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I Spent 10 Years Rewriting the Prequels to Match the OT | "Prequels SE"

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Some of the responses I’ve received:

“This is incredible! The whole thing is so visually, perfectly, Star Wars. I’m absolutely giddy!” - u/Not-Churros-Alt-Act

“That was Amazing. It perfectly captures the spirit of the OT, while mixing elements from Lucas’ inspirations such as Kurosawa, Flash Gordon, and classical mythology. It’s good sh!t.” - u/reallifelucas

“This almost makes me kinda sad…i love this…it will never be.” - u/Ghostinthecorner

“I almost wish I hadn’t read this because it’s just too good. It pains me to know I will never see this ☹️” - u/OfficerBlkIronTarkus

I’ve been rewriting the Prequels in my spare time for roughly the past decade, spending more and more time on it in recent years, and I’ve had the largest response from my original post on the /r/fixingmovies community on reddit. That original post blew up, got me my first real writing gig on a major feature film, and my post is still usually the top result to this day if you google “fixing the prequels.” So far, the responses I’ve received have been overwhelmingly positive and I regularly get rave reviews to this day. However, the largest star wars community on reddit - /r/starwars - is flat-out hostile to any criticisms of the Prequels, which has pretty much blocked my attempts to share my work with a larger audience. So I’ve been greatly looking forward to finally sharing my work here, where I am hoping I will finally find my audience, or at least more like-minded rebel allies.

This project is my attempt to comprehensively rewrite the Prequels to match the Original Trilogy in tone, style and structure - a total and complete overhaul - yet still remaining true to Lucas’ basic, core story. There are a lot of prequel rewrites out there, but the most common problem is that they are almost always just another draft of the existing movies, instead of page-one rewrites. This version has more fundamental changes and attempts to not just preserve the Original Trilogy but enhance it in many ways, where the two inform each other, revealing new insights into the characters and mythology. I’ve worked extremely hard to ensure that all of the story, characters, reveals, twists and mythology of the originals are preserved. This is the version of these films that I would have wanted to see and experience, and based on the feedback I’ve received so far, so would the fans.

You can read the outline and full summaries (written in the style of movie treatments) at my subreddit:

https://reddit.com/r/PrequelsSE

Or, if you’re less familiar with reddit, here are direct links:

-Introduction and Outline that quickly summarizes the whole trilogy
-Episode I - Scion of the Force
-Episode II - The Clone Wars
-Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Going forward, I plan to finish these as full screenplays. If you liked what you read, please, please share it with other fans. If enough people find it, I hope to get contributions from artists to create concept art and storyboards for a fully illustrated version.

I hope you guys like my rewrite, but I’m less familiar with this site, so I haven’t read any of the others that have been posted here, but I’m sure there will be some similarities. It looks like there might be a lot of them on here, so I hope mine doesn’t get lost in the aether, because I’ve put an insane amount of work into this, and out of all the audiences out there, this is the one that I primarily made this for. Enjoy! MTFBWY

http://reddit.com/r/PrequelsSE

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Aeris’s former handmaiden and now midwife, Sabé

What do you mean, “midwife”? '😓

The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequel and Disney trilogies is that they will always be around. Forever. They will never go away. It can never be undone.

I also prefer to be referred to as “TNT”, not “Freezing”.

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While I did enjoy the Scion of the Force, there are still a few things that jump to my eyes as inconsistent with the OT.

  • First, the Skywalker name being bound to a lightsaber. While interesting, it makes the name resonate with history and gives hiding luke as a Skywalker even less sense.
  • Having Lars being a captain, instead of Obi-Wan’s brother (Rotj novel) makes it a bit weird
  • That it is mention that it takes years to learn to fight with a lightsaber. Luke was given one a whole 32s after being told about the Force. It should have been implied either that only true members (and the Council gives Anakin one on Alderaan) get lightsabers and/or only those strong in the Force could weild one, which also ‘confirms’ a theory that Han is Force-sensitive.
  • the power levels of Jedi is all over the place and this is somewhat contrived. At first, obi-wan is described as Demigod walking amongst us, but then Milard and thr other are dispatched easily.

I plan on reading the rest.

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In the films themselves, it’s never implied Obi-Wan and Owen are related.

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In the films, Anakin and Owen are step brothers.

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Taking ten years to work on something does show dedication. Heck, I took years of revisions, redrafting, re-conceptualizing, etc. just to get the version of the prequels and sequels I wanted. And I admit I was a bit intrigued after reading through your intro for your trilogy.

That being said (and I’m sorry if I sound harsh in what I’m about to say), what I’ve seen is kinda a mixed bag for me. Part of that is because of tastes, as I wish to spice things up a bit after seeing dozens upon dozens of PT rewrites that keep a lot of the same things from Lucas’ PT (which may be alright to some, but doesn’t work for me). Another part of me says this rewrites SHOULD NOT borrow at least a few of those things (at least, not in the same way as Lucas showed them in his films), as I feel they miss some nice opportunities.

For instance, the overall structure does feel similar to Lucas’ PT. While not bad in of itself, it felt a bit hampered in some cases. Episode 1 did build up the world and whatnot, but I felt it missed the chance to actually start off the Clone Wars right then and there, as well having Anakin activate the Skywalker saber (at least make it flicker for a time) and building up his romance with Aeris. When I got to Episode 2, I was wondering why these important moments weren’t in Episode 1 and why Episode 2 didn’t go straight into the Clone Wars to begin with. Not to mention, Episode 2 was more build up (which Episode 1 should have fit the role) to the actual conflict, pushing it closer to the end like Lucas’ AotC, and while it wasn’t as bad as in Lucas’ PT, I felt Maul was killed off a bit too soon since the lack of an overall villain was felt in Episode 3. Speaking of which, it feels kinda close to Lucas’ RotS (which I guess was the point), and it does make sense for there to be tension between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but I wish it had more to do with how to handle the war effort a little more.

I think I outlined my problems in the last paragraph, so I think I’ll stop there. Again, it is a mixed bag for me. I do think there are wonderful moments like Anakin able to activate the saber in episode 2 (but again, I thought he should have done that in episode 1 and then use it in episode 2), as well as having to kill Maul to save Aeris (though I wish Maul had survived to be the “final boss” of the trilogy and for us to have seen Anakin and Aeris build up their relationship in episode 1 first).

Now, these are just drafts and only just synopses so there are plenty of room to improve. Plus, I mentioned my criticisms were influenced by my tastes (and by the fact, I had been really close to the idea of ending my PT rewrite with Anakin handing his saber to Obi-Wan and flying off just after accepting the Dark Side, abandoning his friends and loved ones to take his dark path). Again, sorry if I was a bit harsh. Thanks.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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It is always enjoyable reading alternative treatments of the prequel trilogy. I think when writing just getting to the end is a reward in itself. I’ve written my own rewrite and had many moments of writers block. So I am not going to make story suggestions or criticisms because it is your personal vision of how you see the prequels. I think writing the prequels made me realize just how difficult it is compared to doing sequels.