How I would've made the prequels if I had the same resources as GL.

You make some good points there.

I have to say that it wouldn't have been cheaper using physical models. You have to create the model, many for different styled ships. then you have to film them making multiple passes for lighting etc. Take ROTS for example. That opening scene would have required so many different models it would have cost a fortune to do. You have to pay for both materials and man hours. With CGI you can create one ship then re-texture it for each different ship of that type needed. There were more physical models used in the PT than people think.

The main problem with the PT was that they were badly done. Acting, directing, editing, sound design and most of all the screenplays. If those were on par with the OT then the CGI wouldn't have been such a big issue as it is now. I personally like the visuals. You have to remember that we live in a new age since the OT. Technology advances. If they had used models and had FX techniques that the OT used the movies would have been a lot worse than they are now and the casual audience would have laughed at it.

Now first i would have got someone else to write the screenplays. GL isn't good at writing screenplays. He has good story ideas but not very good at executing his ideas. He may have done ANH but the overall success of that movie was down to the editing. Look at the deleted scenes on the behind the magic CDs. The writing in the Biggs scenes was comparable to the PT. Without the great editing work on ANH i doubt we would have been here all these years later talking about Star Wars apart from how bad the film was but the FX were amazing for its time. In that respect i would ahve also brought someone else in to do the editing. The PT suffers with shots lingering too long. The editing in the OT was tight. Nothing lingered longer than it needed.

Secondly, yes, i would have stayed well clear of Hayden. I gave him the benefit of the doubt after the PT because i put his acting down to bad directing. But having seen him in Awake and Jumper i now know how bad an actor he actually is. Every character is the same and his acting is unbelievably wooden. Maybe having a different actor in that role would have given the PT the boost it needed.

Thirdly, about the fact that the jedi are very acrobatic then ever since ESB we saw a taster of what a jedi can do. luke jumping out of the carbon chamber at lightening speed and then in ROTJ doing a back flip up onto a balcony. And he wasn't a fully trained jedi. so having them doing the kind of stunts they do in the PT wasn't a bad thing. Although there is no way i would have had Yoda dong all the stuff he did. On first viewing it looked cool, just because we never saw Yoda fight. But upon more viewings it looks stupid and unnecessary and pretty laughable. But NO midichlorians. my god what the hell was he thinking. It ruined the mystical portrayal of the force.

As for the look of the PT then i would say that i can see what Lucas was aiming for. The OT was set after the Empire has taken power.  The gritty look portrayed the hardship that the Galaxy had to endure since it took over. But in the PT there was no Empire and times were better. So cleaner visuals depicted a better time in the galaxy.  Having a gritty look wouldn't have worked. there wouldn't ahve been that noticeable difference in living conditions between the pre & post empire periods.

The last thing is that i would not have let Ben Burtt anywhere near any part of the film apart from doing the sound FX. Look at the mess he made of the 2004 DVD's. too much control. he pushed his FX to the front and John Williams brilliant soundtracks to an almost no existent state. Talk about a big ego.

So to sum it all up: If the PT had a strong story, strong screenplay, strong acting and directing then the visuals would have complimented this perfectly instead of being the forefront. As the PT stands now the visuals stand out too much due to the really weak other elements of the movies and that's why most hate them.

It has been very slow here lately, and I think that's because there's nothing down the pipeline to look forward to. I think we're in another period like the "dark years" of the mid-1980s thru the early-1990s.

There was so much wrong with the PT, it's hard to know where to begin. The writing, casting, acting, directing, editing, music (from what I understand, John Williams' heart wasn't in it, especially after TPM), and the FX (no, I didn't care for much of the FX). There were too many sequences when I felt like I was watching a cartoon. I also think that he WAY overused the bluescreen/greenscreen for creating cg environments. Sorry, George, nothing beats shooting on real sets/locations. You saved a ton of money, and it shows.

One of the few things that they got right with the PT was costume design and some of the art direction (especially in TPM).

