I've seen attempts to make the Prequels better through editing, and while I appreciate the effort... I just don't think there's much you can do with what's available. It's like putting a sprig of parsley on a tuna casserole. It's nice to see the parsley, but underneath... it's all tuna casserole.

It got me thinking when I read the leaked plotline for Attack of the Clones. When I read about Dester's Diner and Peggle the Lesser and the rest of the plot, I thought for sure that it was Adamwankenobi or someone trying their hand at writing Episode 2. And then I saw the movie in theatres... :(

We normally blame the acting (which is bad (except for Ewan who was excellent!)) and the dialogue and the effects heavy visuals... but is the actual storyline broken from the start? I think it is, but then I find myself thinking about my immaginary Infinites Prequel Trilogy (which Tim Zahn and I write after we push George Lucas into a wood chipper) and I find myself coming back to some of the same moments or themes that are in the actual (but somehow to me, non-existant (how's that for relative truths?)) PT. Is this cause for concern? Are the plot outlines bad? Or are they just poorly executed?

Is the one paragraph summary of The Phantom Menace bad? How about the one page outline of Revenge of the Sith? I think the plain old 5 page (or so) outline of Attack of the Clones was already trash... How short would it have to be to be good?

And here's where the homework comes in: Write the longest summary of a Prequel movie, without it turning to poop.

Let me try with The Phantom Menace: