Idea: Obi Wan Having more than one apprentice...Will This Idea please just die already.

After much reading on these forums. One popular trend in terms of editing the Prequels, is Obi Wan having another apprentice than just Anakin. This theory is believed to be a solution, to keeping the identity of Darth Vader a Mystery until ESB.

This idea is driving me crazy. Both on how impossible it is with out remaking the whole trilogy. But also How it makes no sense.

Let me explain.

1: The idea of Obi Wan having more than apprentice is never mentioned in the OT. Sure the line in ANH “who was a pupil of mine util he turned evil” has very small hint that he may have taught other Jedi, but in ROTJ the line “I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi, I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda” also hints that Anakin was his first and only apprentice, seeing as how he didn’t know he was capable of training someone as strong with the force as Anakin was.

2: The idea that having both Anakin and unnamed apprentice, turning to the dark side at different times, having Obi Wan defeat them, and then all of a sudden Darth Vader shows up and slaughters the Jedi and most likely confronts Obi Wan. Could work, but it was established that Obi wan and Yoda both know who is inside the suit. how would they know who is even inside the suit? And if obi does find out who is in there, then the audience will know too.

I don’t think I need to explain how impossible it is to pull off without, again, remaking the trilogy. It would just be easier to have in ROTS when Anakin is burning on the hill being the last we see of him.

Hope this explains why this doesn’t work, but if you have your own thoughts, feel free to leave them down below. (be mature!)

I agree this is a common PT edit idea that I think just really sucks. You miss the worst part, though. If the idea is to preserve the twist in ESB, you're doing yourself no favors by having Anakin turn to the dark side anyway. Half the surprise from "I am your father" is that Anakin wasn't what Ben and Yoda said he was, that he actually turned to evil. Leaving that part in and expecting the twist not to be ruined is just stupid. 

This is a fanedit...how?

Apprentix sounds like the name of a prescription drug. =P

Yeah that is true, I hadn't thought that. Nevertheless I don't know how or where this idea came about.

TV's Frink said:

This is a fanedit...how?

 More like an edit that for what ever reason people wish was possible. 

I can't see why this needed a whole thread to itself but I don't have a problem with the idea as a means of fixing at least one broken aspect of the PT.

I know there are a lot of people who with some justification argue that you should just watch the films in the order they were made.

But the the episodes have been numbered since the re-issue of ANH which turned the one off film Star Wars. into a middle episode of a saga spanning episodes which go backward as well as forwards.

In this sense the PT should not have been made as prequels as such but as earlier episodes. It should be possible to enjoy them as prequels and as the first episodes of the over all saga.

The surprise of ESB should have been maintained in the PT. We old timers would enjoy the irony of knowing how the story would play out but the new generation of fans would enjoy the series in a different way. Chronologically.

What we know of Vader is that he was a pupil of Obi-Wan's before he turned to evil and helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi. We later learn that Anakin was a good friend. Obi-Wan was convinced that he could train this great pilot as well as Yoda (the Jedi Master who instructed him) and failed.

In the PT as it stands, Obi-Wan meets Anakin when he isn't yet a knight, his master isn't Yoda and Anakin hasn't shown any piloting skills beyond pod-racing.

He spends most of the final battle on auto-pilot and blows up the command ship by accident.

Obi-Wan is only knighted because his Master argues he is ready so he can move on to train Anakin who he has discovered.

Obi-Wan insists on training Anakin after Qui-Gon dies. Yoda reluctantly goes along with this. Obi-Wan does as good a job as Yoda who also had a student who turned to the dark side and joined the Sith.

In every possible way the PT fails to show us the story revealed to us in the OT while simultaneously wrecking the surprises of the OT.

You fix this by having Obi-Wan a fully fledged knight in TPM, trained by Yoda (who isn't Dooku's master). He is on a mission with Qui-Gon (a senior Knight but not his Master) when the team meet Anakin Obi-Wan demands to train Anakin but is denied this because he has a pupil already. Qui-Gon could argue that Obi-Wan's pupil is ready to face the trials and he gets to train Anakin.

Anakin is hardly ever called Skywalker in the PT (all instances could be easily removed) and it's only revealed that Luke's father is called Anakin in ROTJ so introducing another pupil creates ambiguity.

That ambiguity gives an editor room to manuever, to turn useless characters like Grievous and Maul into potential masks to hide the reveal in ESB and create a single ongoing threat to the Jedi, rather than all the fragmented action figure opportunities we have in the PT as it currently stands.

Anakin could be Vader, the other pupil could be Luke's father. Either could be the tattooed guy or the cyborg Jedi killer. If it's handled carefully it could work in a PT edit so asking for the idea to die is pretty stupid.

I can understand an idea not appealing to an individual but surely ideas should be kept alive and tweaked and tested. It's not like the PT is a classic series of films where alterations might break or deform them. Frink has proved even the most ridiculous changes serve to make the films more watchable.

I get your reasoning, I guess it's a matter of point of view. To me, making earlier episodes, rather than prequels, seems rather pointless. Why even show the earlier exploits of Anakin if you're not going to show him turn to the dark side and become Vader? That's the whole reason why the films were made, really. 

It makes sense to view the films in order of release, and see the use of "Episode" as an indication of chronology and the release order as a clever conceit to hide certain facts.

I don't know how anybody could watch ESB (the first film to have "Episode" in the title and also the film with the big surprise) and not think "oh, Episode V, I wonder what happened in the three episodes before Star Wars," and then, when Vader reveals his true identity, think "oh my god, that must be what happens in those three episodes, Luke's father becomes Vader!"

