But there isn't a Dooku, remember? This is "disregarding what Lucas did in his Eps 1-3".

Unless you mean Dukoo as a different, unique character that you've come up with. If so, please, do tell...

Xhonzi

I agree with eros. Too many "cool looking" throwaway villians, like Maul, Count Dooku, and General Grevious. There should of been only one throughout the prequels, and Dooku would of been the best choice.

EDIT:
OK, to answer the question given, as a general outline of what I would think would be better, stick with the prequel story, but no Jar-Jar, no Darth Maul, No Grevious. Dooku takes Maul's place in TPM, but Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan doesn't know its him, maybe he has a disguise. Its "Darth Tyrannus". Dooku appears in AOTC, and at the end, you find out he is Tyrannus. Make him being sith less obvious. Perhaps throw in a red herring character to help the mystery along. Vader in the suit destroys the Jedi, which would move up the Obi-Wan/Vader fight as well. Vader/Palpatine thinks they destroyed Yoda and Obi-Wan, so you don't have the question of why don't they go after the two most powerful Jedi around. Just a general train of thought on it.

Actually, out of all the new characters in the PT, I kinda like Dooku. I think he'd be worth keeping. If you ask me, Qui-Gon should be scrapped. He seemed to me to be the most pointless character of all 6 movies, really.

Okay, sorry. I didn't find any, which did surprise me. Was there one thread that was fairly comprehensive, or was it spread out amongst a bunch of other threads?

Could you point a brother in the right direction?

Xhonzi

if you want to re-write the prequels, you have to consider re-writing jedi as well since he didn't stick to his original story for that one. You basically have to do the following: kill han toward the end, no death star 2, no ewoks only wookies, luke and leia are not related, don't show the emperor. at the end han dies, leia becomes queen of the remaining people of Alderaan and Luke goes off to find his sister. Chewie and Lando do something, probably go with leia I guess.

for the prequels, just follow the basics of what vader, emperor, yoda, and kenobi said during the original trilogy. Minus what ben first told luke in the first movie, it just screws things up if you try to stick to it. 1. first movie leads up to clone war or at start of clone war. Kenobi is not yet a general but he is introduced to a brash, hotshot pilot named anakin skywalker. Maybe change his last name since ben only mentions his first name and not his last. ben tries to train anakin against the counsels wishes.(this only works if its done right) yoda finds out that anakin is being trained and has no choice but to knight him because of his skills. Anakin and ben win some major victorys which make them into heros. Anakin meets palpatine, palpatine tries to seduce him. Anakin becomes vader, Vader begins to hunt down the jedi while he is still posing as anakin in the temple. Ben and Yoda are the only jedi who find out who is doing all the killing. Ben goes off to fight Vader, Yoda faces Palpy, except they don't use sabers beings of their level of skill don't need lightsabers. Yoda realizes he will not win against Palpy and goes into exile. Ben wins the fight with vader and vader becomes disfigured forever. Palpy finds vader and rushes him to medical, Vader is put into iron lung. Luke is born. Now it is imparative that Luke be the onlly baby we know of. The Sister is the surprise of Jedi. And we can't know that luke is Vaders son, this is the thing that irks me about this particular method of telling these stories. If you don't do the prequels and you just have 4-6, every generation will be just as surprised to find out that vader is the father as the first generation to see it in the theaters. For all they say about Lucas being a master storyteller this is his biggest flaw in his biggest story. He gives it away too soon if you watch the films in order. You need to be surprised at the revalation of vader being lukes father, it just works.
This flaw also shows me that Lucas never had a grand plan set in place for the prequels to begin with. If he did, he would have written things differently.

I've actually thought of re-writing the prequels myself. Though, the thing that irks me is that the whole "your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough", "No, I am your father(shock)!", "Leia's your twin sister". Thing could have been so, easily perserved. Example of one scene following:

Anakin wakes up after having a horrible dream.
(insert the actions in episode III up to it was only a dream)
Anakin: *goes and, picks up his lightsaber*
I want him to have this. To become a jedi master.
Padme: Him? How do you know it's a boy?
Anakin: He was in my dream.
Padme: Now, how could that be a bad dream?
Anakin: There was something else... You die in childbirth.
Padme: It was only a dream.
(conversation carry on as in the movie)

The above would also take care of why he only knew of Luke and, not Leia. More would have to be done to perserve the suprise of the Father thing though...

I have 3 prequel screenplay rewrites in the works. In fact, I finished Episode I last night. I'll post it on here, but it won't be fully formatted as I wrote it in Word.

I can, and let me say, it is an extremely fun endeavour...

Here's some links to my Episode I Screenplay Rewrite:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/red_ajax

http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=2&threadid=3613

besides, if you have anakin saying that he wants his son to have this when hes old enough and you have ben saying to luke that your father wanted you to hae this when you were old enough, you tip the audience off as to vader being lukes father. Thus ruining the surprise of vader himself telling luke he is his father. I can't see any way of doing the prequels without ruining that surprise in ESB. The only answer is don't even do the prequels at all

No, the best way to keep the surprises is not to watch the prequels first. That's what they are: prequels. Backstory. Explains what you just saw. Problem solved.

I saw someone who suggested a "godfather II" system, were one would watch Ep. I, IV, II, V, III, and then VI. Kind of like the godfather II. That does do a better job keeping secret, but might get a bit confusing. But it I thought it was worth passing on and might work.

