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The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 164

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On another note...

While I don't have a problem with threads like these, and as I am more than willing to admit that I have often thought of re-writing the prequels to fulfill some sort of self-satisfaction, I still must admit that I can see that Lucas never really had a chance at winning with the prequels.

You see, STAR WARS had become such a pop culture phenomenon that we all think of it as ours, and on some level, I think each of us believes we know exactly what is best for it.

Trust me, I'm not Lucas apologist. I've gone from what could be described as affection when I was a child to what can be fairly described as loathing as an adult. Throw into that the undeniable fact that I am no lover of the PT. However, when something is this popular, and everybody sees it each in their own way, well, anything that is done, any idea that comes to fruition, any choice that is made is going to be the subject of intense, somewhat unreasonable, and yes, maybe even unfair criticism.

I went all through this going all the way back to pre-TPM. What started out as anti-Jar Jar, a distaste for the midichlorian explanation for Force sensitivity, or ripping on the acting performances has now turned into  using different planets as central locations, removing whole characters, changing villains and even major plot points.

And now, well, it seems we have problems with who fights and what color lightsaber they use.

I have to ask, where does it end?

Mr. Lucas, I may just be welling up a touch of sympathy for you.

“Anakin had those qualities so rarely seen, exuding an unmistakable confidence and yet still able to touch one’s heart in simply knowing how he was so flawed… wounded.”

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vaderios said:

Nice yoda^

A bit here from me to be more close to quarrie's painting mood

-Angel

 Angel, want to tackle a few more?

Looks like you could try the TF ship from TPM...or...

Not the best concept pic of Coruscant...there are better ones in color...just couldn't find any.

SSWR’s YouTube channel

Attack of the Clones: Alternate Timeline Edit Thread:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/SSWRs-Attack-of-the-Clones-Alternate-Timeline-Edit/id/66888

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Darth Hade, while I agree Lucas could never please everyone with the prequels he could have stayed true to the spirit and tone of the OT and turned out solid films that while not to everyone's taste would not only have made more than their money back would also be something that could be over time be seen as just much fun and enjoyable as the OT (even though they may never have recaptured the power and impact of when Star Wars first appeared in 1977).

Star Wars worked because it made a fantastic world seem real by giving us characters we could care about grounded in a world with consequences the special effects were just a means to tell a human story.

While the rot started to set in in ROTJ the PT took the efforts of talented people and created a world so cartoonish and fake feeling that no amount of special effects could cover the artifice.

If the same sort of writing, direction and acting put into the OT were put into a western it would be a good western, if the same level of attention put in the PT were put into a western it would be Wild Wild West without the jokes.

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fishmanlee said:

Rogue Leader said:

I like the Delta 7 Jedi Starfighters............

I like the delta 7B's better..... 

The Delta 7 line were all nice ships although having the option of an astromech be removable is nice. Way better looking that the Eta-2 series anyway.

Handzzz said:

And what about the dreadnaught? In the Thrawn trilogy i think it was made in the Old republic rea I think.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/9/92/Dreadnaught_schem.jpg

But why Lucas not made the Thrawn Trilogy???? Lot better than the prequels...

 

Yep, those should of been there, along with the Victory-class Star Destroyers, the Z-95, Y-wings with it's full armored plating... They should do a Clone Wars cartoon episode of the Katana Fleet. That'd be kinda cool actually...

 

 

           Ca Rogues

                          The impossible is what Rogues do best...

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Timstuff said:

I'd be all for inserting some Z-95s into ROTS. Also, some Clone Wars era Y-wings would be pretty kick ass too.

BTW, I finally figured out how to get 5.1 audio to work in Adobe Premiere, and so it looks like I might be able to get started on my fan edit soon. This weekend/monday I'll probably try to see about doing some color correction on The Phantom Menace, since that will be an important component to my edit.

What I want to know is if you figured out a way to replace music. But look forward to hearing more about your edit.

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One idea that came to me prompted by Angel was what if the clones weren't created for the Republic recently but had been created a long time in the past to fight in some ancient war and were held in stasis in a forgotten location and discovered and reactivated. Like the Krell city in Forbidden Planet.

There could be an in universe myth that they would return when the galaxy needed them the most.

It would tie into the classic Star Wars notion of taking a mythic idea (the sleeping phantom warrior army) but with a space opera twist.

They would still be clones but their hidden fortress could have been discovered by the Kaminoans (that would turn them into a salvage team getting rich on what they found rather than a race of cloners).

Once activated the awakened clones start producing more and are preprogrammed to serve the Chancellor of the Republic (which is why they obey all his orders and the main reason that Palpatine came out of the shadows to become Chancellor).

The PT grew out of the back story of the OT.

One of the reasons the PT seems so hollow is it doesn't have that much of a back story of it's own to call upon.

