VideInfra78

Disney Ruined Star Wars said:

I really like in the RLM review how they point out Force Yoda acts like fake Yoda from ESB. He was acting crazy to test Luke but when it’s time for the movie to get serious, he starts acting serious. In this movie he acts weird and crazy just to yak it up for the audience, which I found really unsettling too.

Yes! Thank you! I noticed this immediately. Why didn’t anyone else?

DominicCobb said:

What’s funny to me is people complained that TFA played it too safe, now this did the opposite of that and people are still complaining.

Why is this funny? Why do people have to like this movie because it didn’t recycle OT plot points? That’s the lowest bar I can think of. Is it so outrageous that they still wanted a Star Wars movie? Is overcorrecting and not remaining consistent with characters, plot and tone impossible? I would also argue this movie is not too different at it’s core, you end up at the same point that TFA ended minus a few characters we knew nothing about anyway.

Really hope to see Leia as a Jedi in this thing. I always thought that she was going to be badass in RotJ after Yoda talks about another in ESB and then was totally disappointed that she just wants to be held for most of RotJ. Another thing I'd like to see is Luke seeing apparitions of his father like he did Obi-Wan after he died. I think that would be an interesting concept. And I wonder if Han will die like Harrison Ford thought he should have in RotJ. 

I remember reading somewhere he was like 200 years old. I, like everyone else, thought he was using the Force to keep his frail body alive and that use of the dark side ruins your physical appearance as it does the man inside.

Need to be invited.

Ouch, my balls have been kicked again by GL. I thought it was the last time after Ep. III. Now I have to deal with even further kidifying of Star Wars. Fuck you too George. At least you personally can do no further damage. Good riddance.

To be honest, it wouldn't take much. It's just that the paragraph organization is weird. It looks like the parts that say "cut to" seem to be the scene markers, you could just use a setting like in a treatment to divide these sections. And then capatilize important places and names. Or you could figure out a way to organize these breaks that are different from the others, maybe closer to book form, I don't know. I'm working on a treatment too that I'll eventually want feedback on, I know how much work this is, that is essentially just for us with no reward otherwise. But if you do want feedback, maybe something more focused on the bigger picture is in order for now, since if you are open to constructive criticism, things might change anyway. 

I've made a few attempts to read this, and keep asking myself why I can't seem to get into it, and honestly, I think it's because I'm not sure how to attack it, because of it's organization. I don't see how this is supposed to be read, it's not a treatment and it's not a script. It's something in between where I can't tell where scenes end or pick up. It's almost as if you've decided just to free write. If you want people to read it, I suggest that you go with more of a plot-oriented write that we can understand that only includes important plot points and details related to them, or if you're going to go this in depth then do scenes like in a script instead of just writing "cut to" at the beginning of certain paragraphs. That's just my opinion, because I really want to read this, but it just seems really disorganized at the moment and hard to read. I know how hard this is to do and I have a ton of respect for you in doing it, I'd like to give you feedback, it's just hard to get a feel for the story in its presentation, just my opinion.

Sounds good, I guess you just need to reflect the motivations in the story?

You are obviously a very good writer and it also makes me smile when others have a few of the same ideas that I do for my prequels -- it lets me know that I'm on the right track in my vision.

My only qualm is the war is not very interesting and I'm not getting any political intrigue. Even though you explained it to me, I still don't see why races that co-existed in a peaceful Republic for thousands of years would just grow to hate each other and end up going to galactic war. Especially if Jedi are in place to resolve disputes. There has to be some impetus, an event or something that divides them. Especially if both sides are essentially good in nature, as it seems yours are. Neither the humans nor aliens are particularly evil are they?

As it is now, it doesn't seem believable and that there is a war, just because it is in the script. Lucas! The reasons why someone would go to war, when it is supposed to be a last straw, are very interesting.

But there is no doubt that there is something there and you have a knack for writing. That's just my opinion anyway.

I was really excited by your character descriptions, but then immediately felt lost with your first post of the actual story. I felt like I was being thrust into tax disputes all over again, okay, maybe not that bad. What war? Who is the League of Sovereign Planets and why are they in opposition to the Galactic Republic? What is the war over? What extreme measures were taken? Why? What is their relationship to each other? What are their motivations?

Mrebo said:

@VideInfra78

I've started and I run into the same thoughts/issues as xhonzi.

My ideas are improved from reading other people's scripts/thoughts. Reading xhonzi's beginning really made me rethink how I would start. My idea was Obi Wan's ship being attacked by several small pirate ships near Tatooine, resulting in a crash landing. I like the scene but I think I need to make it more important that a plot device for getting Obi Wan to Tatooine. I think xhonzi has a good idea in jumping right into the Clone Wars.

