Ronster said:
The story needs a reason to be told, and show how things are connected that you would never guess. Not My Dad, My Mum, My Brother, My Sister, My Uncle, My Auntie, My Son, My Daughter,My Business, My Politics, My 2nd cousins goldfishes niece. It is a Trash piece. The thing about it is the plot is so bad and so mind numbingly simple that I would even struggle to write something as bad as these films and I am not a writer.Are we really meant to believe we are in this large Universe where everyone is related to one another in some way at a very close level. The story also lacks any kind of maturity that even a child would ask simple yet big questions without thought and if aimed at children how did it manage to educate or teach them anything of the world we live in. What was the moral of the story?
You could argue that the prequels focused on Politics and that they tried to show that some politicians will say whatever they can and manipulate to get into power for their own desires?
some of your ideas are really hard to fit in, but this sums it up:
the OT was a fairy tale told for/to teenagers, so kids and adults could relate to it ...
the PT is a soap told to kids - and this is why it failed!
Lucas didn't understand the whys and whats of the OT - back then he just took "Dune" and mixed it with many good ideas from great stories (Flash Gordon, Kurosawa, etc.)
the PT lacks most of the "background" - and when it comes into play (AotC - "The Searchers") it blalantly copies the original (in design)
Star Wars had its share of politics too, but it was presented in short interesting dialoge brought by clever characters (Tarkin!)
more than Rise of Palpatine/Vader (or Fall of the Republic/Jedi) we need to see the conflicting parties in the senate (hawks VS doves), the military pushing for more control and power (money!) and the peaceful systems (Alderaan) warning to not burn the whole galaxy and bringing a civil war afterwards (like what we got in the OT!)
maybe show some plotting, even the "good" guys take desperate meassures, founding coalitions with others, who are shady ...
best possibility to add Mon Mothma and other pre-Alliance members (also cut scene available here)
there are some nice ideas how to lay out the events of the PT - "Clone Wars", that meant for me ALWAYS, that there would be at least 1 group who used cloned troops to overcome the other side
the question remains: what after the last "Clone War" ?
one solution, which stands out like the "pink elephant", is to have Jedi clone troops - should they fight against "Sith" ? or "Mandalorians" or just against Droids, later the other side steals the cloning technology and it goes to an all-out WAR ... resulting , that cloning is forbidden or completely lost (or forgotten)
"Midichlorians" had the only purpose in my mind, to explain, why there are / could be no clones of the Jedi (or why the "Sith" didn't do it first - other than have that stupid "Rule of 2")
as for lightsabers: I am on the train that there should be more colors than blue/red/green - because in the beginning Lucas had only white ones (Wow!) - and blue/red is nicer looking - later green was made to help post production, because blue saber on blue sky wasn't that good ...
so back then it was a technical problem/sollution - not the mystical meaning (yeah later maybe) - so what, let the Jedi have multicolored sabers, mabye not all colors, only the light ones for "good" and red always for "Sith" - and maybe "purple" for outcasts (like "Dooku")
like I said before, Lucas took many ideas from "Dune" therefore "Prophecy", "Genetics" and the "Messiah" - even the desert planet - are mirrored in Star Wars - but he forgot to add "Spice" or another link, so that some points make sense (as to why "Tatooine" should be the most important planet, even when we are told by Luke it should not be so ...)
Ady wants to make the "cloning tech" the maguffin of the PT - fine, even Bingos "Heritage" or "Cult" idea could work, all depends on whats next ;-)
not sure if I want to have the "slave plot", yeah "Spartacus" would have been cool, but we didn't get there - but if one like to have it, maybe try some footage from "Stargate" ? - give a new look to "Tatooine" or other planet and can be tweaked into more
so if we take homage, better make "Ben Hur" into a "Skyhopper" race (like some proposed), and Anakin a skilled pilot - even the idea to have him or Owen be spice traders would fit nicely
like Bingo, I am fond of the "Jekyll/Hide" transformation of Anakin - making the "Dark Side" into a "drug" that alters mind, soul and body ("Secret Window" indeed) - so extra to some nightmares he got, he could have fights or visions (which we later learn are internal conflicts like Lukes "duel" in the cave)
but I would keep "Maul" aswell, only change "Dooku" to a fallen Jedi (maybe restore the "Lost 20") - "Maul" would transform from "ex-pupil" to "proto-Vader", killing himself off in RotS in duel with "Anakin"
no "Grievous", because his storyline was all offscreen, so he didn't function as a working character - better cut or salvage what can be used from him
for "Sidious": I would keep him in all PTs as a holo, like in ESB, no connection to Palpatine (which is a ruthless politician, but only interested in "history" and "arifacts"), never leaving his secure lair ...
maybe keep "Padme" alive, only for her eventually to die in ANH or show up much older from exile in RotJ
which brings me to an idea very radical:
as for 6 parts of "Star Wars" - I would start before "Episode 1" with a prologe of different scenes, overlayed by voiceover explaining what is what, then move on to "Chapter 1" - Episodes 2-5 would be all with crawl and no dialoge at end, but "Episode 6" should end with an epiloge, that states what happened in the next months/years (maybe to leave an open end for more adventures ...)