The few mentions of the Sith wanting revenge on the Jedi for something added to a few ideas like this would project the story even further back.

It would also take the heat off the Jedi allowing the Republic to create a race of slaves if they already existed generations before.

It would require a redub of a lot of dialogue and a lot of editing around but it may make for a more interesting idea.

 

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One idea that came to me prompted by Angel

I dont recall but thanks XD

One of the reasons the PT seems so hollow is it doesn't have that much of a back story of it's own to call upon.

Well said sir!

You remind the Hellboy 2 and the robot army as well. it can work..

Plus take this awesome excibition of how a PT vader could have been :)

Angel, want to tackle a few more?

No worries.. I still stydying the concepts and the paintings trying to find good places to alter moods and colors.

Thank Zod they are using unused concepts to CW :D

 

On an other note.. The men who stare at goats have some great lines from Ewan about Jedi warriors ^_^ it might be useful somehow!

 

-Angel

–>Artwork<–**

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Stormtroopers were on your list so I started to think of other places they could come from so Angel, you indirectly inspired the idea.

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vaderios said:

Plus take this awesome excibition of how a PT vader could have been :)

I for one never cared for the prototype Vader mask. It's too expressive, like it's TRYING to look evil. I prefer the placid and skull-like vibe from the real Vader mask. 

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I would like to see suit, but more of an early version, with tubes and steam coming out. It sounds dorky, but it gives you more of sense that this is 2 decades before ANH. Hell, I wouldn't be against it being made of some kind of a metal.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

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mrbenja0618 said:

Timstuff said:

I'd be all for inserting some Z-95s into ROTS. Also, some Clone Wars era Y-wings would be pretty kick ass too.

BTW, I finally figured out how to get 5.1 audio to work in Adobe Premiere, and so it looks like I might be able to get started on my fan edit soon. This weekend/monday I'll probably try to see about doing some color correction on The Phantom Menace, since that will be an important component to my edit.

What I want to know is if you figured out a way to replace music. But look forward to hearing more about your edit.

I've dabbled a little bit in music replacement, since I had to use it for some of the cuts and additions I've made. It really depends on the footage you're working with, because in some scenes the music is limited to the left and right channels for the most part, but in other parts if you were to try to cut out the music you'd be cutting out too much of the sound, as well.

Probably the best example is when I reinstated the scene with "Greedo" (minus the part where "Greedo's" name is revealed). The shot immediately after that is when Qui Gon gives Anakin his money from the pod sale. Since the music changes, I had to remove the original music from that scene and replace it with the rest of the song that was in the Greedo scene from the soundtrack CD, and timing it out so that it would sync up. In doing so I ended up cutting out the ambient sounds in that scene, so in order to replace them I actually took some of the ambient Mos Eisley sounds from Episode IV and laid them on top of the new music, and the end result was pretty seamless.

Like I said, in some parts music replacement is quite doable, but in other parts it would be more trouble than it's worth or maybe even impossible. The only way to know for sure is to listen carefully to the channels and see what you can get away with cutting and replacing.

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I was thinking... If the Z-95s were to be integrated into the prequels, they should be new and shiny looking, similar to the Y-Wings. Instead of dirty gray with streaks of color, they should be largely red and chrome / silver / white, like they're fresh off the assembly line. The traditional gray X-Wing look should be what happens when the paint job fades or the shiny metal gets weathered beyond recognition.

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Timstuff said:

I was thinking... If the Z-95s were to be integrated into the prequels, they should be new and shiny looking, similar to the Y-Wings. Instead of dirty gray with streaks of color, they should be largely red and chrome / silver / white, like they're fresh off the assembly line. The traditional gray X-Wing look should be what happens when the paint job fades or the shiny metal gets weathered beyond recognition.

Like the Naboo starfighters then.  =P

           Ca Rogues

                          The impossible is what Rogues do best...

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I really think these Prequels are beyond saving. I don't know that I'd take one thing from them if I had to write them over. Maybe Darth Maul and the double-bladed lightsaber. Other than, I would start from scratch. No other character is worth salvaging. Grievous is retardedly over the top, Count Dookie is the most cardboard villain I've ever come across. The creature design really missed Ralph McQuarrie. I can't think of anything I would keep from these films. Story-wise there are just way too many holes, you might as well tear the wall down and build another instead of trying to spot-patch it.

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The idea of this thread is to go beyond spot patching (though some edits have made improvements with minor changes).

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And as always...if you don't like it, you don't have to watch (or post, for that matter).

Other than that, welcome to the forum! ;-)

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I hope you wouldn't mind if I chip in on the PT discussion - for me it went downhill ever since the first few minutes of Ep.I passed by. Had that movie started with the Clone Wars beginning (or already in motion) it would have been great.