I've thought it could be neat to have a wiki style editing system in order to construct a prequel many would enjoy. Of course, it could result in middling results.

CWBorne suggested paying homage to "New Hollywood" films. That inspired me to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. While I've yet to get a full sense of the stylistic elements, that movie was inspiring for the relationship between Obi Wan and Anakin. And there is a scene on a cliff that I would be tempted to borrow almost completely.

I guess it could be nice for more of us to post things we've written. I shy away from doing so because I'm afraid of not continuing or I will want to radically revise it and don't want to present something so tentative... And of course, delusions of grandeur make me think I can present a finished product so compelling that others would fall over in awe XD

Maybe I'll post something, since I have been inspired and helped by what others have written. Feedback would be helpful too I suppose.

I'm not really familiar with New Hollywood although I think I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a child, but it was awhile ago. I'm not a big fan of the love triangle angle, although it's better than anything that was on screen in the PT. I think the love triangle worked well in the OT in ESB and to have that again might be kind of a rehash.

I thought that this forum might be a good idea for people to share thoughts but for the reasons you mentioned it seems that not too many of us are interested. At one point it seemed there was a lot of motivation to get something going, but I think it has lost steam.

You reminded me of something that I wanted to put in another post of mine with pirates. And that is that I see a lot of similarities between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Empire in SW.

This will make my followers happy.

deleted post

I'm going to go ahead and read this and give you some feedback. The only reason I haven't done this yet, could be the same reason some others haven't, and that's just that as soon as I saw Gungans, Naboo, etc. I stopped reading. I think most people on these boards cringe like I do when they see PT names. If your story goes off on its own direction, I strongly suggest you just use new names. I'll get back to you with feedback after I read this. I can see you've really put a lot of work into this. Thanks for posting.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I'm currently stuck with my rewrite. I'm more than halfway done, but I have to rewrite the last of it and bring everything together. The endeavour is frustrating, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. It'd be easier if I had some collaboraters to work with (God knows I know squat about how to write battles in space and hate writing them) but that isn't an option, so I just have to make do.

@xhonzi

I think because it's a fun project, it really doesn't matter whether you have to compromise with other people, because there doesn't have to be a final product that would go to print or be submitted. The things you don't agree with you could just keep your version as long as those things are relatively minor.

@Duracell

More than halfway done with three movies or the first episode? What format are you writing in? A treatment or a script? Novel form?

I'd also really like to work with someone who has a similar vision. I put a little bit of information up about my prequels on xhonzi's post about things to think about. What are yours about?

Edit: Ah, didn't see you have yours posted. I'll give it a read. Thank you for putting it up. =)

I guess it's my turn:

The War

Yes, the Clone Wars are focused on in my prequels. The Clones are slave laborers and soldiers controlled by technologically advanced cyborg-machines with cloning technology. The Clones attack the Outer Rim territories in search of a lost artifact needed for the cloning process that would, in effect, save their race. The distrust of machines in the Outer Rim planets, such as Tatooine, is a result of the wars.

There are a series of wars which are bit complex. As the Outer Rim planets have no organized military they appeal to the Galactic Republic for military aid. The Galactic Republic Senate has almost become completely controlled by corrupt aristocracies left over from the Galactic Kingdom. These power-hungry aristocrats see this as an oppurtunity to control trade with the natural resource-laden Outer Rim planets, specifically Tibanna gas mining.

After a series of wars, the Republic armies are crippled and with the advice of certain corrupt Senators, Mandalorian pirates are hired as mercenaries to help finish the Clones in exchange for them being authorized to set up organized crime operations and control trade in the Outer Rim. Those Senators of course would, of course, have a hand in the pot. This backroom deal is sold to the moral Senators as a last ditch effort liberating force.

After these events the Outer Rim territories are in bad shape as they no longer have any standard of living or control of their own well-being. Gangsters and corrupt politicians have total control in the territories of disenfranchised aliens and refugee clones. Without rights, the outer planets can only protest and retaliate in the form of terrorism which creates animosityand xenophobia between those planets and the Galactic Republic.

After the assassination of the populist Chancellor of the Republic by a group of political conspirators, the Senator who assumes power enacts new laws made to combat terrorism along with totally replacing the destroyed Republic armies. The new Chancellor, through executive orders, makes himself Emperor and attacks the terrorist cells in the Outer Republic, thus completely taking over the entire galaxy as sole ruler.

Continuity to the OT:

All surprises are left intact in the trilogy. Characters like Yoda are mentioned but never seen and do not have large roles. Anything said in the OT to be true, is. The episodes are meant to be seen in order.

