PT Feeling nostalgic and searching for old prequel rumors

Some of the rumored actors for Anakin were Paul Walker, Jonathan Jackson, Ryan Philippe, Eric Christian Olsen, and Christian Bale. Jared Padalecki said he tried out for the role too. I remember seeing rumors that Josh Hartnett would be Anakin too.

 

And there were also rumors that Darth Sidious was a totally different character than Palps without any connection to him. And that his similarity to the emperor in ROTJ was a smokescreen.

 

Well it's almost time for my son to embark on the PT journey. I plan on starting with a mail away sneak preview Mace Windu figure. I've been holding him out for too long. Darth Maul is too cool to keep down. Now just got to wait in the theater line for a few months lol. Be nice if they had a showing of TPM, wont be soon with everything going on.

 

I don't think Christian Bale would work as Anakin, I don't think he can be as intense as the role demands.

 

Oh, man! This is the perfect thread for me. I love talking about old rumors (some of which turned out to be sorta true in that they seemed to be leaks from earlier drafts or just misunderstandings). I was 9 when TPM came out and was allowed internet access (with search restrictions) not long after, so I was ALWAYS looking up spoilers during the summer of 1999 (and after that, too, but especially then). I mean, I was going to have to wait THREE YEARS for the next film. It was unfathomable. Might as well be an eternity until the next one came out. I had to know what was going to happen, but then reading the rumors, well, it just made it worse. I needed to see that next film NOW.

Twenty years on, it's a little hard to separate what people claimed were truths at the time and what people were just speculating about, having fun. But here is what I remember about the rumors during the two years after TPM, leading to AotC:

1) As has been mentioned, rumors abounded that Palpatine and Sidious were different people, one maybe a clone of the other.
2) Aurra Sing. What do I mean by this? I mean that everyone and their mother tossed out rumors about Aurra Sing. In fact, I'd love to know why this is, but I'm not sure. She is sorta memorable in her one cameo, and isn't that a great part of the prequels? They have so many background characters that look like they have fascinating stories. Anyway, Aurra Sing was Boba Fett (this may have come from the fact that her art sketch was playfully labeled Babe Fett). No, Aurra Sing was going to be a bounty hunter that would recur just like Boba Fett in the OT. No, Aurra Sing was a Dark Jedi (hey, that one did kinda turn out to be true!).
3) Following up on that, there were tons of rumors about Boba Fett. And, in fact, the gist of it was true: we got him in AotC. But no one expected him to be a kid. A lot of these rumors revolved around the Mandalorians being involved in the Clone Wars. Fans put a ton of emphasis on the Mandalorians despite nothing ever pointing to Lucas being at all interested in them. But, as a 10 year old, this was all gospel to me. It was on the internet, so it had to be true, right? I do think there was some EU that pointed to the Mandos being involved in the Clone Wars, so that may have played its part, too.
4) The love triangle between Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme (this one lasted a little after AotC, too, but I think the Clone Wars project dispelled it pretty quickly since nothing pointed to it occurring). Here, again, there may have been some accuracy albeit by accident. Certainly, Lucas considered playing it to some extent as there is Anakin's fear that Padme betrayed him for Obi-Wan in RotS but just not romantically. I believe earlier drafts even had Anakin directly suspecting it. However, looking back, having Obi-Wan actually be involved in an affair sounds terribly out of character for him. And you'd think it would've come up in ANH during their duel!
5) Lava. Lots of lava. I recall one specific rumor that the Jedi would be having fun while on a volcano planet, using the lava to create different designs, and Anakin's design would end up being incredibly disturbing, upsetting the other Jedi, especially Mace Windu. But overall there were a ton of people who "knew" how the duel on the volcano planet would go down.
6) Clones everywhere. Everyone was a clone after TPM. Obi-Wan, as mentioned earlier in this thread, but also cloned Jedi (probably influenced by reading The Thrawn Trilogy) and cloned Mandalorians (hey, that one sorta came true). If you were a Star Wars fan in 1999 or 2000, then you "knew" that there would be clones of the main characters.
7) While I don't recall the specifics, many people thought that background characters on Tattooine were going to be major players. Aurra Sing was one, as mentioned earlier, but there were plenty more.
8) There was vague stuff about the Whills, but I'm not sure anyone thought that was really going to go anywhere.
9) Tons of rumors about EU characters appearing. A young Thrawn, for instance.
10) There were MANY rumors about who the villain in AotC would be. Interestingly, everyone seemed to assume there'd be a new Sith Lord. Much theory revolved around the character being a woman (which, IIRC, was true of original AotC plans).
11) No one quite knew when Anakin would turn. Most people assumed the volcano duel would be in Episode III, but that didn't mean Anakin hadn't already turned evil during that point. There were many rumors that AotC would cover most of the Clone Wars and that RotS would be about the early days of the Empire, with Anakin already part of them.

What's interesting to me about these rumors is how many of them pointed to a much more complicated version of the prequels. Paradoxically, the complexity of some of the plots was what fans ended up complaining about. Does make one wonder if Lucas could've ever pleased no matter what he did.

