The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 94

Oops. How do I delete this?

Peregrinus said:

Oops. How do I delete this?

You can't (as yet) what most people do is just delete the body of the double post (as you have) and just type "double post" or something like that.

Episode III now. I'd prefer to name this one "The Fall of the Republic" or similar, and move "Revenge of the Sith" to Episode VIII, following "Episode VII -- The Phantom Menace". Also, I forgot to mention in my general Prequel Trilogy revision overview that I'm putting Jedi Knight Anakin in the "Jedi uniform" of coffee-brown turtleneck, cream inner robes, and medium-brown outer robes -- what Anakin was wearing as a ghost at the end of ROTJ. No "eV1L bL4kC L3AthuR" outfit.

Also also, forgot in the write-ups for Episodes I and II, Obi-Wan is being called Ben. This may go back to an assumed name he took on on Tatooine in Episode I that Anakin still calls him as a joke. Thinking here of "I haven't been called Obi-Wan since... oh, before you were born." Only Anakin, as a joke, in Episode I. Most people around him calling him Ben by the end of Episode II.

This has been the trickiest one to rewrite, and that challenge has made it the most fun. Challenge: Have Anakin go over to the Dark Side and become Vader, including having Obi-Wan fight him and leave him for dead, without the audience knowing Anakin is Vader. As much as the scene with Anakin getting sealed in his helmet moves me, we need to preserve the Big Reveal in Empire.

Okay, to the points:

• Some years have passed. Clones are now well-established as Republic troops. Some Jedi volunteer to serve as Generals, some see that as stepping out of their peacekeeper role -- Master Yoda mentioned here.

• Republic ships in service by this point: Acclamators, Venators, Victorys, Z-95s, Y-Wings, ARC-170s (no s-foils) and ROTS Jedi starfighters (fixed s-foils) as Clone fighters, AOTC Jedi starfighters for the Jedi (Anakin's heavily modified), LAAT/i dropships

•Other Generals and Admirals besides Jedi; also, non-clone Republic Military represented.

• Regardless of what happens with Asajj and Maul in prior two movies, intel on another Sith Lord called "Darth Vader". Jedi shaken, as the title hasn't been used by any Sith in over a thousand years -- even before they were thought to have been wiped out. They assume this means Vader is the mastermind behind the Separatist movement.

• Boba Fett returns on side of Republic, determined to avenge his brother and eradicate the Death Watch to atone for his mistake in joining them -- accompanied by Tobbi Dala and Fenn Shysa (all three Mandalorian Protectors*).

TIMELINE:

• ACT I -- Starts with the tail-end of a big battle -- mopping up resistance, landing fighters, etc. Anakin has parked his fighter and is reporting victory to Obi-Wan over comm. Commentary that it would be nice if all the battles were going to the Republic. Obi-Wan is returning to Coruscant from his own war-zone to replace lost materièl and personnel, and report in. Debate in the Senate over whether it's immoral to be using slave troops, whether cloning should even be legal, urging diplomacy, etc. Jedi on-hand lament the direction things have gone. Stuff about Vader and Sith here. Intel indicates Vader is going to be in the Mustafar system. A message is sent to Anakin to intercept him. Obi-Wan says he'll meet him on-location. Padmé sees Obi-Wan off, tell him she is pregnant, and asks him not to tell Anakin, so as to not distract him. She'll tell him later. Obi-Wan worries about the toll the wars have taken on Anakin.

• ACT II -- No word from Anakin after he acknowledges his assignment and departs in his fighter. Obi-Wan arrives on Mustafar and confronts a mysterious hooded figure. All we see are the Eyes of the Sith, red lightsaber when they fight, no full-face. Comments like "what have you done?!" from Obi-Wan "Anakin was weak -- I had to destroy him" from Vader. Close and intense duel ends with a wounded Obi-Wan Force-shoving Vader back into a stanchion and breaking his neck. Obi-Wan leaves him for dead. After he departs to return to Coruscant, Palpatine steps out of the shadows and retrieves Vader's body. Obi-Wan arrives back at Coruscant in bad shape, tells other Jedi and Padmé that Anakin is dead.

