roryoconnor35 said:
Thank you for your comments Mrebo. Could you expand on how you feel the Sith are overdone? I am wary of keeping scenes or characters just because they are cool. For example one of the few things i did like in the P.T. was Vaders birth/construction scene, but it will have to go in order to preserve his identity.
It's my personal taste, but I don't like the notion of their being an ongoing battle between Jedi and Sith and that the Republic is basically taken over by Sith. To me, there are people who use the Force for evil purposes, but don't necessarily belong to a discrete group that call themselves "Sith." It simplifies the real motivations of characters like Palpatine and Vader and makes all the bad guys part of a special group based on evil. Obviously there are a lot of people who enjoy the Jedi vs Sith feud.
I prefer the OT conception. This means relying on a lot of what was not said. How many times did we hear the name "Sith" in the OT? When Luke tried to persuade Vader that there was still good in him, Vader didn't retort, "I am a Sith Lord!" (Because a title would make up for having to slaughter children). The whole notion simplifies motivations and characters too much for my taste.
I read the Darth Bane novels (they were a gift) and that has colored much of my distaste for the Sith. It was a lot of evil for the sake of evil. In that story Bane happened to be Force sensitive and the subject of a lot of abuse and a difficult life. He was a victim of circumstances. I don't imagine Maul being a regular farm boy who happened to look evil and made a conscious choice which way he would go. An occasional character, like the Emperor or Maul, being pure evil is fine (though the Emperor's motivation was desire for political power) - but an entire axis of the SW universe is off-putting.
I was also toying with the idea of Bounty Hunters being a symptom of decay in an increasingly lawless universe, hence more Boba Fett! But alas no, this creates too many problems.
The bounty hunter thing is an interesting idea. I was also thinking along those lines, of space pirates, etc.
I need Maul as the Dark face of evil, dealing with and commanding the Seperatists/Trade Federation as I want to keep Palpatine's true intentions secret for as long as possible for the benefit of those new to the saga. Dooku is too old to be anyones apprentice. As cool as Christopher Lee is we don't want to share our main villain The Lord of The Rings and Hammer Horror as well. Qui-Gon has been removed for similar reasons.
I'm in xhonzi's camp of wanting to ignore most if not all of the PT. My eyes glaze over when I see the words "Trade Federation." There are a lot of schools of thoughts on these issues and it should make for interesting variety. I'm willing to be convinced that such elements from the PT can be useful and attractive.
Another point on which many disagree is whether to reveal Vader as Luke's father. I agree with you that it should remain a secret. I desire the movies to be viewed in order of I,II,III,IV,V,VI without taking away from the drama of IV,V,VI. Others, like CWBorne, would approach the prequels as if we already know everything from IV,V,VI (at least through their extensive marketing). Perhaps the intention is that the movies would be viewed in the order that they were made, OT then PT. That's not the approach I would choose but I see the merit.
Any ideas on how to do multiple clone wars? Just two would be enough.
I'm struggling with the Clone Wars. Xhonzi seems oriented toward the battle side of things and he wrote a stellar opening scene for his version. I think any series of battles over the same clones could be called Clone Wars. There could be multiple disputes between different sets of planets all over the issue of clone armies...