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The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 308

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Regarding the whol “desert planets being a dime a dozen” thing, there’s also Savareen. Like every other aspect of the movie (except Beckett), the planets in Solo really sucked. Another desert, another snowy planet, etcetera.

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I thought Kessel and Correlia were cool, and we didn’t see much of Mimban but for what we did it worked.

Only ones that are indeed “repetitive” are the snow planet and desert planet, but there’s gotta be a lot of deserts out there. It’s a planet of no interest, that happens to be by Kessel and is suddenly a battleground.

As for the snow planet they go for this Himalayan style that sets it apart from Hoth.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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 (Edited)

Is there any way to fix Phantom Menace’s sense of momentum? It feels like the film is split into ‘The Opening Part’, ‘The Tatooine Part’, ‘The Coruscant Part’, and ‘The End Part’ without a real sense of progression or reason why they need to be in that order.

A New Hope has events naturally build into each-other. The Death Star part doesn’t feel like ‘The Death Star Part’ if that makes any sense.

Are there any structural changes that would fix all of this? Add a sense of urgency to the whole thing? Or is this problem so fundamental to the script that any editing decision would be useless?

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Hmm, that’s true.

The entire escape from Naboo-return to Naboo was a giant waste of time. Anakin is the only important thing that happens, but he takes away from the film’s focus. It’s as if there are two films in one.

I think the best thing to do is start the movie on Tatooine as a one off adventure. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have sent to find a young boy with unremarkable force talent. They find Anakin, mind trick him out of slavery and go on their way (no need for an extended pod race). What follows instead is a race against Maul, who wants to kidnap the boy for his own sinister purposes. Maul could be collecting force sensitive children for a phantom menace.

They return to Coruscant, and here we can have a big reveal of how mighty the Republic is (like the Empire’s Death Star reveal. See? It’s like poetry, it rhymes). The Jedi decide upon further review he is to old to be trained and want no part in him. But Qui-Gon, unlike the reserved Jedi, has positive emotion and won’t give Anakin up for Maul to take.

While this is happening, Palaptine informs the Jedi of the Naboo Crisis. Then 25 minutes or so in we head to Naboo and stay there for the rest of the movie, intercutting the opening and final battle to one. Would be hard to pull off, but that’s the best structure I can think of.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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OutboundFlight said:

Hmm, that’s true.

The entire escape from Naboo-return to Naboo was a giant waste of time. Anakin is the only important thing that happens, but he takes away from the film’s focus. It’s as if there are two films in one.

I think the best thing to do is start the movie on Tatooine as a one off adventure. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have sent to find a young boy with unremarkable force talent. They find Anakin, mind trick him out of slavery and go on their way (no need for an extended pod race). What follows instead is a race against Maul, who wants to kidnap the boy for his own sinister purposes. Maul could be collecting force sensitive children for a phantom menace.

They return to Coruscant, and here we can have a big reveal of how mighty the Republic is (like the Empire’s Death Star reveal. See? It’s like poetry, it rhymes). The Jedi decide upon further review he is to old to be trained and want no part in him. But Qui-Gon, unlike the reserved Jedi, has positive emotion and won’t give Anakin up for Maul to take.

While this is happening, Palaptine informs the Jedi of the Naboo Crisis. Then 25 minutes or so in we head to Naboo and stay there for the rest of the movie, intercutting the opening and final battle to one. Would be hard to pull off, but that’s the best structure I can think of.

Just cut out bad dialogue and all Gungans and you have a winning edit.

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LordZerome1080 said:

OutboundFlight said:

Hmm, that’s true.

The entire escape from Naboo-return to Naboo was a giant waste of time. Anakin is the only important thing that happens, but he takes away from the film’s focus. It’s as if there are two films in one.

I think the best thing to do is start the movie on Tatooine as a one off adventure. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have sent to find a young boy with unremarkable force talent. They find Anakin, mind trick him out of slavery and go on their way (no need for an extended pod race). What follows instead is a race against Maul, who wants to kidnap the boy for his own sinister purposes. Maul could be collecting force sensitive children for a phantom menace.

