The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 34

ben_danger said:

SilverKey said:

Some crazy ideas I had for the prequels, some radical, others not so much:

Maybe TPM's finale could be arranged around Anakin taking out the droid controlship. Qui-Gon is dead, Amidala is captured, and the Gungans are dying on the battlefield. After Qui-Gon's death, Anakin hears his voice, like Luke heard Obi-Wan's voice during the Death Star battle. The line "Remember, feel don't think" could be re-used. Anakin pilots (not by accident) his ship into the droid controlship, and takes it out. This way, Anakin is the true hero of the Battle of Naboo, and we also see just how strong he is with the Force. It could also be a nice mirror of the earlier mentioned scene in ANH.

Another idea I had was having Qui-Gon's body disappear, after he dies. The explanation Jedi disappearing as given in ROTS felt forced, and never made much sense to me. If it's something a Jedi has to learn, how did Anakin manage to reappear as a ghost?

I have no trouble believing that a Jedi disappering after his death has something to do with his state of mind. Obi-Wan sacrificed himself, Yoda went prepared and peaceful to his death, as did Darth Vader. The same could be said for Qui-Gon. Jedi like Mace Windu and the Jedi who died in battle didn't disappear, because they couldn't "prepare" for the deaths.

Having Qui-Gon's body disappear would sidestep the problem of having a forced explanation in the final 5 minutes of ROTS.

An idea I had for for the Senate scenes in AOTC was to remove some of the lights of the Senate pods lined up against the wall. The crawl states that many systems have left the Republic, so the pods of the senators of those systems would be unused, and there wouldn't be any need to see those pods "activated". I think it would be a subtle way of showing just how much the Republic is falling apart, especially in contrast with TPM.

 

all of these ideas are awesome, i cant believe noone has thought of having quigon talk to anakin through the force yet! that would be especially awesome.

I second that. The use of that line at that precise point is perfect. Nice work, SilverKey.

Talking of the Senate.

I seem to recall that there was a Senate scene which took place straight after the assassination attempt at the beginning of AOTC.

Palpatine prematurely announces that Padme was killed, only to have her turn up and interupt the call to vote for the formation of an army with her objections.

Did I imagine this, was it filmed but not used or was it written but not filmed?

I know it didn't turn up on the deleted scenes on the DVD but there was a lot of material that has never seen the light of day like the forementioned Threepio getting his coverings scene.

BingoWings, the scene you mentioned is on the DVD, they only cut it down. The part you mention takes place just before the scene as we see it on the DVD starts. I guess they cut the scene down a little, so they wouldn't have to spend too much time on completing it for the DVD release.

Personally, I think it's a great scene. It goes in a little deeper on the issue of creating an army as mentioned in the opening crawl, and I like that we hear Padme's (a main character) point of view. It really adds to her character.

ben_danger, I agree with you that AOTC edits are the most interesting. As you say, the plot is let down the most in that movie, especially when it comes to the lovestory, and the character of Anakin. I think ROTS handled those two elements much better, but the overall impact of the movie was deminished because AOTC failed to do those elements right the first time.

AxiaEuxine said:

oh yeah, some one else that hates the prequels, what a breath of fresh air that was.

Not as refreshing as someone who's so in love with the PT that they can't accept it when others bring up issues that they'd like to see corrected or fixed...

EDIT: Oh, and that guy's reviews are totally spot-on and exactly what I thought when I first saw the prequels at the cinema.

JasonN said:

AxiaEuxine said:

oh yeah, some one else that hates the prequels, what a breath of fresh air that was.

 

Not as refreshing as someone who's so in love with the PT that they can't accept it when others bring up issues that they'd like to see corrected or fixed...

EDIT: Oh, and that guy's reviews are totally spot-on and exactly what I thought when I first saw the prequels at the cinema.

meh..his Incredibles and Lion King reviews put me off from trusting his prequel reviews. He brings up a lot of good points but he also misses the point on a lot of things. (Yes the political stuff in TPM is confusing and contrived, yes the Jedi are kind of assholes THAT's THE POINT! That's why Anakin turns to the Dark Side!)

Octorox said:

He brings up a lot of good points but he also misses the point on a lot of things. (Yes the political stuff in TPM is confusing and contrived, yes the Jedi are kind of assholes THAT's THE POINT! That's why Anakin turns to the Dark Side!)

Which I (just like that reviewer) thought was complete bullsh*t:
The Jedi were suppose to be the supreme guardians and good-hearted protectors of the universe - not a bunch of incompetent, bullheaded morons who have their heads so far up their asses that they allow a whiney, self-obsessive brat to be the downfall of their entire order.

EDIT: Oh, and his reaction to the end of RotS... ah, priceless. :D

He brought up every single problem I had with the PT.  Spot-on 100%.

And his impression of Anakin in part 1 of his Episode II review was priceless.

I'd like to see him take a whack at ROTJ.

ChainsawAsh said:

He brought up every single problem I had with the PT.  Spot-on 100%.

And his impression of Anakin in part 1 of his Episode II review was priceless.

 Ditto.  Anakin never turned to the dark side.  He was there the whole time.

The reviewers on youtube were hilarious.  I can't believe I was like that once.  Eventually, I got tired of lying to myself (and it took a while to realize that I was doing it) that the prequels only had a few tiny problems.  Just because they had some enjoyable moments doesn't mean I had to think they were great movies.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

I think these reviews should be required viewing for all who participate in this thread! ;)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6ACD497626B01244

 

Seriously, I've been thinking through all that this dude has been saying...some fresh insight from this guy!

That guy is a moron. He wants more things explained which is funny because most people think that the prequels are over explained. He is also nitpicking at things don't need to be picked at , at all. Please avoid this guys flabbergaster of a review.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

I think these reviews should be required viewing for all who participate in this thread! ;)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6ACD497626B01244

 

Seriously, I've been thinking through all that this dude has been saying...some fresh insight from this guy!

Those reviews are an interesting springboard for thinking about what works and what doesn't but he does miss some of the potential of reworking them (which is understandable as that isn't his aim).

His criticsm of the Jedi, the Republic and the Senate stems from taking at face value what Ben and Yoda said about them in the OT.

Ben and Yoda were the last two Jedi in those films and they wanted to bring down the Empire and it's leader.

Their ideology was in direct competition with that of the Sith and the Empire and while it's possible to get into a debate how honest they were with Luke, you don't need to to appreciate they manipulated him into acting from their point of view.

The same goes with Ben's accounts of his friendship with Anakin.

We don't see the whole picture of Ben and Anakin's relationship in the prequels (there may have been a lot of moments of a more friendly nature that we don't see) but the with negative side we do see in the prequels Obi-Wan is only witness to some of it (most of his complaining is done out of his view to Padme).

While I agree the Padme/Anakin relationship is seriously flawed, seriously flawed relationships exist in the real world, Padme may be suffering from something like battered wife syndrome, where she repeatedly puts up with or turns a blind eye to obvious and dangerous situations, hoping it will get better at some never reached better time.

The Jedi and the Republic have been around for a thousand generations and covers much of the galaxy.

They might have started as optimistic and positive organisations (just as the League Of Nations/United Nations were) but both have been hamstrung by the unwieldy size and complexity of the area they are supposed to represent and by the dogma they operate within.

Which would explain why the Jedi can't liberate slaves outside the Republic and why they can't save Shmi Skywalker (they can only act within the jurisdiction of the Republic and they don't want to encourage personal emotional attachment in their acolytes). It's arguable that these are the very attitudes and limitations that lead to Anakin's fall and the rise of the Emperor.

While I'm no fan of overly explaining everything a few lines explaining that this frustrates some of the Jedi (other than Anakin) would have gone some way to turning that percieved negative into a palpable positive.

The potential for re-editing and reworking here would be to partly underline and partly make clear these story aspects by trimming away or shifting around aspects which confuse these aspects of the story so instead of being negatives they actually enrich the story.

Re-painting Dooku as a Jedi dissenter shows that not everyone agrees with the Status-Quo and such people can be manipulated to do the opposite of what they intend.

Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should).

Restructuring TPM so it flows from Coruscant to Naboo cuts out all the wandering about and leaves Amidala with no proof of an invasion to back up her claims.

Removing the reference to Padme dying of a broken heart puts the blame on Anakin.

The key is to try and figure out what George wanted to do and hammer the prequels into a shape where it actually does that instead of getting lost in the torrent of miss-steps that bogs them down.

Confused Matthew's calls for explanations are really a call for the removal of much of the already unnecessary exposition (or maybe they aren't going by some of his other reviews).

When we see people standing around explaining the frankly obvious it creates a jarring sensation when the audience is expected to figure out things for themselves.

It was like George sometimes wanted to just throw the audience in to a world and get us to figure it out for ourselves (like the OT did so well) and then blinked and started to explain things (usually the wrong things) and then gave up.

AxiaEuxine said:

oh yeah, some one else that hates the prequels, what a breath of fresh air that was.

It might not be a breath of fresh air but most of the comments in those reviews are pertinent to this thread which is about radically shaking up the prequels.

He brings up a lot of what many viewers believe to be problems (I don't agree with everything he says but he brought to my attention a few things I hadn't thought of before and underlined a few things that I did notice but in a different way).

Looking at those elements and trying to figure out a way of working around them is a positive thing and some edits have already gone some way to addressing them already, there may be other approaches to the same problems or approaches yet untried to others and that's what this thread is all about.

