kidnapping plot. So there's the first 20 minutes of the second film in the Clone Wars Trilogy.

PT?

Needs more Ahsoka.

Actually I kind of agree, not because of Ahsoka specifically, but because of how TCW has used her character and her relationship with Anakin to show different sides of him the PT failed to show. So I don't really care about more Ahsoka, but I do care about making Anakin's character arc more believable than it is in the PT alone, and Ahsoka serves her purpose with that.

No Dave, you mean the entire GFFA.

Now that I would absolutely not agree with. The OT is what makes the PT even matter to begin with, and certainly doesn't need any help from a television series to improve it. The PT on the other hand...

EDIT: You know that thing about trolls....

Uh, sure thing... I'm okay with you pretending to be DF, but please stay on-topic, thanks.

This is what I have as of now:

Prologue:

The Phantom Menace (Attack of the Federation fan-edit, if you haven't seen it yet you need to, it's SO much better than TPM and I say that as a TPM fan)

Clone Wars Trilogy:

I - Attack of the Clones - crawl explains Obi-Wan tracking a bounty hunter who's the clone template for an army mysteriously ordered on behalf of the Republic he just discovered and that Anakin and Padme are going to Tatooine because of his visions even though he's supposed to be protecting her from an assassin

- film opens with Anakin and Padme landing on Tatooine and goes to the very end of the real AOTC [droid antics edited out]
- chapters 1 - 4 from Genndy V1
- chapters 8 - 11 from Genndy V1
- chapters 17 - 20 from Genndy V1
- first 10 min. from Genndy V2
- The Hidden Enemy from TCW S1

This would be approximately 150 minutes and cover the start of the Clone Wars, all Anakin/Obi-Wan scenes from Genndy up until and including when Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight, and the start of the battle of Christophsis.

II - ???????? - crawl links The Hidden Enemy to the beginning of The Clone Wars film which shouldn't be too hard since both are on Christophsis

- film opens with the first 25 minutes of The Clone Wars film with all scenes and dialogue where the kidnapping of Jabba's son is discussed edited out,
- Landing at Point Rain from TCW S2
- Weapons Factory from TCW S2
- Legacy of Terror from TCW S2
- Brain Invaders from TCW S2
- Padawan Lost from TCW S3
- Wookiee Hunt from TCW S3

This would be approximately 125 minutes and cover the introduction of Ahsoka as Anakin's Padawan and the different sides of him that having a Padawan brings out (as contrasted with Luminara), from dipping into the dark side to utter, genuine despair when she goes missing.

III - ????????

Epilogue:

Revenge of the Sith

---------------------------

I basically finished the second film of the Clone Wars Trilogy. The last part of TCW film I'd show is Anakin and Ahsoka taking off together followed by Obi-Wan and Yoda talking and then Obi-Wan taking off alone. Landing at Point Rain starts with Obi-Wan and Ki-Adi Mundi talking on the bridge of a ship with Anakin and Ahsoka just starting to enter the room. So I actually think that will work really well visually and in terms of story continuity, even though some dialogue makes clear some time has passed.

I think the Geonosis arc is important to include because of Anakin and Luminara's dialogue about the different ways they approach their Padawans and how that difference plays into the story of the LAPR and Weapons Factory and ultimately Anakin's first TCW dark side moment in Brain Invaders; and Legacy of Terror is such a great example of the type of swashbuckling Anakin/Obi-Wan sci-fi pulp adventure I think the PT should have been full of but was sorely lacking.

I already had a huge rant about what Padawan Lost and Wookiee Hunt show about Anakin's character and why I thought it was really important for that side of him to finally be seen, which you can read here: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/padawan-lost-ahsoka-and-anakin-in-star-wars.50003705/

If anyone can think of some titles, let me know. I had some ideas but nothing I really like.

How does Ahsoka help Anakin's character in a way that no one else can? Why does Anakin need to have an apprentice? Was Anakin ever mentioned to have an apprentice in the OT? Does he seem like a mentor-type figure?

Ahsoka would just be a waste of time and space in the movies.

Frankly, I think your Episode II sounds like it's boring and and a complete waste of space. Returning to Geonosis and having another battle there? Why? Why is that interesting and why does it need to be shown? What relevance do all three of Geonosis's episodes have to the overall story? How is the parasitic worm/zombie story relevant to the overall story at all? Why is the end of the movie all about Ahsoka and having no importance to the plot? It sounds like it's more about Ahsoka than Anakin's story.

Ahsoka's character just isn't needed to bring out Anakin's character traits. What the prequels need is a complete rewrite starting from scratch.

@Drewton I never said Ahsoka helps Anakin's character in a way no one else can, or that Anakin needed to have an apprentice, or that he seems like a natural mentor, nor do I think any of those things. As I have been saying, there are aspects of his personality not shown in the PT that are now being shown in TCW. Did I ever say the only way TCW could possibly have accomplished this is by giving Anakin a Padawan named Ahsoka? I don't think so.

I'm not sure you understand the idea I'm going off of. GL had an old note revealed in The Making of ESB (book) that shows at one time he was thinking of having a set of prequels that followed a "Prologue / Clone Wars Trilogy / Epilogue" format and the idea I'm running with is that the prequels could have been five films. So my hypothetical fantasy Clone Wars Trilogy shouldn't be looked at as one film meant to replace Ep. II, it's not.

I agree with many of your points on what are the lesser details of the episodes, but you're not explaining why you think the reasons I gave for including them aren't important. Of course those exact minor details don't matter, it's the larger points I already gave that matter.

One more time for good measure, it's not about Ahsoka being the only possible way to accomplish anything (and I never said and don't think it is), it's about aspects of Anakin's character arc the PT brushed over or ignored entirely that TCW is doing a better job of showing. I do think the OT implied that Anakin Skywalker was a good and honorable Jedi Knight before his fall, not the self-entitled whiner shown in the PT, and TCW is finally making it seem like he was really a good person with complex personal issues that led to his downfall which it seemed the PT tried for and completely failed at. There's definitely a connection to the OT there which is why I think it's so important to begin with.