PT Rewriting the Prequels...

I don't think I said they were straight up failures, just underdeveloped. Let me go through them one by one.

Maul: Maul starts to be well developed. He's sinister and has presence both when fighting and not fighting. However, he really doesn't have an impactful impact on the saga until he kills Qui Gon... and then he dies minutes later.

Jango: Sufficient development for a B-villian, though I do wish his battle with Mace Windu would have been more compelling. I'm fine with him ultimately getting beheaded by an elite Jedi, but it would have been nice to see him put up a fight.

Dooku: For me it doesn't work to just hear someone's name being dropped in exposition and then not seeing him for over an hour. That's telling, not showing, which is the weaker form of story telling. Even if we saw a planet or city he had wiped out or something... anything, to keep him involved in the plot and show his power prior to the act III, then he would be a more engaging villain. Now Christopher Lee is makes a great villain and does well in the scenes he's given, but it's too little too late. He needed at least two development scenes earlier in the movie. Imagine if Lucas had deleted a few of the filler scenes (i.e. the droid factory or the 1950s diner) and used that time to show Dooku doing something nefarious. Or better yet: show him training Grevious or Asajj Ventress. Now we would actually get to see Sith training and get a sense of how powerful he is. Again, I'm not saying he's a bad villain, just underdeveloped.

Grevious: They just didn't play this character right. He's supposed to be this vicious Jedi killer, but since they tell instead of showing, it doesn't really leave any impact. Now if we had seen him take out a Jedi in a legit battle, he'd have more of an impact.

So in sum, there are just a lot of missed opportunities to develop these villains. It doesn't make them bad, but it does make their impact lower than the standard I have for Star Wars films. To not be totally negative, I think Palpatine's development is well done, especially in ROTS.

 

For those guys who read Prequels Reborn - Episode II - A Forbidden Love , here is the concept art for the Obi Wan Kenobi (James Mcavoy) versus Darth Pryor (Chadwick Boseman) during the Dantooine scene (the wasteland planet). Let me know what you think.

Canyon D
Big Boss_92
cbyers24

 

here's an idea I've had:

we could make our own story group of around 10 people and make a really good 'legends' pt. I can write an outline and you guys run with it as an experiment to get the people in the lucas thread in the tfa forum to calm down lol.

 

I agree with a lot of what you are saying.
The secondary villains in the PT were under used or under developed.

To add some suggestion to what you wrote.

Maul, instead of just fighting Qui-Gon on Tatooine, he flat out kills him.
This would make Maul into a far more deadly adversary and it would give Obi-Wan a lot more to do in the second half of the film.
He and Anakin could bond in grief over Qui-Gon's death. In the council, Obi-Wan is reporting on Qui-Gon, Maul, etc, with Anakin having a smaller role as the Jedi now have bigger concerns.
They see Anakin but make no choice as yet. They do decide to send a few other Jedi with Padme to try and capture or eliminate Maul. Obi-Wan wants to join but the council says no, they sense some anger from him and they feel that his reason for joining is too much tied into revenge against Maul.

So Obi-Wan sneaks along in disguise. Anakin is aware of what he is planing and asks to come along as well. Obi-Wan at first says no but Anakin points out that Obi-Wan is breaking orders and sneaking along. So Obi-Wan helps to get Anakin onboard.
On Naboo, they infiltrate the palace but Maul surprises the Jedi and kills one or two of them but Obi-Wan engages him filled with anger. Maul is able to use that against him and almost kills him but Obi-Wan manages to calm down and win in the end.
After the battle, Obi-Wan and Anakin have bonded and Obi-Wan says that he will train him as a Jedi.
Yoda disapproves of this but Obi-Wan is adamant, he will train Anakin whether Yoda likes it or not.

Jango, he works well enough but what I would change is that he fights with Obi-Wan and not Mace.
Jango and Obi-Wan have a history, not him and Mace. So having them go at it again and Obi-Wan winning in the end would make better story telling sense.
I would have Mace fight Dooku instead of Yoda, partly because they had some prior meetings in the film and because it would have been cool to see Mr. Jackson and Mr. Lee go at it.

