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What would have made the prequels better in your opinion?

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It seems it is a well known fact on this forum that the prequels sucked were an absolute abomination. I want to know from you what you think would have made them better.

Whether it be little changes to the characters and some scenes, or major changes to the storyline altogether, I want to know what you would have done differently. For example: Should the soldiers have been clones and droids? What would have made the Battle of Geonosis more exciting? Should they have used less or more CGI? etc.

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 (Edited)

- Self-taught, midichlorianless Force-users.

- no armies of lightsaber-users.

- no lightsaber-using Yoda or Palpatine

- no midichlorians at all

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The Clones being an evil army that's united with the Mandalorians and the Seperatists. 

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 (Edited)

A likeable Anakin.

Better villains.

Consistency with the good portions of the EU.

Consistency with the OT.

Good dialogue.

Less "black hat" villains.

Less Jedi who are aloof ubermensch.

Less "white hat" heroes.

Little to no emphasis on the Jedi-Sith dichotomy.

More prominent female characters.

More Jedi who are human ("Human" as in having human thoughts, feelings, and flaws, not biologically human.).

More lightsaber colours.

No Artoo.

No Chosen One prophecy.

No Darths other than Vader.

No Hayden Christensen.

No Jabba.

No Jango.

No Jar Jar.

No midi-chlorians.

No mini-Jango.

No Natalie Portman.

No Order 66.

No Padme.

No Palpatine with a lightsaber.

No Qui-Gon (not as Ben's master, anyway).

No ridiculous universe shrinkage (Anakin building Threepio, Yoda knowing Chewie, etc.).

No stupid made up terms like "padawan" and "youngling".

No Temuera Morrison clone troopers.

No Threepio.

No virgin birth.

No Yoda.

No Yoda with a lightsaber.

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More emphasis on character development

Replacement of Hayden Christensen

More character development for young Vader

Less Shot-reverse-shot angles

Yoda not wielding a lightsaber

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To each their own I guess. Yoda using a lightsaber was something I'd been waiting to see since I was a small boy. One of my favorite things about the PT. Midi-chlorians and Jar Jar are the two things I dislike the most. Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship was wrong in my opinion as well. They came across as a dysfunctional father and son instead of best friends. And while having many Jedi in the PT doesn't bother me like it does others, I do wish they'd been portrayed a little differently. More Knightly order and less cloistered religious cult. But all in all I think the PT is a 4 while the OT is a solid 5.   

I am what all Jedi fear to become, and what all Sith wish to be. A GOD!

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DuracellEnergizer said:

A likeable Anakin.

Better villains.

Consistency with the good portions of the EU.

Consistency with the OT.

Good dialogue.

Less "black hat" villains.

Less Jedi who are aloof ubermensch.

Less "white hat" heroes.

Little to no emphasis on the Jedi-Sith dichotomy.

More prominent female characters.

More Jedi who are human ("Human" as in having human thoughts, feelings, and flaws, not biologically human.).

More lightsaber colours.

No Artoo.

No Chosen One prophecy.

No Darths other than Vader.

No Hayden Christensen.

No Jabba.

No Jango.

No Jar Jar.

No midi-chlorians.

No mini-Jango.

No Natalie Portman.

No Order 66.

No Padme.

No Palpatine with a lightsaber.

No Qui-Gon (not as Ben's master, anyway).

No ridiculous universe shrinkage (Anakin building Threepio, Yoda knowing Chewie, etc.).

No stupid made up terms like "padawan" and "youngling".

No Temuera Morrison clone troopers.

No Threepio.

No virgin birth.

No Yoda.

No Yoda with a lightsaber.

 I think it would be easier to just erase the prequels from existence :D

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DuracellEnergizer said:

A likeable Anakin.

This.

More info in my bio.

真実

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 (Edited)

Handman said:

No Jar-Jar.

I think that's too simplistic an answer. I don't the the problem with Jar-Jar is his existence but more the way the character is presented. The voice, the cartoonish look and slap-stick, the unfortunate and unmistakable flavour of Stepin Fetchit.

A light relief alien character which acts as a plot bridging device would have been fine but the tone of the character wasn't Star Wars.

If you look at aliens like Yoda or Chewie or even Jabba they have a realistic feel to them despite their nature. There's a physicality to them and they feel like people.

Threepio is fussy and gets on the heroes nerves at times but once again he feels like a real person you might meet and could care about.

Artoo has the nearest amount of physical humour to Jar-Jar as a main character (he gets spat out of things, thrown across rooms by electrical shocks etc) but there is still enough 'humanity' in the performances drawn from the machines, Kenny Baker and the sound design for the audience to connect to the person that abstract shape represents.

Jar-Jar is aptly named because the way he is presented is iike dropping Roger Rabbit into an official James Bond picture. He just doesn't fit, he Jars.

If the same care had been taken as was taken with the OT characters he could have worked.

He is a touchstone as to what went wrong with the PT. It's just too cartoonish and lacks enough human spirit.

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The 3 basic principles of Real Estate is location, location, and location.  While the 3 basic principles of Movies are characters, characters, and characters.

Quite frankly, I did not give a rats ass about Anakin & Padme, and that is the major problem with the PT.  I liked Obiwan played Ewan McGregor, but the trilogy is essentially about Anakin's downfall.

We can argue CGI, Jar Jar, and Midiclorians, but if I cared about Anakin & Padme, I would have liked the trilogy.  I think there are alot of flaws in Return of the Jedi, but they still have Luke, Leia, and Han so there is someone I care about for 2 hours.

When Anakin was lying there burning up on Mustafar, I said, "Good riddance!" 

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Bingowings said:

Handman said:

No Jar-Jar.