The Sith are involved in the wars and heavily influence them as well as Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. They are sworn enemies of the Jedi and resurface after many years from their defeat in the Jedi-Sith war which took place during the times of the Galactic Kingdom. The Jedi have not been an organized council since after the Sith were defeated.

Palpatine is not a Sith. There are force-users who are not Jedi and not Sith. There are no rules of two, or rules against attachment or specific dress for Jedis. The Jedi do not operate in the traditional ways of the past when the force was religion.

The droids are owned by King Organa and are in the prequels. Obi-Wan, Amidala (not Padme), and Anakin are the main protagonists.

Themes:

(I'll add this later. No time. But this is important.)

It seems that you're the driving force in keeping this forum going, that would be a shame if you lost interest in a total prequel rewrite.

How many of us are doing these total rewrites? I'm just interested. This project is so time consuming, I've been thinking personally I wish that I could work with someone who had a similar vision and had a story similar to mine where we could just work on it together. To actually get a script would be like a full-time job that I don't think anyone has time for. Because it's Star Wars, it's not like you can even make any money from the project. I think still, there has to be a lot of trust between the writers, because with a total rewrite there are still a lot of new and original ideas that would be introduced. It's a less than ideal situation, but I don't see how any of us are going to actually realistically finish a project like this. Does anyone even have an actual fleshed out treatment? After a year or two, I've only been able to get down the basic plot and happenings of the three movies. I'm about to start writing basic treatments, but I can't imagine ever being able to have time to write three full scripts for fun. How about you guys? How far along are you?

@CWBorne

I think you are so right on with the points you make here. I think the biggest reason that Star Wars resonates with people and especially for me, are the themes dealing with the importance of family and friends. There is a certain sense of idealism that runs throughout the entire movies which I think compounds the insult that is the prequels. Because the actual making of the prequels themselves were everything contrary -- the words that come to mind are selling out, money and greed -- not idealism, or trying to convey anything meaningful or valuable. Without the sacrifice by Vader for his son, without Luke willing to put himself in grave danger to save his friends and his father, Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars. I think any good Star Wars movie has to have these themes revolving around the main characters. In Star Wars, this idealism at the individual level personifies and is projected onto the Rebellion vs. the Empire. I think that's why it all works so well. And I believe that's why when I watched the prequels, I could care less about any of the characters and then ultimately could care less about the galaxy. No one stood for anything or had any meaningful relationship with anyone. There were no believable family or friend relationships in any of it, in my view. Nor did I understand anyone's world view, I know there were empty gestures and pretense, but I really can't remember anything precise or meaningful.

@CWBorne - So the Mandalorians originally have the clone technology? Or the criminals, pirates, disenfranchised? I'm a little confused about the clones. And why doesn't the Emperor use the cloning technology in the OT? Or are you going the GL route and making stormtroopers clones?

ChainsawAsh said:

The basic thrust of ROTJ is good - rebels gain intel on a way to deal a death blow to the Empire, but it's really a trap to draw the rebellion out in the open and destroy them for good.

Here's the specific things I would have changed:

- We don't see the Emperor until the final act, when Luke does
- NO FRIGGIN' DEATH STARS!
- The final battle involves an epic space battle above Coruscant, intercut with an epic ground battle where rebels of all alien species (diversity is important here) are fighting to gain control of the capital
- The Emperor isn't actually on Coruscant, he's on another planet
- Luke is forcibly captured by Vader rather than giving himself in
- Vader is a badass who wipes out huge quantities of troops on his own
- When Vader captures Luke, it's very clear what his plan is - he wants Luke to join him and overthrow the Emperor so they can rule together
- Leia is NOT Luke's sister
- Han dies, and Luke & Leia are together at the end (possibly at Han's funeral)

There are other changes, but this is the overall gist.  I'd really like to write a completely alternate ROTJ, honestly.

I second each point of all of this.

arkham618 said:

I'd like to take a crack at this by way of my first post:

Setting: I will be focusing on the Clone Wars, which I envision as a series of counterinsurgency operations by the Republic against the restive Outer Rim Territories. The (mostly non-human) inhabitants of the Outer Rim have been ruthlessly exploited for centuries by megacorporations based in the affluent Core systems, and are finally provoked to violence by Sith agents, who supply the insurgents with surplus Republic arms and munitions and train them in guerrilla warfare. The Sith, who have been in decline for centuries, have discovered a way to quickly replenish their numbers -- i.e., by exhuming the mummified corpses of ancient Dark Side practitioners, cloning their remains, and binding their restless spirits to the resulting bodies using an artifact known as the Kyber Crystal. (Clone bodies being otherwise mindless lumps of flesh.) They proceed to detach thousands of systems from the fringes of the Republic and launch terror attacks against the heavily-populated central planets. This instigates a military reorganization within the Republic, as the militias of the various constituent systems are federalized and attached to the small standing Army and Navy. It also leads to general paranoia, anti-alien bigotry, and an intensification of police powers -- i.e., the foundations of Imperial rule. Bail Organa and other scions of the old aristocracy oppose these measures on principal, which leads to their gradual marginalization as Palpatine and his corporate allies stir the populace with jingoistic propaganda.