Dooku, a lot of missed potential here I feel. He could have been in TPM and established as a good Jedi, friend of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan is impressed by him. At films end, Dooku comes to Obi-Wan and says that he is leaving the Jedi order, as they are serving an obviously corrupt senate and he feels he can do more good on his own. He asks that Obi-Wan join him and Obi-Wan is tempted but declines. In AotC we would know who Dooku is and instead of Padme accusing him, she points the finger to war mongers in the senate as being behind the attempt on her life. Obi-Wan again meets Dooku and he explains that he is leading the seps because the Sith are in charge of the senate and he wants to break away from the republic for that reason. He again offers Obi-Wan to join him but Obi-Wan again refuses. Only at films end do we see that Dooku is allied with Sidious.
I think that AotC attempted to make Dooku a more ambiguous character and that you didn't know whether or not he was a bad guy at first. To me, the film didn't really pull this off and him being the villain was very clear from early on. This might work better.

As for Griev. I found the character to be a pointless waste of time. His screen time should have gone to Dooku. Or introduce Griev in AotC and have him be shown as a capable general and a great tactician.

In closing, an example of a film where you have a behind the scenes villain and still good and capable up front villains. The second Bond film, "From Russia with Love."
Blofeld is the behind the scenes chief villain and the other villains work for him. But they are shown to be capable in their own right, esp Red Grant.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Great stuff here from both of you. Dooku was sorely under-used and we did have be told too much about him versus seeing him in action. I get that they could sopend too much time on him but some sort of "arc" or development would have made him so much more than what amounted to him being "the guy the Anakin has to behead to start his turn to the Dark Side" in ROTS.

Jango was used decently I guess but the end fight with Mace should have been with Obi-Wan and been more dramatic.

Grievous was a terrible character. Annoying, silly, and honestly hes the only part of ROTS that I hate. I dont mind the idea of a hybrid being or whatever but this guy came out of nowhere and hardly lasted. he was strictly a plot mechanism. Oh well.

 

I particularly agree with the points you make about Dooku. Had he been introduced earlier, and shown as someone t be admired within the Jedi then his position through AOTC would have been much more ambiguous.

 

BretHart asked me to give him feedback on his version of Episode II called 'A Forbidden Love'.

Again, it was very fun to read an alternate version of what could have happened before the Original Trilogy. The focus of your story is a lot on the characters, mostly Anakin. His relationship with Queen Rose Winterfield worked very well, but even better fleshed out was his relationship with President Palpatine. Anakin really goes through an arc, as at the beginning of the story he thinks that Palpatine is just some boring old politician dude. However, he quickly discovers that the President is not as stuck-up as Anakin thought, and that he actually relates a lot with all of Anakin's situations. We really see how Anakin slowly starts to break away from the Jedi, who are not as understanding. This dynamic was really worked out well, and was one of the best aspects of the story in my opinion.

So that was what I liked best most about the story. What I liked a little less, was that the focus was a lot on the politics. True, so were the actual prequels, but here it is a lot more apparent. There is a lot of election talk, speeches and overall political enviroments in this one. It works well for the story you are setting up (Anakin's relationships with Rose and Palpatine), but it doesn't feel a lot like Star Wars. That being said, there also was a lot of action in the story that made up for that. Overall, it was a good continuation of your story and I look forward to reading the next and final part of your Prequel Rewrites.

 

There is a lot I would change.

- Start the movie later, there is no need to see child Anakin.
- Remove medichlorians/prophecy/immaculate conception stuff
- Actually have a proper villain in all three films. Since Palpentine needs to remain mostly in the dark pulling strings. Darth Maul looked cool, but I think Count Dooku would be more interesting.
- Build believable relationships between Anakin and Padme and Obi-Wan. This is my biggest problem with the film. The love story is so contrived and forced. I watch it and I think to myself how can she possibly fall in love with this whinny bozo. The same goes for his relationship with Obi-Wan. They tell us of their great friendship but you never see it. All you actually see is Anakin complaining about him.
- I would go crazy and give the Trade Federation the army of clones thus removing the stupid droids. And have the Republic raise a real army of Stormtroopers. I find it so stupid that they give Palpantine power to create an army and there just happens to be an army ready that was ordered years in advance.
- Do not have Yoda fight with a lightsaber, do not have Yoda fight at all. It ruins the character.
- Do not make Padme an elected queen, who elects a 14 year old to be a queen? Instead have her be a politician who is closely working with Palpentine.
- Obi-Wan should be the tragic hero/protagonist of the films, which should center around his failure to save his friend Anakin from falling to the dark side.
- No Jar Jar Binks
- No racist stereotype aliens, it seems to make like every alien that speaks English in the prequels is a stereotype. It is horrible. If you watch the anti-cheese edit on YouTube the simple act of making them speak an alien language and using subtitles improves so many scenes.
- Make the Jedi not so boring and so foolish.
- Use lightsabers more sparingly. Lightsabers rock, but to much and they lose their cool factor.
- Do not have C3PO and R2D2 so central to the story. Use some new droids or different models.

