I’ve never thought of mirroring the ‘golden age’ of the republic in TPM to what was the ‘golden age’ of the empire in ANH.
Imagine presenting the republic as a sort of super-alderaan, so there are NO weapons anywhere - because there haven’t been any wars for generations. The Jedi’s use of lightsabers might even be representative of a sort of regression of sorts that swords are enough to keep order where needed.
Battle droids with tanks and guns might be a tad more intimidating in that setting - but I’m not sure how much of a lead up that would need to make it impactful. You couldn’t have the first portion of the film just pouring over peaceful environments!
Totally agree about Anakin! Leave him behind - he should just be a background character in that story. I often wonder if it would work to open TPM with Tatooine and Qui-Gon - whilst simultaneously introducing the Naboo fugitives.
Yeah, but people in SW universe is no stranger to conflict and they are not supposed to be so weak. Empire and the Emperor would not have to resort to this many schemes if that were true. (they needed first a drone army, then a clone army to defeat Jedi and the republic. If defeating Jedi order was the only thing they needed and defeating them would give them the whole galaxy in a golder plate, that would make it a weak movie as it is now. Jedi shouldn’t be the only thing that keeps the galaxy together.) Sure, Jedi protects the people of the republic, but that has a limit. (They can’t be everywhere at once and conflict would still arise every now and then, if it is not entire armies, then it would be the mercenary groups, intergalactic terrorists, planetary conflicts and so on. Not to mention people who favored a galactic empire were always there, there is no shortage of people who can cause troubles in Star Wars universe, so republic being so weak doesn’t even make sense.) Prequels relied too much on silly robots and clones. You see, one of the things that made the original trilogy great was its wide range of great characters and storm troopers and robots didn’t get that much screen time, they were part of the much larger story rather than taking up a lot of space. You saw people of the empire fighting for their evil beliefs. (and they weren’t clones) You saw people of the fallen republic fighting for their freedom. It should have focused on people of the republic and what it was like. It should be more like KOTOR games. (A lot more lore and a lot less Jar Jar and kids that say Yuppiee every other sentence) Instead we got a few Jedi’s fighting a robot army with someone seems to be pulling the strings but no one really cares and a shit ton of robots and clones. Just stupid that story pushed aside to make room for silly subplots.
And I am glad you agree. Little Anakin needs to stay back at the temple. He has no place in most of the movie.