My friend has suggested that the best order to view the films is Star Wars, Empire, Menace, Clones Sith and Jedi. I think that works well, because it saves all the surprises and then you get to see Anakin redeemed right after Sith.

Thanks to everyone who posted. I'm sorry if this is a total repeat of conversations that have gone on before, but I for one have enjoyed the discussion.

Switch Radic:
I really enjoyed your alternate synopsis, it seems you get the idea of totally forgetting the Lucas prequels and doing what you can to make something that fits with the original trilogy. That was the idea I was trying to get across, anyways. But I don't think you need to redo RotJ, because it doesn't contradict itself or any of the other OT. Contradict either in a continuity/story way, or a storytelling way. (i.e.: ruining surprises). I agree that Jedi wasn't Lucas's original intention for Episode VI... but then again, neither was ANH for Episode IV.

theredbaron:
Thanks for your script. I'll look at it when I can.

TheCassidy:
I agree. Pretty much everything Obi-Wan said in ANH can be dismissed as egging Luke into action. Heck, he might have even sent the Stormtroopers to kill his Aunt and Uncle... Oh wait, I guess we know that Beru was the actual responsible one due to those scenes that were cut...

Everyone else:
I think the other surprise from Empire that I would like to see preserved is the Yoda reveal. When all we knew of the Jedi were old men with grey beards, no one suspected that that funny little green creature was the great Jedi master that Obi-wan thought was so great. To have him all over the prequels will make new generations have contempt for Luke when they see that he can't recognize the very famous Yoda. I think it can only help to have his name mentioned all the time, perhaps Obi-wan constantly telling Anakin that he should really go train with a real Jedi Master like Yoda, unlike Ben who really isn't qualified to be an instructor. Besides, the PT managed to take a favourite character of mine and make him one of my least favourite. When I watch the OT, I really have to force the PT Yoda out of my mind.

In my view, I think the primary responsibility of the PT is (1) to convincingly show the fall of Anakin Skywalker. The word I keep coming back to is "seduced" by the dark side of the force. I just don't see that in Lucas' PT. I don't believe that the kid I'm watching becomes the Dark Lord of the Sith in the OT (dispite the new ending to Jedi).

Which brings me to my primary question in rethinking this whole thing: Why would someone like Anakin/Vader willingly server someone like Palpatine for 20 someodd years? If I could answer that question to my satisfaction, I would really have something. Lucas' PT doesn't do it for me.

(2) To preserve the OT and enhance it if possible, not destroy it. My preferred watching may always be OT first, then PT... but I don't think there's any excuse for not being able to watch them "in order." I mentioned the Yoda thing (talking about him instead of showing him enhances the surprise in Empire, instead of deflating it), of course the Vader bit. And people mentioned the twins.

Here's my solution to the Vader problem. If the PT doesn't link Anakin with Vader=no problem. We know Anakin's last name was Skywalker (a la Luke, of course) and we know that his wife was pregnant when we last saw her. So when the OT opens up with Luke Skywalker, we conclude that he is the child of the aforementioned pregnancy. The other part to this solution: Leave Anakin for dead after the Obi-Wan VS Anakin show down. We show that he became corrupted by the dark side and we his "death." As long as other Dark Jedi are show throughout the PT helping Palpatine accomplish his goal of total Galactic Domination!, then we don't suspect that Darth Vader is anything but another cronie. I think the continuos bad-guy-shuffle hurts the PT, but if trying to preserve the OT's surprise, it actually helps. (only, of course, if you don't show DV at the end of Episode III).

Anyways... I've got to go wrap my wife's birthday stuff. So maybe I'll tune in a little later.

Xhonzi

I thought the prequels did a fair job of explaining why Vader served Palpatine for 20+ years. Palpatine was a sort of father-figure to Anakin. He always fed his already huge ego, and told him what he wanted to hear. Obi-Wan told him what he needed to hear, but Anakin didn't like that, so he ended up going with Palpatine and dark side. After the Jedi are gone/empire in power, Palpatine is all Vader/Anakin has left. At least until Luke shows up, and then Vader finally starts to turn on him.

I didn't mind the Yoda in the PT. It does give him credibility. Otherwise, it seems like Yoda was some minor jedi hack who gets to train Luke only because there is no one else available. Just because he was head of the Jedi 20+ years ago, doesn't mean anyone still knows who he is by ESB.

As for more Dark Jedi to hide the Vader killed your father line, there were already too many secondary villians. Maybe have a secondary apprentice for Obi-Wan in Sith (after Anakin graduates to full jedi) who seems more likely to become Vader? Maybe he is jealous of Anakin or something. It would take real work to preserve all the secrets, even with a massive re-write. Ultimately, chronological order isn't the best to view it in.

I think, that after Anakin found that Palpatine couldn't help him save Padme (since she was dead) that he would have lost his alliegance to the man. She's the whole argument that the PT gives us for Anakin's change. Once that reason had gone (and so quickly), what's left to hold him to Palpatine? I just don't buy it. There needs to be something more.

"Seduced" by the dark side. It seems in RotS that he weighs his options, looks at the pros and cons, and then takes the Dark Side despite the cons. But then, once he wakes up as Vader... it doesn't make sense why he would subject himself to Palpatine. Kill him and take over, maybe. The novel suggests that Anakin was a very poor force user after the operation since he was missing so much of his body, that's why he didn't take out Palpatine. Don't know if I buy that either.

Xhonzi

Star Wars: The flashback Edition

I like it.