Anyway, these are just what I can think of off the top of my head. There seemed to be less rumors between II and III. I think this was because of the Clone wars project and the various web tie-ins to the filming, which revealed a lot about what direction the movie would be going in. Most of the intense rumors about III occurred between I and II.

I'll come back if I think of more.

 

I remember reading speculation that was similar to what I believed would happen: That Anakin would've turned to the darkside already by the end of Episode II, and the episode would've taken place in the middle of the clone wars. Then Episode III would see the ending of the clone wars, and Vader's duel with Obi-Wan, causing him to need the mechanical suit would happen in the first act of the film-then the rest of Episode III would be about Darth Vader (in his suit) tracking down and killing the Jedi around the galaxy.

 

There was definitely an assumption or rumor that we'd see a lot more of suited Vader than we did.

 

The rumors ramped up after most got the taste of TPM and we were able to put most of the non rumors to bed. Between TPM and AOTC you had casting rumors (DiCaprio as Anikan, Backstreet boys as Jedi etc) and you had story elements (was Sidious Palpatine, Where Mandalorians going to be in Clone Wars). It seems the time in between concentrated on young Anakin and Obi Wans relationship. Anakins training would go well up to this point. There is a few books (Jude Watson Master n Apprentice). The nightmares of his mother began around the time of AOTC. We didnt know of the Villian at this point and didnt know he was a former Jedi in league with Sifo Dyas, also a former Jedi, who both were set out to start a new Republic.
I remember going to the campus library (even though not a student anymore) to use the internet to get on these very boards to read the rumors.

 

I have no way to know about how that time period was, but I've done a lot of research on that era thanks to Wayback Machine and the archives on this forum.

I think the time after TPM was a "pretty much anything can happen" speculation time. TPM ends on an ambiguous note, especially since everyone knew a big time gap would occur. TPM, in a vacuum, doesn't hint of the Clone Wars, the next villainous faction, etc., so it left a lot up to the imaginations of fanfic writers and "leakers." Most people thought the EU version of the Clone Wars (army of evil clones, Mandalorians) would be the conflict.

By the time AOTC was released, and obviously foreshadowed what we knew was coming (the clone army being proto-stormtroopers), speculation and fanfic for Episode 3 was, more or less, in line with what happened in the film. What is interesting is that some people thought Dooku would last a lot longer than he did and that the Separatists would evolve into the Rebel Alliance.

 

I actually remember reading this.

 

I do remember the Separatist thing. That they would be the "heroes" of the PT and form the Rebel Alliance against the slowly turning evil and corrupt Republic to Empire.

 

Heath Ledger was considered for Anakin.

 

The Gungans were going to have a huge presence throughout the PT was another one.

 

Gabriel Byrne was going to be an evil Senator of the post-Maul Sith Lord in Episode 2. I was kind of hoping that would pan out!

 

originally some thought that for 3 he'd be shown hunting down the remaining Jedi one by one
although by the time 2 was over it seemed unlikely there would be time for that at that point, maybe not even after 1, I think that was a prominent thought before 1 and perhaps a bit still after 1

 

I love Revenge of the Sith but I wish we had gotten the original cut.

Mace dueling Palpatine not knowing Vader had already pledged sounds awesome, and harkens back to the 70s/80s vision of Vader going on missions with Jedi as “Anakin” and killing them without anyone knowing he was the one doing it.

 

I think the Prequels dont had many rumors because the Fans already had a general idea of what was going to happen Jedi losing the Republic becoming the Empire and Anakin becoming Darth Vader

 

It's weird that Christian Bale was even speculated, considering he looks nothing like an older version of Jake Lloyd.

In fact, they are physically total opposites. Hayden doesn't look a lot like Lloyd either but I can still imagine that Lloyd could grow up to look like him.

 

Agree. That to me, would be the weirdest casting choice. Everyone else pretty much was a blond/light brown haired guy.

I remember there were some old Jedi Quest novels set between I and II that had a cool Animorphs-esque evolution of Jake Lloyd turning into Hayden and that was cool.

 

That Christopher Walken was going to play some kind of Sith Lord

 

God is funny! I was thinking about that the other day. I think I found one of those at my school and read some parts of it or maybe all or most of it, I don't really remember that well.

 

There was a rumor that General Grievous was Qui-Gon Jinn, sort of a precursor to Anakin's Darth Vader suit that kept him alive. There was an early spy report here back in the day showing a drawing of what General Grievous looked like-- and it was very much like Darth Vader...

 

One that came to me while rewatching Episode I recently was about Darth Maul on Tatooine. I don't remember if it was an internet rumor or just something me and my friends came up with at the time, but I remember being certain that it would be revealed that Darth Maul either went back and killed Shmi or sent one of his probe droids to kill her in between when he met with Qui-Gon in the desert and when he went back to Naboo. He could have went around town asking a few questions to find out who the kid was and who his mother was and had her killed. This was going to be one of the primary reasons for Anakin's turn: the Jedi failed to free his mother and failed to protect her.

It ended up not being that far off, especially when accounting for the cut line of dialogue from Ep III suggesting that Dooku sent someone to pay off the Tusken Raiders to kidnap Shmi and keep her alive as bait to bring Anakin there.