I’ve been thinking about the movie since you made this post, so I’ll share some random thoughts I’ve been having.
The Crawl
I like the direction of the crawl you posted, Eddie.
I think the big complaint of the original crawl is that it got people’s heads scratching before the movie even starts. The goal of the crawl should be clarify things for the audience. Get everyone on the same page, keep it simple. Think about the original Star Wars opening crawl. It gives some background, but we’re left with a few simple ideas: There’s a big, evil empire, and there’s a rebellion fighting against them. A easy to understand tale of underdogs fighting against tyranny. We also get the gist of the basic plot: the bad guys have a super weapon, and the good guys stole the secret plans for it. We also learn about Princess Leia and her crucial role in this mission.
With this TPM new crawl, there are a few key words used that I think help establish important themes or ideas for this trilogy: complacency, corruption, and greed. These words highlight the problems in the final years of the Galactic Republic, and it establishes people like Padmé trying to fight against this corruption, and personally paying a cost for it. I think centering Padmé as an important character in a new crawl is a great idea. It might do a better job at investing the audience in her journey from the get-go. Like you mentioned before, a common point made about this movie is how it feels like there isn’t a main protagonist. Maybe Padmé technically isn’t, but I think anything would help to give more characterization to this ensemble.
Brilliant set of thoughts, RogueLeader. Following your thoughts on the crawl/set up for the movie-
What you said about the fact that Padmé arguably isn’t a main character in this episode, but is still important to the plot, made me realise the following: Padmé IS the Death Star plans. The actual thrust of the movie, for the first three quarters, is that we have to get the Death Star plans to the rebellion. (We have to get Padmé to Coruscant.) If everything’s framed in that way, there’s a clear and simple goal for the main characters that’s easy for the audience to grasp. The character who keeps things moving in that direction is Qui-Gon (the analogue to Obi-Wan in ANH). Their chance encounter with Luke (Anakin) brings him into the fold while Qui-Gon is still working on the goal of bringing Padmé to Coruscant. The twist in TPM compared to ANH is that getting Padmé to Coruscant doesn’t help - they leave Coruscant dejected with the Death Star (Trade Federation invasion) still a threat. But the day is ultimately won by the allies they picked up along the way, and the unexpected gift of Luke (Anakin).
So that gives us a solid backbone:
- The Trade Federation invasion is the simple well-defined threat we care about, that the main characters are invested in stopping.
- The solution is to get Padmé off planet to Coruscant, which they believe is their best chance.
- Qui-Gon is our main character driving this plot in line with that goal.
- A chance meeting with Anakin makes him our second main character and suprise addition.
- On Coruscant, we learn that the Republic is not our salvation, and the plan changes. At this point Padmé picks up more agency (becoming our late-game third main character instead of the macguffin) and the party decide to act together to save the day.
- On Naboo, Padmé and Qui-Gon serve to further the new plan (failing and coming into jeopardy but still helping enable its success), but Anakin, our suprise addition, emerges as the hero whose actions defeat the invasion, saving the day.
Along the way, the rest of the content would be seen as world-building ideally handled as deftly as ANH did it - not too much cutting away from the main plot, giving the audience information in a sensible order, etc. Establishing the core setting (the state of the Galaxy) belongs in the crawl (but IMO should be whatever best sets up the Trade Federation invasion and Padmé as the solution clearly.) The rise of Palpatine is a background event that’s triggered by but doesn’t need to be central to the plot. The things that leave us with anticipation for a future movie are Qui-Gon’s twist death handing over his role to Obi-Wan, the Jedi’s doubts in Anakin, and the fact that a dark presence may have manipulated this plot for sinister ends.
Thinking about it like this, I’m led to another couple of thoughts:
- If you set up the Republic as failing in the crawl, there’s (interesting?) doubt about whether the plan to get Padmé to Coruscant will succeed, and the reveal that they’re too bureaucratic to help will give the audience good evidence to hammer that point home. I also feel like the most valuable word to describe the Republic is complacent, because that best explains how these guys think they can get away with full-on invasion. (And going for invasion first, rather than blockade, not only gives you the actual threat in the crawl, but also avoids the fact that the blockade is replaced with a single ship by the climax.)
- The Gungans aren’t vital. Since they are effectively used as a tool by Padmé in line with the party’s goals in the finale, they could still serve an edit, but if you had an alternative group for Anakin to save during the finale (say, shots of Naboo citizens being oppressed and surrounded by battle droids) they’d be skippable.
- If we take Padmé as the macguffin, then the main force against her is Maul (as a tool of the unknown Sith Lord), and Maul’s use in that role should be emphasised. While Maul is alive, the threat against Padmé is emphasised. (I suppose we don’t actually need to know why he’s targeting her, with my suggested perspective, since targeting her still brings the core plot into jeopardy and Maul’s master’s motivations remain a mystery at the end of the film.) Therefore, I’d have the ending ordered as: Gungans draw out the forces from the city to enable the infiltration, and are captured (if we see them at all). The party infiltrate the palace to capture Nute Gunray. Anakin takes a ‘safe place’ in a ship, but Padmé is interrupted by the arrival of Maul, so the Jedi step in to stop him so she can continue the plan alone. We follow Padmé until she fails. Now the plan’s in real jeopardy. Maul is able to handle Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan at the same time, and when he kills Qui-Gon, we believe he’s more than a match for Obi-Wan, left dangling in a pit. He’s likely to kill Obi-Wan, and then he’s coming for the Queen. This is the point of highest jeopardy. Then roughly at the same time, we have Anakin destroy the ship and Obi-Wan destroy Maul. The invasion is defeated, saving the people, and Maul is killed, saving the Queen.
- I wonder if more could be done to emphasise Anakin’s agency. Perhaps when he’s in the cockpit, we could hear echoes of dialogue we’ve already heard as he remembers them: “That’s a droid control ship.” “We will send the pilots we have to knock out the droid control ship.” “You catch on pretty quick.” “Mom, you say the biggest problem in this universe is nobody helps each other.” “There is no other way. I may not like it, but he can help you. He was meant to help you.” [Anakin turns on the ship and flies off to space.]
- I think the biggest value add, which may now be more within our grasp, would be additional shots of the invasion being felt by the Naboo.