BTW, I like your signature, Janskeet. I feel the same way. I love ROTJ (the OT version, that is).

Yeah, it's REALLY dead around here. :-( Where is everybody?

Well, a ten year old Han almost did make it into ROTS, and removing that plot point was probably the best decision in the entire movie.  Because, yes, I agree that all these convenient meetings ruins everything, especially with the droids.  Granted, having the droids be in all the movies was something Lucas had toyed around with since the beginning, but I don't think he should have done it.  Or, if he had, he should have had them being observers, removed from the events and characters but just happen to be nearby some major events on occasion.  A cutaway to their confused opinions and then back to the main action.  As much as the droids annoyed me by the sheer improbability of their being there, and as annoying as it was that the less than creative mind wipe was used to preserve continuity, I don't know what else they could have done from that point to fix it.  However, it really pisses me off that they didn't erase both their memories.  It totally changes R2's motivation in Star Wars.  Rather than following Princess Leia's programming, he's now trying to get the old gang back together to save the day.  And it just makes him seem like an insensitive prick to be sitting on all this important information and just not tell anybody.  When Ben Kenobi said he didn't recall owning a droid... he meant it!  To interpret that look at R2 as some kind of secret understanding is ridiculous and makes even less sense.  What motivation would Kenobi have to keep his "previous" relationship with R2-D2 a secret?  I don't even know if I could come up with a rationalization for how that makes sense.

But, yeah, too many convenient connections.  Chewbacca and Yoda fighting in the war together.  Owen Lars hanging out with C-3PO (and did anyone notice how Anakin and Padme just took off, stealing the Lars's droid without even saying goodbye or anything?).  Little Boba Fett shooting lasers at Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Even Padme plotting with Mon Mothma was better left on the cutting room floor.  Most people seem to think these Rebellion scenes would have befitted the movie... and, of all the coincidences I mentioned, this one would have been the most plausible... except for the fact that they'd already put far too many of these strange occurrences throughout the prequels so that by the time you got to ROTS, seeing them together would just be one more hurdle that your suspension of disbelief just couldn't jump!

I think this is focussing too much on technical aspects. The main thing they needed was better scripts. Secondly, some decent direction of actors. The rest of it would follow, including that a good script would not include such silliness as jokey robot soldiers and absurd love scenes, and the actors would have more to work with. Most of the cast being at least competent in other movies.

Janskeet said:

I'm surprised we didn't see a 10 year old Han Solo winning a bet for the millenium falcon against a ten year old Lando in episode 3.

I could feel that scene coming, and I swore before Episode III came out if there was any sign of Han Solo in the prequels, I was going to leave the theater, go home, sell everything I have having to do with the prequels, and pretend they didn't exist, much like many of you have done without that motivation.

At first I thought all the nods towards the OT were cute and clever, but the more I thought about it and the more it happened, I began to realize what they were: pandering to the OT fans.  I mean, the characters at points almost looked into the camera and winked after some of them.  The one that comes to mind immediately is Obi-Wan's comment in Episode II of "Why do I feel like you're going to be the death of me?"  HAHA, its funny because Anakin eventually IS the death of him.  But wait...  If we watch the movies in numerical order as Lucas obviously wants us to do, no one will get that.  Instead of being an off-hand reference to things we already know, it becomes a "spooky" prophecy that echoes in the back of our minds as Vader strikes Obi-Wan down.

Janskeet said:

In the OT they had model and physical gag artists working on the movie. These people were seasoned artists who had a mature eduacation on what looks good on film. They were pasionate about the films.

Uh, no they weren't.  They were a bunch of college students who had never worked on a movie before.  Everything they did was by the seat of their pants.  There is absolutely no evidence to support that they knew what they were doing from the get go.  As a matter of fact, according to the old interviews with Lucas, he had to fire his original FX crew because they had no shots completed when he got back from Europe.  He then had to oversee everything that was done from that point.

These guys were all a bunch of green kids that really had no idea what they were getting into.  All they did know is that they were working on a Sci-Fi movie.

