What would have made the prequels better in your opinion? — Page 2

Whoever wrote the prequels should have taken a weekend to watch the original Star Wars trilogy, so they understood the setting, tone, characters, and the established history of the universe. I think that would have improved the prequel trilogy immensely. At best, the prequels merely cannibalize elements from the original trilogy, but present them out of place and out of order, and diminish their impact.

Be SERIOUS, for a start!

If only the PT would focus on being an adventure rather than a soap opera...

I enjoy watching the prequels as eye-candy, but they aren't really movies.  They're more like sappy video games.  Perhaps they could have been made into movies with:

• different story
• different script
• different director
• different cast
• different effects

I almost added "more CPY", but that goes without saying.  The music I might actually keep.

Seriously, the one thing about the PT that made me really sad, was the Yoda lightsaber fight.  That pretty much destroyed his character.  After ESB, I pictured Yoda fighting with the force as his ally, with great efficiency and grace.  A slight move or gesture here and there, bending the force to tie the opponent in knots.  What a missed opportunity.  Instead they stick his tail in a light socket and have him leaping around like a maniac, totally out of character and with virtually no hint of the force.  It was painful to watch.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I enjoy watching the prequels as eye-candy, but they aren't really movies.  They're more like sappy video games.  Perhaps they could have been made into movies with:

• different story
• different script
• different director
• different cast
• different effects

I almost added "more CPY", but that goes without saying.  The music I might actually keep.

Seriously, the one thing about the PT that made me really sad, was the Yoda lightsaber fight.  That pretty much destroyed his character.  After ESB, I pictured Yoda fighting with the force as his ally, with great efficiency and grace.  A slight move or gesture here and there, bending the force to tie the opponent in knots.  What a missed opportunity.  Instead they stick his tail in a light socket and have him leaping around like a maniac, totally out of character and with virtually no hint of the force.  It was painful to watch.

Or better yet, George should have stuck to his original idea wherein Yoda was a spiritual guru and would never use the Force for combat.

mfastx said:

Williarob said:

Also, Real sets! Real Props! Less CGI! I have yet to see a CGI Jabba that is as half as convincing as the massive foam-rubber puppet built 30 years ago. A real set, with something physical to work with not only gets a much better performance from the actors but also generates an atmosphere - something a computer just can't recreate convincingly - or at least it couldn't when the prequels were shot. Perhaps it can now.

 Agree with everything you said, but there were plenty of real sets in the PT: 

and

are a few examples.  Plus, the OT had its fair share of blue/green screen: 

Honestly I think the special effects were the least of the PT's problems. 

 Aren't all of those "real sets" above miniatures? The actors were not walking through them in the way they did the Death Star sets or the cantina or Jabba's palace. The actors walked around in front of Green screens. But, I concede the point that not all the sets were computer generated :)

I just thought of another thing that might have improved the Prequels: Marcia Lucas' Editing. If you look at how the Original 1977 Star Wars is structured - A big opening battle to grab your attention and let you know this is going to be very cool, followed by some much slower pacing while the droids wander around in the desert and Luke complains about his chores. A lot of this works because of how it was put together in the editing room.

We also know (from Rinzler's making of Star Wars?) that it was Marcia's idea to add dialog to the Greedo scene when the Jabba scene proved to be unfeasable, which is why re-including the Jabba scene in the SEs is so pointless - Han Solo has to explain that "Even I get boarded sometimes" twice in as many minutes.

I expect she also helped to make the original trilogy better by pointing out things that just didn't work, whereas if you watch any of the docs on the SEs and prequels you get Rick McCallum telling us how great everything is, and what a genius George Lucas is, which is probably what he told George when he asked, "are you sure we're not going to far with Jar Jar?" I bet Marcia would have had something more constructive to say.

Better editing, a better cinematographer. 

Different directors for each movie.

If Lucas had to write and direct the first prequel he should have collaborated like he did on Star Wars '77 with other writers.

He needed someone to argue over the scripts and the plot and general direction.

Should not have set up the crew like he was making a video game for lucasarts, i swear the making of looks like a computer game production  not a film production because of how much is put into the cgi component.

Just make them books. You can imagine it to be great, even if it's not!

Also, you get the screen name award.