Star Wars Episode I: Dawn of Darkness

Returning to work on these. I have so many great ideas, and have a basic outline of how everything will go. I won't spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that.

Perhaps my biggest 'sad' is that while there seems to be a strong consensus on what the prequels "shouldn't" be... there's nowhere near a consensus on what they should have been.  I think this site actually contains 90% of the people on the face of the planet Earth that like Star Wars the way I like Star Wars... and yet we can't see eye to eye on what we would have liked from the PT.

I too have strong desires to see a "proper" reboot of the trilogy.  I too have thought that "making movies costs lots of money" and "writing novels is free" so I have considered going that route, despite the fact my longest short story is not 10 pages.

My hope is that while we can't agree in concept form- that once a quality story were presented in full, that we would gather around it and say, "Yes, this is how it should be."  Or, at least, "Yes, this works and is not the failure that the PT was."  But I'm afraid it would still be, "Eh... it's pretty good I guess... but still not what I was expecting or hoping it would be."  And, of course, "That sucked.  It was worse than the PT."

I've asked Moth3r if we can open a new forum dedicated to just Prequel Rewrites.  It's possible there's only a few of us here that would care to post in it... but I think the action gets lost in the other forums/threads.  I think it would do better in its own forum.

xhonzi said:

Perhaps my biggest 'sad' is that while there seems to be a strong consensus on what the prequels "shouldn't" be... there's nowhere near a consensus on what they should have been.  I think this site actually contains 90% of the people on the face of the planet Earth that like Star Wars the way I like Star Wars... and yet we can't see eye to eye on what we would have liked from the PT.

I too have strong desires to see a "proper" reboot of the trilogy.  I too have thought that "making movies costs lots of money" and "writing novels is free" so I have considered going that route, despite the fact my longest short story is not 10 pages.

My hope is that while we can't agree in concept form- that once a quality story were presented in full, that we would gather around it and say, "Yes, this is how it should be."  Or, at least, "Yes, this works and is not the failure that the PT was."  But I'm afraid it would still be, "Eh... it's pretty good I guess... but still not what I was expecting or hoping it would be."  And, of course, "That sucked.  It was worse than the PT."

I've asked Moth3r if we can open a new forum dedicated to just Prequel Rewrites.  It's possible there's only a few of us here that would care to post in it... but I think the action gets lost in the other forums/threads.  I think it would do better in its own forum.

I had a hard time looking for a home for it. I didn't know where it belonged.

I am trying not to axe the prequels. I just want to have fun with it and see how far I can go with it. I could get stuck and appreciate the prequels as hard as that may seem.

On the one hand you say: How hard is it to screw up the Prequels?  And yet George Lucas, the originator of Star Wars, managed to do just that!

And then you try to do what he should have done, and you find yourself tempted to or actually making the same mistakes he made.  It gives you a little more sympathy for how rotten the final product is and how it got that way.  I can't say that it makes me like them more, but I appreciate the challenge of doing it more.

xhonzi said:

On the one hand you say: How hard is it to screw up the Prequels?  And yet George Lucas, the originator of Star Wars, managed to do just that!

And then you try to do what he should have done, and you find yourself tempted to or actually making the same mistakes he made.  It gives you a little more sympathy for how rotten the final product is and how it got that way.  I can't say that it makes me like them more, but I appreciate the challenge of doing it more.

I do have some appreciation for the amount of work that would need to be done. It is hard to write something like that. I am trying to do something as good as the OT, which is taking some serious work.

The OT is so good because of how fresh it is. I have to make a story that is up to par with the OT, but I am also forced to use things from PT that I don't want, because it will contradict the OT. Star Wars was genius, and no matter how highly I think of my self, I ain't no genius.

I really want to tell a good story, but I just don't think it is going to be as fast paced as the OT. I can't avoid leaving the politics out of it.

Handzzz said:

EyeShotFirst said:

Star Wars was genius, and no matter how highly I think of my self, I ain't no genius.

I really want to tell a good story, but I just don't think it is going to be as fast paced as the OT. I can't avoid leaving the politics out of it.

Star wars wasn't a genius, but it had a good script. You can learn writing scripts, as if you understand the basics. See some real good films, like Leon, the professional, personally I like more than star wars.Or, read some books about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc1KzpMnuX0&feature=related

But is someone listening? I fell that I'm wasting my time.

I like Leon too. I just don't want to go in that direction.

I've been privately suggesting that Prequel Rewrites get their own forum here on OT.com.  Moth3r asked I start a thread in Suggestions trying to gauge interest in the idea.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/New-Forum-for-Prequel-Rewrites/topic/11468/

Please go voice your opinion.

Ok, now the thread is changing in title and content, because now we have a category. From now on, this is strictly my WIP/Suggestions/Ideas thread for my trilogy.

Judge said:

EyeShotFirst said:

I want to make Anakin Skywalker a like-able character. As impossible as that may seem, I think I can do it.

I don't think it will be that hard, as long as you take absolutely no cues from the PT when designing his character. If you succeed in making him someone the audience can relate to, you will easily achieve the following:

- His downfall will be more tragic (perhaps take ideas from ancient tragedies, Shakespearean tragedies, etc.)

- Watching Luke grow up and edge nearer to the dark side, seeing how he might follow his father's fate, will have more of an impact on the audience

- The audience might actually believe Obi-Wan when he says that Anakin was a 'good friend'. It seemed like Obi-Wan kind of hated Anakin in the PT

Unfortunately, this also creates problems. If you really want to emphasise the tragedy in Anakin's transformation to Darth Vader, it will be near impossible to conceal the fact that he is Luke's father. It depends how you view these novels; if you see them as true 'prequels' which assume that the reader already knows the story of the OT, there's no problem. However, if you see them as earlier episodes in a saga then critical plot details have to be kept secret.

His transformation is the most important thing I am fleshing out. I have been pondering the best way to do it for a few weeks, and I am getting very close. The transformation will be very tragic and as you say more Shakespearean.

I want to keep it as a mystery. I don't want to give away too much, but I think the transformation should take place earlier.

So hows the writing going? have you made much progress on this?

cutnshut said:

So hows the writing going? have you made much progress on this?

I am still thinking of how to go with it. I want to have everything planned before I jump into it. I really want to connect it to the OT flawlessly.

Yeah its tough, I was going to say the story shouldnt contradict anything from the OT...

but saying that someone in the re-writes thread said what if Obi-Wan is Lukes real Dad, at first i kinda dissmissed it but if it could be done well and add a shock moment to the prequels (something that was a big thing for the OT) it could work out if written well...

anyway, dont give in! that leads to the darkside!

cutnshut said:

Yeah its tough, I was going to say the story shouldnt contradict anything from the OT...

but saying that someone in the re-writes thread said what if Obi-Wan is Lukes real Dad, at first i kinda dissmissed it but if it could be done well and add a shock moment to the prequels (something that was a big thing for the OT) it could work out if written well...

anyway, dont give in! that leads to the darkside!

Well, Obi Wan is still not going to be Luke's dad.

Now i have a sad :(