I agree with everything else you had to say though.

First, I would've used film cameras instead of digital cameras. Digtal cameras don't capture the image with the aesthetic beauty you get with film. Digital camera technology is improving, capturing image quality closer to film all the time, but it is still not good enough, so if making them today, I would choose film over digital media. Working with digital media is a hell of a lot easier than working with film because there is no developing time, the video is recorded and ready to work with immediatly. But I would be willing to go through the hassle of dealing with film to get the same look as the OT.

I agree, but this is probably the least critical problem plaguing the PT. If the PT was great - or even very good - I wouldn't have cared if they'd used digital, analog, or daguerrotype.

Second, I would've used models, physical gags, for special effects, little or no CGI. I would use CGI subtly if I could make it fit in with the film, But if I couldn't, I wouldn't use it at all. Why spend $300 million for CGI work when I can get infinatly superior work done for a fraction of the budget with artists seasoned in the work of physical gags and models. People didn't like the CGI in the prequels because it reflected the maturity of the work. In the OT they had model and physical gag artists working on the movie. These people were seasoned artists who had a mature eduacation on what looks good on film. They were pasionate about the films. With the prequels I don't get that impression. To me, it seemed like the people who worked on the prequels were a bunch of video game nerds. These are people who are good with video software and not the art of filmaking. They didn't have knowledge of good filmaking, their practice is still in its infancy and the CGI reflected the maturity of their work.

CGI is like a gun. Used responsibly, it's very effective. In the wrong hands, it's a disaster. As Mike J. Nichols (The Phantom Editor) pointed out, GL and company wrote entire scenes just to show off visual effects. That's unconscionable.

Third, I would've picked the best writers and directors to help me with these films. I would've kept the script and directing as far away from Lucas as possible. I'm not sure who I would pick if I could pick anyone, but I would be sure to stay far far away from Hayden Christiensen when it comes to casting.

I would have gone another route. You seem to imply here that you would have gone for established talent, big-name guys like Spielberg. My approach would be to bring in young people with an edge, people with something to prove. I don't think an older, well-established director would have had the right kind of mindset and energy for Star Wars; hell, Mr. Star Wars himself couldn't do it anymore, so why would Spielberg? The magic of Star Wars (the original movie, not the OT or the "saga") owes not a small debt to a previously unknown cast and crew. The PT gave us faces we already knew and it colored our perceptions (Samuel L. MF Jackson) - and the big names in the crew (Lucas, Burtt, John Williams) only proved that they lack much of what they once demonstrated a mastery of.

As for Hayden, you're spot on, of course. Even during his good acting moments, he seldom showed any real presence. In his darkest scenes, he wasn't fearsome. I was more scared of Blair Underwood in Diary of a Mad Black Woman than I ever was of Hayden Vader. Jake Lloyd was scarier when he said "I'm a person and my name is Anakin!" during TPM.

Forth, I would've kept the dark, gritty, realistic tone the OT in the prequels. The prequels have this disney feel to them, I would've gone completely in the other direction. I would've had the force remain a subtle metaphorical kind of thing like it was in the OT. Not have it escalade to this rediculous thing were it enables you to jump around like Mickey mouse on crack. Oh and no midiclorians bullshit.

I'm not a fan of the Flying Jedi Brothers, but I have to admit that there wasn't too much of it. It was utterly stupid at times: Count Dooku somersaulting off the catwalk before the duel in ROTS, Yoda the Hedgehog in AOTC, Obi-Wan's dramatic and totally convincing reversal against Darth Maul at the end of their duel in TPM. Take those out (somehow) and the Super Jedi thing isn't so bad. But turning the mystical Force into some sort of Force quantifier was weaker than a 50-cent martini.

Two simple steps would have darkened the tone of the PT: more convincing storytelling and returning the "used future" to Star Wars films. Everything looks so nice and clean and the storytelling is so awkward and clumsy, of course it comes off childish and unrealistic.

I can't wait to do some fan editing.