Second, to this day I can't forgive the missed opportunity to make Anakin Skywalker simply a young pilot from Naboo, better yet, a freighter pilot stuck there due to the blockade (for continuity's sake) that should have been instrumental in the plot by helping the Jedi and the Queen escape. The rest being a good old-fashioned space "chase" through a war-torn Galaxy, much like ANH or TESB.

The other thing that bothered me greatly with the PT was the abundance, nay, the omnipresence of Jedi. I am not from the USA, so I may not share the fascination with comic book characters some (most?) of you may share, but the prequels downsized the Jedi from rare, exceptional mythological warrior-philosophers to the everyday action hero, capable of extreme feats of disbelievability... something that turned even worse in the EU. I point to TFU as an obvious example. That's a problem of the movies in general though, always trying to find the visual "muscle" and raw action rather than the subtlety of the originals. For me the ominous gray shapes of the Star Destroyers, quietly sitting in orbit will always hold a certain sense of dread that the visually (and overly colorful) spectacular battles of the prequels can't.

I loved TPM when I watched it for the first time, as a gift for my eleventh* birthday back in '99 (yes, I'm not that old, but I still love the OT). I remember my parents, who were great fans, being stunned by the movie and I couldn't understand why. Ten years later, I can.... it just lacks spirit.

As much as I'd like it, I can't see an edit fixing the prequels. Not that it should stop anyone from making it, at the least I'm greatly enjoying reading some of the ideas here and looking through the mock-up pictures. :)

 

* Bah, maybe I am getting old, I can't remember my birthdays even! Shame on me...

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Suppose the OT and PT were mixed together and presented in one hour episodes? As I have watched a lot of LOST recently, the storytelling device (for those unfamiliar) used on that show is to present current events and flashbacks in an alternating sequence. What if each one hour episode was set primarily in the OT with certain plot points triggering the relevant flashback from the PT?

Want to book yourself or a guest on THE VFP Show? PM me!

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Bingowings said:

The idea of this thread is to go beyond spot patching (though some edits have made improvements with minor changes).

Then why is everyone talking about Grievous who is basically a caricature of ridiculousness when it comes to wielding lightsabers. And Dooku, who was the most cardboard villain maybe in the history of cinema. Plus his name is Dooku, why on earth would you keep that? The Gungans, I thought were a CGI mess. The Trade Federation, I don't even understand what it was, something to do with trade I guess. Beyond that it was very confusing, being that it had an Army and a place in the Senate. Why keep that when the only thing about the Trade Federation that was explained, just didn't make sense. This thread is very long, I've tried to read as much as I could. What radical ideas have been introduced so far? Maybe I missed them, it's a long thread.

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TV's Frink said:

And as always...if you don't like it, you don't have to watch (or post, for that matter).

Other than that, welcome to the forum! ;-)

I feel welcome already! Thanks. =)

I do support a thread like this. But, really what the problem is, is that the prequels had no purpose. They didn't need to be made, there was no story to tell. It's ironic that the PT was about clones, because Lucas had no original themes or ideas, he just copied the OT and claimed it was an homage. An homage is a scene or two, Lucas straight up copied himself. Down to where if you watched them in order, it's like you're watching the same 3 movies again. (Obi-Wan with the landing claw? Come on Lucas, couldn't you have thought of something different, anything? I always assumed what Han did was magnetic, guess not.) The PT was a clone without a soul, there was no theme. If you really had to try to pry one out of it from somewhere it was that people shouldn't have attachments. That is a horrible theme! So that's what needs to be addressed in each movie. What is the theme of each movie? Has this been discussed? I've tried to sift through this whole thread, but it's really long.

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We are still talking about them in the context of rendering them into something other (and hopefully better) than the manner which you describe (which most of us also recognise and agree with you about).

Yes it is a long thread and for me to précis the ideas on it would make for a huge post all on it's own. If you set out and paced yourself you could get through it in a reasonable amount of time.

Some of the aspects of the films you point out (like Dooku's name) are almost impossible to get around as they are so deeply embedded in the dialogue uttered during key scenes, though I would be very interested in any suggestions you have for getting around such obstacles and what you would replace them with.

Some edits like JasonN's have reduced Dooku's cartoonish moves down to a minimum (the aim being to make him not a Sith Lord but a Jedi who is making a stand against a compromised Senate, a forerunner of the Rebellion of the OT).

There have been many suggestions regarding how to make the Gungans less ridiculous (even how to remove them all together) and to give the Trade Federation different motives and different voices and to make Grievous more sinister or even an anti-hero of sorts via re-dubbing and altering his appearance.

To some extent we are stuck with some of the elements of the PT (unless someone can figure out a way to make the films from scratch) but there are a lot of different methods of reconstructing the elements already there so they do make more sense and fit better into the universe we saw in the original films.