Promus said:
CWBorne...That. Was. Awesome!
I LOVE the idea of Anakin being Beru's brother! It makes so much sense...the name issue always threw a wrench into my ideas. Have you written an entire script for your vision of the prequels, or are you still just working on it? Because I LOVE your ideas and I'd love to brainstorm the other details with you too, if you'd like.
With all the fanfilms that have been made, I've always felt that it might be possible (with some extra money...) to make my own prequel fanfilms. And working with other people is an important part of doing anything like that...
Mrebo, CWBorne...we really should collaborate on something big!
CWborne and xhonzi have lots of great ideas. My prequels are slowly coming together mostly in my brain (and on my former laptop).
There are a lot of branches in the thinking of the prequels. Another, bigger, branch than whether to show Tatooine is whether to preserve the OT surprises. My philosophy is to create the PT as they could have been if they had been made first. This creates challenges like not showing Anakin become Darth Vader. CWBorne is arguably more sensible in assuming everybody knows the surprises and thus being unafraid of showing Yoda, showing Anakin become Vader, etc. In not trying to keep surprises it is easier to just focus on making a really great story. And certainly not wrong to have an audience in on the secrets, just waiting to see how Luke handles them.
This was influential for my wanting to adapt to the limitations of keeping OT secrets. I do think there are simple, clever, and story-enhancing ways of keeping the secrets.
One idea I'm toying with is to show Anakin confront Palpatine and then the scene cuts to Obi Wan who, after some hesitation, goes off to "save" his friend. We don't know anything more until Ep3 when Anakin is Vader that we see him duel Obi Wan (again). Obi Wan double talks about Vader killing Anakin. Vader retorts that it was Obi Wan that killed Anakin (double meaning of 'drove him to the dark side' and 'literally sliced him up'). In this way, Obi Wan's later explanation to Luke is seen as less of a jerky plot gimmick and more of 'this is seriously how Obi Wan sees the world.' The exposition would be done to lead the audience to believe that Vader was a dark jedi who murdered Anakin until Vader later declares, "No...I am your father."
All these divergent ideas can make true collaboration difficult, but I know just sharing ideas really helps me.