• ACT III -- Republic forces are still losing ground against Separatists. Chancellor Palpatine declares himself Emperor, opposition is violently put down. Mace goes to arrest Palpatine, who reveals his true colours as the Sith mastermind (no butt-head transformation, though -- just the Eyes). Mace ends up getting blasted out the window, no Anakin involved. I like the deleted Rebel leaders scene approximately here. Bail Organa helps a convalescing Obi-Wan escape, Padmé going with. Palpatine makes a less melodramatic statement to the Senate declaring the Jedi traitors and orders them to be killed on sight. When Palpatine's advisors wonder aloud how the heck they're gonna do that, Vader shows up and announces he's leading the Purge.

CODA -- Something similar to the montage of Jedi getting killed by their Clonetroopers. I like the idea of adding masked Vader to the Jedi Temple bit. I also like the idea of the final scene being an approach to a sprawling expanse of shipyards building Star Destroyers (and launching them). Other scenes of Palpatine consolidating his rule, dissidents being stomped by Imperial troops, and other indicators of the passage of time. Mixed in for the last little bit are scenes of Padmé in labour, and then finish with Obi-Wan giving Luke to Owen and Beru and riding off into the desert.

--Jonah

* I have an essay I can post up explaining how the Protectors and Supercommandos work, what the colours signify, etc. If anyone's interested in the background tapestry that is on-screen, but not spoken about...

Also, I'd like to see Grievous in as a Separatist leader, both pre and post cyborging.

--Jonah

RoccondilRinon said:

Maul = Grievous has been suggested — would that work?

I'd rather not. They're very different in on-screen use. I'd like them both in their own places.

--Jonah

This thread has taken on new life. I'm very interested. When can we read a screenplay?

o_O You really want to read the whole screenplay?

--Jonah

Just not used to anyone outside of my immediate circle of geek friends or people in my scriptwriting classes wanting to see. I forgot where i was posting to for a second. Silly me. :P

Hm. My timeline of the last couple decades: 1993-1996 -- manifested Crohn's Disease, 1996-2004 -- managed Crohn's through the "if I ignore it it'll go away" method, 2004-2005 -- health failed and I started trying to manage things right, October 2005 (into November) -- spent six weeks in the hospital and almost died, spent ten months getting things turned around before i was strong enough for corrective surgery, and then another year before the second surgery to fix the damage from the first (since my body was still weak at the time).

All this to say, my mind was affected by my general deterioration, and other things I've seen of my work from that time weren't as good as I felt at the time. I haven't gone through my full script rewrite of Episode I since that time. Lemme take a pass before I post it to make sure. Episode II is about thirty pages of notes and scenes needing to be expanded the rest of the way out. And I'll wait on posting the link to my Episode III re-write until I've made sure the first two are presentable, so the thread of the story is consistent.  I've taken this very seriously, as I've been a Star Wars fan pretty much my whole life, and the Prequels were such a letdown.

--Jonah

Rhikter said:

The clone project was a failure from Palpatine's POV.  He started to get paranoid about the clones betraying him, so he had the program discontinued and that's when the Empire started recruiting and training its personnel.

I read it on Wookiepedia once.  Maybe I'll see if I can find and post the exact quote later.  I won't right now though, because it's late where I am.

Be careful using Wiki for reference. Check the sources cited. I'll believe it, though. Just bear in mind that: 1) The current EU stance is that there are still clones making up the bulk of the Stormtrooper corps, and the 501st is entirely Jango clones; and 2) the Emperor evidently still liked cloning enough to clone himself and leave the Mount Tantiss facility on Wayland going.

--Jonah

It's only really an issue if you want to make edits that fit in with the EU a large number of the people on here don't care or actively dismiss the EU for being too restrictive but there are some who would like to.