I think that's too simplistic an answer. I don't the the problem with Jar-Jar is his existence but more the way the character is presented. The voice, the cartoonish look and slap-stick, the unfortunate and unmistakable flavour of Stepin Fetchit.

A light relief alien character which acts as a plot bridging device would have been fine but the tone of the character wasn't Star Wars.

If you look at aliens like Yoda or Chewie or even Jabba they have a realistic feel to them despite their nature. There's a physicality to them and they feel like people.

Threepio is fussy and gets on the heroes nerves at times but once again he feels like a real person you might meet and could care about.

Artoo has the nearest amount of physical humour to Jar-Jar as a main character (he gets spat out of things, thrown across rooms by electrical shocks etc) but there is still enough 'humanity' in the performances drawn from the machines, Kenny Baker and the sound design for the audience to connect to the person that abstract shape represents.

Jar-Jar is aptly named because the way he is presented is iike dropping Roger Rabbit into an official James Bond picture. He just doesn't fit, he Jars.

If the same care had been taken as was taken with the OT characters he could have worked.

He is a touchstone as to what went wrong with the PT. It's just too cartoonish and lacks enough human spirit.

 Yes.

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 (Edited)

I would have liked to see more of Darth Vader. Just imagine for a moment that Anakin had fallen into the lava by the end of Episode II and had spent all of Episode III with the Mask on, surrounded by Stromtroopers, and just generally being the evil doer he was by Episode IV - If he had killed the younglings with the mask on, in the suit, that would have made it so much better. That's the prequel I wanted to see. Really for me, it was only at the very end of Episode III, when Vader is on the bridge with Tarkin, that I felt any connection to the original Trilogy - that moment gave me goosebumps!  So, more of that would have been great.

Also, Real sets! Real Props! Less CGI! I have yet to see a CGI Jabba that is as half as convincing as the massive foam-rubber puppet built 30 years ago. A real set, with something physical to work with not only gets a much better performance from the actors but also generates an atmosphere - something a computer just can't recreate convincingly - or at least it couldn't when the prequels were shot. Perhaps it can now.

George Lucas 1983 vs 2005

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That 1983 - 2005 comparison shot is awesome.

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DuracellEnergizer said:


More lightsaber colours.

Get out.

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Just imagine if Anakin was a dashing, charismatic hero, and was of a similar age to Obi Wan, and we could see their exploits and daring together, and not necessarily regarding the uninteresting "Clone War(s)," but during some kind of actual adventures in an expanding universe, and then we could actually see and care about a genuine transformation into evil and betrayal.

Anakin should have been the Han character, and Obi Wan should have been the Luke, coming of age and developing by experiencing the betrayal and loss of a well-sculpted friendship.  A love triangle between them and Luke's mother (only clumsily and vaguely hinted at in ROTShit) would have been nice, even if only due to Anakin's paranoia as he slid toward the Dark Side.

All of this would have to be handled by a competent screenwriter.  George would never have it in him.

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Jar-Jar should have been the Han character.

He would be an irreverent alien scoundrel with no belief in the Force who might survive the trilogy to turn up in the background of ROTJ.

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TV's Frink said:

DuracellEnergizer said:


More lightsaber colours.

Get out.

Women and Frinkies first. 

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 (Edited)

Palpatine slowly deforming and aging throughout the six movies instead of rapidly deforming and aging in ROTS.

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darklordoftech said:

Palpatine slowly deforming and aging throughout the six movies instead of rapidly deforming and aging in ROTS.

The prequels are only three movies.

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TV's Frink said:

darklordoftech said:

Palpatine slowly deforming and aging throughout the six movies instead of rapidly deforming and aging in ROTS.

The prequels are only three movies.

I meant that the prequels should have implied that Palpatine further deformed and aged in between ROTS and ROTJ.

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Bingowings said:

Handman said:

No Jar-Jar.


*snip*

If you look at aliens like Yoda or Chewie or even Jabba they have a realistic feel to them despite their nature. There's a physicality to them and they feel like people.

OT Yoda and Chewie, sure.  But PT Yoda and Chewie?  I have to disagree.  Any complexity they had in the prequels was inherited from the OT.  They were cartoonish cardboard cutouts, just from a different cartoon than Jar-Jar.


If the same care had been taken as was taken with the OT characters he could have worked.

He is a touchstone as to what went wrong with the PT. It's just too cartoonish and lacks enough human spirit.

I'd actually argue he's got more going for him than most other characters in the PT. Sure, he doesn't fit in the Star Wars universe, I'll give you that, but in anything but the name, does PT Obi-Wan? Anakin? They don't belong in Star Wars either, just not because they are too silly.  At least "idiotic goofball" is a schtick.  Anakin doesn't even have that going for him.  And Jar-Jar is one of the few PT characters that successfully makes eye contact with other characters, so he compares favorably with the "real" characters on the physicality side as well.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I'd like to have seen something a little more epic. It's like every scene is either people sitting down, or armies of thousands with flashy cgi lasers and shit buzzing around the screen.

I just felt like I was watching a soap opera pasted onto a bad series of cut scenes from a 90's first person shooter.

Had the story been a little more engaging, it would've merited the scale in which it was composed, but for a badly written political drama with robotic acting, I could've shot it in a Detroit apartment complex with the same effect.
George Lucas used to be a name that made you think of great effects and great shots. I still have a lot of love for George Lucas. THX, American Graffiti, and Star Wars were very good films, that I consider to be definitive 70's films.

George's films had such an iconic look to them. You don't get any of that in the prequels. There were some neat sequences, but many of them were borrowed and uninspired. It's like "Look it's a John Ford shot" , or "Here's a taste of Kurosawa"

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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