Ultimately this is my biggest issue. Why have a prequel trilogy, why follows these characters if not to learn exactly what happened before the OT? Are you sure you want to watch a six film saga where one of (if not the most) central character has a life altering transformation practically offscreen?

All I know is if ROTS skipped the birth of Vader I would have been royally pissed off.

Since 1980 ANH has been Episode IV.

As I said I have some sympathy for people who say the films should be watched in the order they were made but there is no reason why the plot of the films shouldn't work in either order.

If you don't know Anakin is Luke's father when you watch the prequels it should maintain the surprise of ESB and the audience still sees Vader become a cyborg they just don't know he is the father of the protagonist of the next three films yet. Giving Obi-Wan a prior pupil is one way of making that happen.

To be honest the birth of Vader in ROTS is so badly handled I'm not sure if any of the material is usable but I wouldn't 'kill the idea' of using it. Someone might be able to get it to work.

That has been raised before. That's fine for people who wish to view it that order but there is no reason why there shouldn't be a way to watch the chronologically.

And it still doesn't fix the massive inconsistencies between the PT era as seen from the OT era and the PT film plots.

Fixing the saga so it can be watched chronologically would also fix those inconsistencies.

If the prequel films didn't show the transformation from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader I would have no interest in watching them. To me, the idea of preserving the twist is crazy, people watched the prequels in the first place because they wanted to see how this happened.

Octorox said:

If the prequel films didn't show the transformation from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader I would have no interest in watching them. To me, the idea of preserving the twist is crazy, people watched the prequels in the first place because they wanted to see how this happened.

Some people may have.

Other people may have watched them to see more three new Star Wars films, with interesting characters and plot driven exciting action scenes set during the fall of the Old Republic.

To be honest for me the mistake of the PT was concentrating too much on Obi-Wan and Anakin. We know their story already. They should have invented new characters for us to care about as the main characters and have Ben and Anakin in the background.

It's hard to care about Mace Windu when he spends most of the time sitting on a loo shaped chair frowning.

Bingowings said:

Since 1980 ANH has been Episode IV.

I thought it was 81?

As I said I have some sympathy for people who say the films should be watched in the order they were made but there is no reason why the plot of the films shouldn't work in either order.

See the issue is if the secret is preserved in the PT then those films will seem strange to watch after the OT.

To be honest the birth of Vader in ROTS is so badly handled I'm not sure if any of the material is usable but I wouldn't 'kill the idea' of using it. Someone might be able to get it to work.

Of course how well the birth of Vader is handled is an issue, but I think it's a whole other issue. Either way, getting the film to work in that regard isn't easy. If you keep it, it's not perfect. If you get rid of it, you're getting rid of half the movie.

To be clear I am interested to see a version of the PT that preserves a secret in a smart and clever way (i.e. not just removing the scene where Anakin puts on the suit) which I believe Ady will do. I just believe it is better not to do it at all.

DominicCobb said:

Bingowings said:

Since 1980 ANH has been Episode IV.

I thought it was 81?

As I said I have some sympathy for people who say the films should be watched in the order they were made but there is no reason why the plot of the films shouldn't work in either order.

See the issue is if the secret is preserved in the PT then those films will seem strange to watch after the OT.

To be honest the birth of Vader in ROTS is so badly handled I'm not sure if any of the material is usable but I wouldn't 'kill the idea' of using it. Someone might be able to get it to work.

Of course how well the birth of Vader is handled is an issue, but I think it's a whole other issue. Either way, getting the film to work in that regard isn't easy. If you keep it, it's not perfect. If you get rid of it, you're getting rid of half the movie.

To be clear I am interested to see a version of the PT that preserves a secret in a smart and clever way (i.e. not just removing the scene where Anakin puts on the suit) which I believe Ady will do. I just believe it is better not to do it at all.

Seeing as ESB has always been Episode V (on screen anyway) I took that as the inception of the transformation of the first film but...

It will feel different watching a PT cut where the secrets are kept and maybe there would be a shock of the new about such a take but the degree to which that difference is qualitatively measured would depend on the skill of the edit and the new material added if necessary. The idea isn't the vector by which the concept should be judged but rather the execution of the the concept.

As I indicated there is at least one way that the addition of another pupil would preserve both the secrets of ESB and allow for us to see Anakin put on his suit (though I would argue against that suit and argue for it happening earlier in the PT).

If we don't know Anakin is going to be Luke's dad you can call him Anakin because that is a name not mentioned until ROTJ, just don't call him Skywalker.

That way everyone approaching the saga from such an edit will assume the other guy is Luke's dad come ANH and this Anakin chap is Darth Vader.

Yes, This is how I feel that we know the story and the films just fill in a blank before we get to the next part we already knew about. And with changes to what we already know of the back story. And the Blanks were never anything people really cared for.

Basically the PT could be told in a LOTR style prequel flashbacks lasting 20 minutes or under across the 3 OT films. But the style of the footage would pollute the actual master pieces with shit looking plastic fake footage.

So it's not needed the PT and never will be. But If a salvage were to be made of those few remaining "half decent moments" then they need to be retrofied to even look older than the OT like a historical segment.

I think Ben and Yoda story is the thing missing not Ben and Anakin.

Anakin should have come from nowhere really by chance but a lot later on. Not 3 films of Anakin no no no.

The Clone war, never even felt like it was a war it just felt like something going on and people fighting for no reason. There was no real justification that was dramatic enough that made me care about this war or feel any consequence for it occurring.

If you have a film set in WW2 say the focus is on how things have now changed. There was no change when the clone wars started it just kept going and nobody seemed affected by it.