Peregrinus said:

Just not used to anyone outside of my immediate circle of geek friends or people in my scriptwriting classes wanting to see. I forgot where i was posting to for a second. Silly me. :P

Hm. My timeline of the last couple decades: 1993-1996 -- manifested Crohn's Disease, 1996-2004 -- managed Crohn's through the "if I ignore it it'll go away" method, 2004-2005 -- health failed and I started trying to manage things right, October 2005 (into November) -- spent six weeks in the hospital and almost died, spent ten months getting things turned around before i was strong enough for corrective surgery, and then another year before the second surgery to fix the damage from the first (since my body was still weak at the time).

All this to say, my mind was affected by my general deterioration, and other things I've seen of my work from that time weren't as good as I felt at the time. I haven't gone through my full script rewrite of Episode I since that time. Lemme take a pass before I post it to make sure. Episode II is about thirty pages of notes and scenes needing to be expanded the rest of the way out. And I'll wait on posting the link to my Episode III re-write until I've made sure the first two are presentable, so the thread of the story is consistent.  I've taken this very seriously, as I've been a Star Wars fan pretty much my whole life, and the Prequels were such a letdown.

--Jonah

Sounds good. I would just like to read through it all. It would only help you to let it be read. There are some amazing ideas that get bounced around in here.

Haha, Davnes! That was wonderful.

AOTC was not shot at a higher resolution than 1080p. I'm not even sure it went that high. It was digitally upconverted to be big enough for IMAX. Must have looked like shit.

ROTS was shot with the next generation of the same camera, and not even that camera could do higher resolutions than 1080. In fact, ROTS was quite simply cropped from its native 1080 format (i.e. it was shot with non-anamorphic lenses), so that it just used 817 vertical pixels, according to the CineAlta wikipedia page.

Ripplin said:

Yeah, there was a pretty big campaign about it, actually. I used to have a full-page add for it that appeared in the Toronto Star newspaper. I remember wanting to go, but never did.

But does something being shown in Imax theaters automatically mean it was shot in a higher resolution than 1080p? Could they have done better than that back in 2001 or whatever? (I don't really know a ton about such things)

I've still only seen one Imax/Omnimax film so far: Ben Burtt's "Special Effects: Anything Can Happen." That was a while ago. :p Too bad we can't see it again.

I've only seen stills from that, the recreation of the Star Destroyer opening from ANH would be useful for fiddling about with in these projects.

I am right in thinking that was the IMAX film with the Star Destroyer bit in (or did I just dream it)?

On the subject of the Clones post prequels: I always assumed Palpatine used Clones was because they would be totally obedient (as Lama Su says) and that he could imbed them with special commands (like Order 66). With the wars agains the Separatists he orchestrated, the Clones were spread all of the Galaxy, and when he finally became Emperor, he had his entire army in place to enforce his New Order on the occupied planets.

I don't know if the Imperial army we see in the OT are just new recruits, Clones or a combination of them. I tend to think it's a combination. One reason is because we saw the Clones slowly 'transform' into the Stormtroopers we see in the OT. It's also logical to assume a lot of Clones died during the Clone Wars, which probably didn't stop during the transition from the Republic to the Empire, and the rise of the Rebellion. New recruits were needed to keep enforcing Palpatine's New Order on the Galaxy.

Maybe the use of Clones was phased out, because new Clones couldn't be manufactured because the original host (Jango Fett) died. I could think of multiple reasons. Maybe they could only make a limited number of a sample of Fett's blood before it 'decays', and maybe it's not possible to clone a clone. 

Anyway, this is all reading between the lines.

I once wrote a fanfic of Episode III way before it came out, and in it was a scene where the newly founded Rebellion's first action was to destroy the Clone factories on Kamino. It had Alderaan Y-Wings, Naboo N1 fighters, Mon Calamari ships above the water, and Gungan subs underwater fighting the Aiwha's (those flying/swimming whales).