That said, he is a bit of a dork when it comes to the majority of his other reviews.

i found his reviews funny, a bt silly, but quite funny. i think he'd make a much better comedian than a critic.

the key problem with the prequels for me, that ironically was the only thing he didnt pick up on, was that it missed star wars' simple plotlines, that focus more on characters and ground level people than the 'big events' that seem to, in themselves be quite simple ideas. the PT was pretty much the reverse of this.

i must admit, the new clone wars series on the other hand, is much more star wars for me i find. anakin is more of the anakin i would have like to have seen in the movies, the clone troopers provide that ground level character to have a face, and the cartoonish simple plots are great.

The stories are actually rather simple in the prequels (they just seem more convoluted than they actually are because of a variety of tonal miscalculations which might be navigable).

None of the prequels are as complex as ESB which is in itself a rather simple story.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

"Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should)."

I also had this same idea a while back...if I were to do my own edit I might even leave out the Anakin killing sandpeople scene ENTIRELY! Crazy huh? :D

Well, I did exactly that with my Twilight of the Republic and I thought it definitely made the Anakin character into a much stronger and better person than he was ever presented in the original version - now he's actually is that "Good man" that he was described as by Obi-Wan in the OT before he fell to the Dark Side.
(of course, a lot of additional cuts and edits didn't hurt, either :D )

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Bingowings, you've hit it on the head brilliantly:

"The potential for re-editing and reworking here would be to partly underline and partly make clear these story aspects by trimming away or shifting around aspects which confuse these aspects of the story so instead of being negatives they actually enrich the story."

Exactly.

"Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should)."

I also had this same idea a while back...if I were to do my own edit I might even leave out the Anakin killing sandpeople scene ENTIRELY! Crazy huh? :D

"Restructuring TPM so it flows from Coruscant to Naboo cuts out all the wandering about and leaves Amidala with no proof of an invasion to back up her claims.:

Woah! This sounds interesting! Want to elaborate? ;D

I outlined some of this someway back so I culled this from previous musings:

(Amidala is on Coruscant when Naboo is attacked BTW)

Bingowings said :

 My idea for the beginning would be from the scroll down to a full Naboo hanging in space the Trade Federation ships surround the planet (does anyone have any more back views of the Trade Federation ships btw?).

Then we see an edited version of Sidious (fully concealed as in many edits) telling Nute Gunray he can land his troops and the landing ships and fighters descend.

Fighting breaks out in Theed (some of the buildings are destroyed).

Then cut to Coruscant and Amidala's meeting with Palpatine (with the message from Sio Bibble edited in) and an altered Jedi Council meeting where Qui-Gon claims to sense the chosen one and he's discovery is linked to the Naboo crisis.

Then the Senate meeting which removes Valorium, then the Queen opts to go back to Naboo to end the crisis.

The Jedi are sent to protect her but they can not call for war against the Federation until the Blockade is confirmed to be unlawful.

Her ship is attacked on route and she has to land on Tatooine.

They meet up with Anakin, gain the parts they need, Anakin joins the Jedi hoping to liberate Tatooine at a later date (giving Anakin a noble intention for leaving his mother behind rather than just seeing the stars).

They break through the blockade and create a hasty alliance with the Gungans. The Gungan's attack the bulk of the droid army, The Jedi attempt to shut down the shields for Trade Federation command ship and encounter battle droids (which should rarely if ever speak and certainly should not be the comic relief goons as seen in the theatrical version...incidently they do sound good in German) and finally the Sith Lord they first encountered on Tatooine, the Naboo fighters clear the path for the Jedi and take on the full Federation fleet (not just one ship making it an more hopless fight) and the Queen and her troops storm the palace.

 I'd keep the Gungans but dub them so that Jar-Jar is now the Gungan ambassador and represents his people just as much as Amidala. He is a bit out of water but not the buffoon we see in the original cut.

 I'm going to play with the idea that instead of there being a single droid control ship the whole blockade is there (the Naboo have more fighters, squadrons added by changing the colours of the fighters to blue, red etc:

but they are still greatly outnumbered because they have no capital ships or droid fighters)

 

I actually like the idea of R2 being blue because he's one of blue group's astrodroids (Naboo seems to be obsessed with aesthetics).

Qui-Gon and Obi Wan have to get onto the fleet command ship to stop signal jamming so they can get a distress signal to the Republic to send for help (and they fight Maul there, also moving the droid battles on the ship from the beginning of the film to the end).

 That way the sabre battle is more associated with space battle and the Gungan battle is more associated with the throne room.

Anakin doesn't destroy the command ship he just destroys a ship single handed and deliberatly (not by accident).

Once Nute Gunray is captured he orders the ships away (to save his skin) and the Droids power down on his command not because one ship is destroyed (which seemed a stupid way to run a war in the first place).

 Sorry if it reads a bit jumbled but that's the pain of cut and paste.

 If you scroll back a bit I also suggested that the Trade Federation had an ancient claim to the planet, which would remove the stupid taxation plot device.