 

I find the bolded part extremely rude. Welcome to the forums.

 

Watch out CIS Droid is here to gun you down if necessary.

Also, Clones >>>>> Stormtroopers. At least Clones can actually shoot their targets.

 

I'm not sure how I missed this discussion when I started my own pt rewrite but I'm glad that I have. There are some great ideas on here (and some terrible ones like "don't change anything!").
My treatment had a lot in common with redlightning s suggestion that the threat to the republic should be from Mandalorian clone armies (secretly set in motion by Palpatine). I was also thinking that anakin should come from a background of privilege - possibly his father is a general modeled on Caesar who at the start of the first film successfully quashes a droid uprising and uses his popularity with the people to be named president (or first consul or whatever).
Palpatine starts as simply a counselor to the general who gets into power when the general is assassinated by Mandalorians - Palpatine leverages the sympathy and fear from this act to take up the beloved generals mantle and also grab wartime powers for the office of president.
Meanwhile anakin starts as a great pilot who is pursuing Ben kenobi who had been a ally of the droids in their uprising - thus earning him the droid-name OB-1 .
During this pursuit obi wan sees anakins force potential and they run into Luke & Leia's mother (who is the sister of Beru) as she is training under another Jedi master. Anakin is smitten with her and that combined with obi wan telling him about the force and the Jedi turn anakin from an enemy into an apprentice.
Episode 1 would end with their discovery of the mandalorians stripping entire planets of resources to create their clone armies.

Episode 2 would be the republic mobilizing for war and the aforementioned assassination of anakins father. Anakin obi wan and the future mother of the twins lead an assault on mandalore and the main cloning facilities there. During this attack the future mother of the twins is killed just after admitting her love for anakin. Anakin flips out and slaughters Mandalos or whomever is the big bad.

Episode 3 opens with anakin still in the depths of despair and not listening to obi wan. His old family friend Palpatine offers consolation but also a chance at bringing her back. Anakin swears he'll do whatever it takes and vows to serve Palpatine if he can really deliver. Palpatine reveals a cloning tube saved from the destruction and outlawing of the practice. He tells anakin that the clone will just be her body - to bring back her "soul" he'll need an ancient with relic on dagobah.
Anakin goes there and finds the cave guarded by a tribe of yodas (not yoda himself) and must kill them to reach the thing. He travels beyond this plane of existence to capture her blue ghost and return it to her clone body.
She awakens not knowing what he's done and they hug and kiss - wink wink. When she discovers what he has done she turns on him and wants nothing to do with him. He goes berserk. Obi wan tries to reach him and pull him back from the brink but anakin accuses him of loving her or keeping her from him and they fight till obi wan thinks he's dead.
The end

 

I'm still not sure if it's possible to keep Luke's parentage a mystery if pt are watched first. Maybe if they never use last names and also have a dark Jedi named Darth Vader. Behind the scenes anakin could pull a dread pirate Roberts and just take that name for his own after the lava dip

 

Hi, welcome to the forums. Question? Where are the jedi in your rewrite? You barely even mention them.

edit*

 

I'm on board with the few and far between idea mentioned on here for the Jedi. I think of them more along the lines of wandering samurai with a few temples scattered around the Galaxy. The centralized authority of the Jedi council is kinda creepy in the pt

 

I love the PT more than the OT but this is the best of the rewrites. I like how you start with the generic clone army but evolve it to civil insurgencies against the Republic. I would love a fleshed out version of this story. Or at least, what planets this is taking place on.

 

I've noticed a few rewrites I've seen all seem to have Anakin introduced as very obvious powerful and heroic from the start. Lucas, on the other hand, utilizes the classic hero journey: start from seemingly unremarkable circumstances and grow more heroic as the story progresses. This way, there's room for growth through making right choices, finding courage, building relationships, etc. Or vice versa, we can show the downfall by making wrong choices and not handling the power properly.

 

Well while I'm here.