Continuity: The prequels begin 24 years BBY. Anakin is 18, as is Lady Breha, the woman who will eventually bear his children. Breha is a member of the prominent Antilles family of Corellia, which seeks a political alliance with House Organa of Alderaan. To that end, Breha is betrothed to Prince-Regent Bail Organa, and although she falls in love with Anakin during the course of Episode 1, she marries Bail as her duty dictates. This serves both to establish romantic tension between the characters -- since they cannot openly express their feelings for one another and can only consummate their love by cuckolding the heir to an influential noble family -- and to leave the paternity of Breha's offspring uncertain until the last possible moment. Anakin's fall to the Dark Side comes about due to the pernicious influence of his father, Kane, who is a low-level crime boss and a complete douche bag. Kane murdered Anakin's mother (one of the many women he impregnated during his long career as a spice smuggler -- Owen Lars is a bastard by a different mother, and thus Anakin's half-brother) during a drunken rage when Anakin was a toddler. Anakin has suppressed the memory, but has recurring nightmares of the incident, which the principle villain -- Lord Malus -- exploits to provoke Anakin to murder Kane. Malus then blackmails Anakin into furthering the Sith's agenda, threatening to reveal Skywalker's secret to the Jedi if the young Knight does not submit to his will. Unexpectedly, Malus orders Anakin to kill him in the presence of Chancellor Palpatine, whom Malus' spirit then possesses with the aid of a surviving Kyber shard. (The focus of Episode 2 is the uncovering and destruction of the Kyber.) The Sith Lord thus gains control of the supreme executive office in the Republic and Anakin, under the moniker Darth Vader, becomes a lauded galactic hero, as the man who finally brought Malus to justice and ended the Clone Wars! The possession of Palpatine is, per Malus's plan, witnessed by several Jedi, who attempt to kill the Chancellor once they realize what has happened. This leads, of course, to the Great Purge, which Anakin (as Vader) carries out during Episode 3 in order to preserve his newly won status and fame (which he feels will finally convince Breha to abandon Bail and become his wife) and bury the last shred of guilt he feels for murdering his father. When Anakin goes to claim Breha, however, she presents him with an infant daughter: Leia. Anakin, whom Malus/Palpatine prophesied would have a son (who would be a danger to his father if not raised in the Sith ways), refuses to believe the child is his, instead attributing her parentage to Bail. Enraged, Anakin disowns Breha and nearly kills her, but is stopped by an old Jedi friend (not Obi-Wan, who has absconded with Luke to Dagobah to seek counsel with Yoda), whom he kills instead. Mortified, Anakin withdraws to Sullust, where Obi-Wan finds him after depositing Luke with the Lars family on Tatooine. The much anticipated final duel takes place there among the planet's lava fields, Anakin (who has already accumulated various cybernetic prostheses during the Purge) sustains the devastating injuries that confine him permanently to his mechanical suit, and Obi-Wan returns to Tatooine to watch over Luke.

This is really good, I don't know how I missed it before. Your ideas for the backdrop of war greatly coincide with mine. The only thing I would have reservations about is that Star Wars, I believe, still needs to be somewhat of a family-friendly film. I don't know if having Anakin's father spreading his seed and murdering women falls in line with that. I like the Kyber Crystal idea, I also had similar ideas in using it with cloning. Where I got hung up was that if you allow cloning of Dark Jedi, you have to ask the question, why didn't the Sith just make millions and easily take over the galaxy? I think how you may have addressed it here is that only one soul or mind can transfer, which seems like a good idea to me. My only real complaint is that I prefer that all of the later suprises, like the identity of Vader, Luke, Leia and Yoda should remain a secret to preserve some of the best scenes in Star Wars and one of the best scenes in cinematic history - "No, I am your father." (IMO, LOL)

@Xhonzi -- I don't think you've filled out your own Questionnaire here?

Edit: NVM, I guess this was just supposed to be of help and not to be answered in the post.

Great stuff, looking forward to finding out more about the Clone Wars. I'll probably shoot my ideas for my own rewrite to get feedback from you. I've changed and rewritten and started over many times. It's been an ongoing slow process for my thoughts on what should have happened.

Xhonzi, any idea when you're going to add more to your re-write? We saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things as to the direction the prequels should have gone. I hope you post something soon. =)