They return to Coruscant, and here we can have a big reveal of how mighty the Republic is (like the Empire’s Death Star reveal. See? It’s like poetry, it rhymes). The Jedi decide upon further review he is to old to be trained and want no part in him. But Qui-Gon, unlike the reserved Jedi, has positive emotion and won’t give Anakin up for Maul to take.

While this is happening, Palaptine informs the Jedi of the Naboo Crisis. Then 25 minutes or so in we head to Naboo and stay there for the rest of the movie, intercutting the opening and final battle to one. Would be hard to pull off, but that’s the best structure I can think of.

Just cut out bad dialogue and all Gungans and you have a winning edit.

Not really. The movie is inherently boring.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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 (Edited)

I don’t think the Jedi should be sent to find Anakin, only for the council to change their minds. Not only that, but it’d be weird for the Jedi to be able locate all Force-sensitive children in the Galaxy (although TCW says just that). Besides, I think Anakin works best as someone they find along the way. Thus, if you want to leave all of Naboo to the end, start with the Queen’s ship landing on Tatooine for the same reason it did in the canon cut; they were escaping Naboo with the Queen to take her to Coruscant but were shot down and need a new hyperdrive. Plus, you could open with an action scene that way (them escaping the Trade Federation).

The reason ANH gets away with the slow Tatooine bits is that aside from the opening scene, there isn’t any action prior to it, so there isn’t much momentum to kill. The Prequels, or at least two of them, sandwich Coruscant snoozefests in the middle between two stretches of thrilling action sequences.

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Y’know how Force Awakens is a soft remake of A New Hope? So is Phantom Menace, except it feels like it’s been translated through 16 different languages. Is it possible to shift Phantom Menace closer to A New Hope/The Force Awakens? Of course, adding a superweapon to the plot is theoretically possible (although stupid).

What if Naboo serves the same ‘plot location’ as the Death Star? The movie starts on Tatooine (Tatooine/Jakku), we learn of a captured queen, we rescue her from enemy territory (Death Star/Occupied Naboo/Starkiller Base), there’s a space battle as we escape the enemy (TIE Fighter Attack/Escape from Naboo/Escape from Jakku), we return to a safe area (Yavin IV/Coruscant/D’Qar), there’s a final battle for peace and freedom (Battle of Yavin/Reclaiming Naboo/Battle of Starkiller Base). Of course you’d occasionally cut to what the Queen is up to in the first act.

I feel like you’d have to shift the ‘point of view’ character to Anakin for this to work, taking the place of Luke or Rey as the protagonist. Maybe the Naboo royal starship is just the Jedi’s ship?

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could serve the same narrative purpose as 3PO and R2, stranded on a planet (with a broken ship), they meet a boy who wishes to help and join them among the stars.

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snooker said:

Y’know how Force Awakens is a soft remake of A New Hope? So is Phantom Menace, except it feels like it’s been translated through 16 different languages. Is it possible to shift Phantom Menace closer to A New Hope/The Force Awakens? Of course, adding a superweapon to the plot is theoretically possible (although stupid).

What if Naboo serves the same ‘plot location’ as the Death Star? The movie starts on Tatooine (Tatooine/Jakku), we learn of a captured queen, we rescue her from enemy territory (Death Star/Occupied Naboo/Starkiller Base), there’s a space battle as we escape the enemy (TIE Fighter Attack/Escape from Naboo/Escape from Jakku), we return to a safe area (Yavin IV/Coruscant/D’Qar), there’s a final battle for peace and freedom (Battle of Yavin/Reclaiming Naboo/Battle of Starkiller Base). Of course you’d occasionally cut to what the Queen is up to in the first act.

I feel like you’d have to shift the ‘point of view’ character to Anakin for this to work, taking the place of Luke or Rey as the protagonist. Maybe the Naboo royal starship is just the Jedi’s ship?