I have some ideas for a Saga Rewrite I'm working on. Haven't made much progress but it'll be a twelve-part installment based on the 5-prequel idea from the Rinzler ESB book. Here's some rough notes made on the fly

Episode I: The Phantom Menace
After much thinking I have the idea of having this from the Point of View of Jar-Jar Binks, no really. His backstory is that he is a known political troublemaker and that's why he is exiled. Also Qui-Gon Jinn is now Sifo-Dyas and will be portrayed by Dame Judi Dench. Both Sifo-Dyas and Obi-Wan are known The Battle Droids still exist but the Trade Federation now hires the Mandalorian Death Watch to oversee the invasion and blockade. C-3PO and R2D2 are both on the Royal Yacht when they try to escape the blockade.

The Trade Federation is a corporation of the Kingdom of Cato Neimoidia and that's why Nute Gunray is Vizla. His point of contact is Maul not Sidious. Sidious is only in one scene. In my rough draft Asajj Ventress was the Apprentice but decided otherwise as I doubt we'll be ever getting the Anakin v Maul duel in whatever comes next in The Clone Wars Legacy. Also Pre Vizla is around and he has no time for Gunray. All he wants is bloodshed.

Anakin and Padme are around 9-14, maybe 12-14. Anakin lives on the homestead with Mother Shimi and Sister Beru. Owen and Cliegg will also make an appearance with them running the Junk Shop on Anchorage as opposed to Watto on Mos Espa. I've replaced the Podrace with an Airspeeder Race seeing as we need to establish that Anakin is skilled in three dimensions though Sebulba is still a factor. Sifo-Dyas stays on the ship being wise and Obi-Wan goes to the Junk Shop because he felt something poweful in the Force. There is no decoy as Padme is on Tatooine sans makeup so no-one knows its her.

Padme seeks help in Coruscant but they are staggeringly incompetent. Palpatine manipulates her into overthrowing Valorum and starts his rise to power. Because of the new political developments the Jedi cannot get authorisation to intervene but secretly (in the first move of many that would be used against them come the Holy Rebellion of '06) allow Sifo-Dyas and Obi-Wan to return to Naboo alongside the Queen to organise the Resistance. They have doubts about training Anakin but know full well that if he is really strong in the Force better be in the tent than out. There is no Yoda in the film.

Now this part I have done no work on seeing as I'm inexperienced in writing big battles. But the Trade Federation is defeated. Pre Vizla is killed by Anakin in a starfighter battle. Sifo-Dyas is killed by Maul and in her last breath she utters "Kam..." (Yes that is what you think it is). There's a celebration. Anakin is made an Apprentice and the last scene is of him in a Z-95 Headhunter going to the stars.

I'll put up some stuff on Episode II soon as I've actually recently gotten some progress on that.

 

Sith plotting against each other shouldn't be the norm. Vader being a backstabbing apprentice should be unique. Vader sees Luke as an oppertunity for freedom from Sheev's cruelty and oppression rather than as an oppertunity to continue the Sith cycle.

 

Have to ask, why do you think that?

 

1. An organization devoted to backstabbing is an absurd concept.
2. It makes Vader more unique and more understandable in ESB.
3. Vader and Palpatine talk to each other about recruiting Luke in ESB, inplying that Sith are normally liyal to each other.

 

I dislike these "rewrite the prequel fourms" and love them. There are some great ideas I see here.

However, why do people do the 2 generic things that people wanted to change?(Its funny because everyone kept telling him, Lucas, to use them)

1. Make anikan older

2. Have the 3rd film be about D.Vader killing every jedi.

Over the decade, those have been 2 of THE MOST wanted changes in the prequels.

Anyways, I would have had Dooku in AOTC show up a quarter way into the film. That way, you would have time for him on screen.

 

#1
People desire to see little Annie older,I believe, because of the way the performance came off in the actual film. If Jake had done a bang up job like Hayley Joel Osment, people likely wouldn't whine about it for years. I think it's directly tied to Jake's performance.

#2
People want to see Vader in his prime taking out jedi as Obi-Wan said he did in Star Wars(Helped the Emperor hunt down and destroy the jedi knights)

Because in ESB we see Vader personally go after Luke, we assumed that was how Vader went after the other Jedi: he hunted them personally. So, when we didn't see Vader in his armor doing that, we were a bit disappointed.

But a whole movie? Yeah, that's a bit much. Maybe a third act or half a movie at most.

 

That's why the best rewrites in my opinion are ones that take Lucas' basic story, characters, and plotting and just twist them a bit, but not completely redo them.

 

I personally would have had the final prequel be about Mon Mothma and Bail Organa forming the Rebel Alliance while Vader hunts down Jedi.

 

I

I see where your getting at with the 1st one but the second one is just a fanboy thing even more than the first. "I wanna see vader killing jedi in his prime! He would be so cool!"