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could serve the same narrative purpose as 3PO and R2, stranded on a planet (with a broken ship), they meet a boy who wishes to help and join them among the stars.

Oh. my.

Poetry really does rhyme.

That being said, I think this might near too similar to ANH. I really don’t see the comparisons between ANH/TFA besides a planet destroying superweapon. I feel like opening the movie with a young boy dreaming to escape on Tatooine and rescue a princess might be going too far. Still, a very interesting plot layout that I wouldn’t mind watching.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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I feel like you’d have to shift the ‘point of view’ character to Anakin for this to work, taking the place of Luke or Rey as the protagonist. Maybe the Naboo royal starship is just the Jedi’s ship?

Given the choice, I’d put the focus on Obi-Wan, or make Anakin older and focus on him, but the movie’s convinced that Qui-Gon’s the protagonist for some bizarre reason. Honestly, the best POV character after him would be Padme.

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Any way C-3PO with his proper plating could be implemented into Episode I and II?

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You could replace TC-14 with 3PO for a quick cameo.

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snooker said:

You could replace TC-14 with 3PO for a quick cameo.

I’d considered that, although I’d rather not. There’s no reason for him to be there, and with the amount of frame-by-frame work require (I insist he be golden), I might as well splice him into another scene. That’s actually something I’d considered doing with Battlefront footage. I can’t chroma key him because of the reflection, but frame-by-frame in an image editor might work pretty well with the magic wand tool.

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Removed unnecessary characters/details from this scene.

before

after

I also hate that ‘ultra-wide lens’ effect this shot has, so I removed it. The horizon is flat!

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Smithers said:

Phantom menace could be cut into a really short flick about qui gon and obi wan saving the queen and fighting darth maul, just splice the opening and the third act into one 30-40 minute short or something

That’s interesting. Instead of having an entire prequel trilogy explaining everything, just have a little teaser of what the Galaxy and the Jedi were like before the Empire. While still keeping the origins for Vader and the Empire and why the Jedi were hunted down a mystery.

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Smithers said:

Maybe one could cut together a prequel anthology series where each episode spans 35-45 minutes long and just make up one small story of the many told from episode 1 to rogue one and solo

Now that’s a very interesting idea!

What if the entire movie was set in the Mos Eisly Cantina, intercut by the various backstories and adventures of the visitors?

Open with Obi-Wan and Luke entering the bar. After the arm incident- where the lightsaber is first revealed- cut to a 40 minute edit of TPM. Show the Jedi in their prime.

Next up is Han Solo. After Han bolsters his ship made the Kessel Run, show it. Cut to a 40 minute condensed Solo edit.

Last up, the Stormtroopers arrive. Here we get their backstory: a 40 minute Battle of Scarif edit.

Everything comes together at the end, where Obi-Wan returns to his prime, Han outmaneuvers the empire yet again, and the droids successfully escape the Empire on route to the rebels.

Though it may not line up perfectly with a watch of the OT, it wouldn’t break canon. I would argue all three of these stories have unnecessary padding; and by trimming them to the best there would be a very enjoyable movie. Best of all, it would manage to tell a cohesive story within these separate anthologies.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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Rogue One already has a good Battle of Scarif edit, and making a Kessel Run edit is probably doable for Solo. I think a TPM edit would be more difficult because of Anakin’s role in taking out the droids. You would probably have to take out the space battle and gungan battle, and mostly focus on the lightsaber duel, with the occasional cut to Padme and the Naboo guards fighting the droids. Not impossible, but definitely a bit more tricky.

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snooker said:
Removed unnecessary characters/details from this scene.

Nice! How does that change the story?

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OutboundFlight said:
What if the entire movie was set in the Mos Eisly Cantina, intercut by the various backstories and adventures of the visitors?

Might work if you go outside the cantina and use all of the Mos Eisley parts.
That would also give you an action ending to the movie, with the Falcon escaping at the end.