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Ways to Do the Prequels with No Spoilers for the OT. — Page 2

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nic777 said:


Putting Obi-Wan as the focus of the PT means an abrupt shift by ep4. Because ANH is Luke's journey and when we find out about the connection to Vader it kinda makes me wonder why we would be looking at Obi-Wan so much in the PT since the real story is turning out to be the destiny of the Skywalker family.

The OT was a story about a set of heroes and Luke played the central role. Vader only mattered as a Skywalker because of his late-revealed connection to Luke. Lucas retconned the series as the story of Anakin and by extension Luke. It doesn't need to be seen this way...

No doubt Anakin is an important character (because of his relation to Luke) but that doesn't mean he needs to be the hero of the PT. As BlueCardinal says, up until at least the end of ESB, we don't view it as a Skywalker story. With Obi Wan as hero, we see him early in ANH, he passes the torch, and it works really well as a story-telling device.

Nothing wrong with wanting to tell it as a Skywalker story, but it doesn't need to be done that way. There is just nothing abrupt in moving from an Obi Wan centered-tale in the PT, to him meeting the son of his old friend/student in the OT.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

nic777 said:


Putting Obi-Wan as the focus of the PT means an abrupt shift by ep4. Because ANH is Luke's journey and when we find out about the connection to Vader it kinda makes me wonder why we would be looking at Obi-Wan so much in the PT since the real story is turning out to be the destiny of the Skywalker family.

The OT was a story about a set of heroes and Luke played the central role. Vader only mattered as a Skywalker because of his late-revealed connection to Luke. Lucas retconned the series as the story of Anakin and by extension Luke. It doesn't need to be seen this way...

No doubt Anakin is an important character (because of his relation to Luke) but that doesn't mean he needs to be the hero of the PT. As BlueCardinal says, up until at least the end of ESB, we don't view it as a Skywalker story. With Obi Wan as hero, we see him early in ANH, he passes the torch, and it works really well as a story-telling device.

Nothing wrong with wanting to tell it as a Skywalker story, but it doesn't need to be done that way. There is just nothing abrupt in moving from an Obi Wan centered-tale in the PT, to him meeting the son of his old friend/student in the OT.

 Actually it has to be seen that way because lucas made vader lukes father. That twist introduced in Empire makes the OT a skywalker saga in fact it makes as much a story of anakin's redemption as it does lukes hero journey. So to tell a prequel that focuses on someone other than anakin is jarring. 

Its like telling the story of hitler's regime (the original shown) then going back to show how he became hitler, nazi leader but focusing on his high school buddy in art class Johann, who got accepted to the art school that rejected hitler himself (the prequel). The next story (the OS) is about the rise of the 3rd reich so why are we looking at johann in the prequel as opposed to adolf himself? 

If what youre saying is the case then the sequel trilogy could be about Lando Calrissian's son's journey while the skywalker children are in the background. You think people wouldn't question that?

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nic777 said:

Mrebo said:

nic777 said:


Putting Obi-Wan as the focus of the PT means an abrupt shift by ep4. Because ANH is Luke's journey and when we find out about the connection to Vader it kinda makes me wonder why we would be looking at Obi-Wan so much in the PT since the real story is turning out to be the destiny of the Skywalker family.

The OT was a story about a set of heroes and Luke played the central role. Vader only mattered as a Skywalker because of his late-revealed connection to Luke. Lucas retconned the series as the story of Anakin and by extension Luke. It doesn't need to be seen this way...

No doubt Anakin is an important character (because of his relation to Luke) but that doesn't mean he needs to be the hero of the PT. As BlueCardinal says, up until at least the end of ESB, we don't view it as a Skywalker story. With Obi Wan as hero, we see him early in ANH, he passes the torch, and it works really well as a story-telling device.

Nothing wrong with wanting to tell it as a Skywalker story, but it doesn't need to be done that way. There is just nothing abrupt in moving from an Obi Wan centered-tale in the PT, to him meeting the son of his old friend/student in the OT.

 Actually it has to be seen that way because lucas made vader lukes father. That twist introduced in Empire makes the OT a skywalker saga in fact it makes as much a story of anakin's redemption as it does lukes hero journey. So to tell a prequel that focuses on someone other than anakin is jarring. 

Its like telling the story of hitler's regime (the original shown) then going back to show how he became hitler, nazi leader but focusing on his high school buddy in art class Johann, who got accepted to the art school that rejected hitler himself (the prequel). The next story (the OS) is about the rise of the 3rd reich so why are we looking at johann in the prequel as opposed to adolf himself? 

If what youre saying is the case then the sequel trilogy could be about Lando Calrissian's son's journey while the skywalker children are in the background. You think people wouldn't question that?

I do get where you're coming from, but the idea would be really difficult. Having Anakin as the focus would mean trying to go into his thoughts and progression as we seen it for Luke. That wouldn't be bad if we weren't trying to hide any spoilers. For Luke, we saw him deal with the temptations of the Dark Side and fight for the Rebel Alliance. With Anakin as the main character, we need to see the opposite of Luke. We need to see his progression to the Dark Side and the choices he makes to become Darth Vader.

Obi-Wan as the focus would allow us to see Anakin's fall without revealing anything. Anakin would still be a major character and we could still see hints of the Dark Side in Anakin. It would be more like seeing the fall of Camelot and King Arthur through the eyes of Merlin (which was actually done in the BBC "Merlin" series).

If there is a way to show Anakin's fall and not spoil anything, then I'd use it. Until then, Obi-Wan is the best option for a situation like this.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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Wannabe Scholar said:

I do get where you're coming from, but the idea would be really difficult. Having Anakin as the focus would mean trying to go into his thoughts and progression as we seen it for Luke. That wouldn't be bad if we weren't trying to hide any spoilers. For Luke, we saw him deal with the temptations of the Dark Side and fight for the Rebel Alliance. With Anakin as the main character, we need to see the opposite of Luke. We need to see his progression to the Dark Side and the choices he makes to become Darth Vader.

Obi-Wan as the focus would allow us to see Anakin's fall without revealing anything. Anakin would still be a major character and we could still see hints of the Dark Side in Anakin. It would be more like seeing the fall of Camelot and King Arthur through the eyes of Merlin (which was actually done in the BBC "Merlin" series).

If there is a way to show Anakin's fall and not spoil anything, then I'd use it. Until then, Obi-Wan is the best option for a situation like this.

As far as reveals and spoilers theres nothing to spoil we know whats going to happen we just need to HOW that happens. You ever watch a movie that shows you the end first then the rest of the movie is how that character ended up like that..is it any less compelling becuz you already know the end in the first 5 minutes?

IMO lucas' execution of how he showed anakins fall to the dark side was flawed. Starting with anakin being too young when we first see him..he literally has nothing much to do and wins a battle by accident. Too much fanservice..was it necessary to see who boba fetts father was and chewbacca knew yoda?? Too much focus on the politics that lead to the clone war.. did we really need to sit thru congressional speeches?

If you have time read the three stories I've posted in succession..I focus primarily on anakin in all three stories. Of any of the critiques (and you posted in 2..one in clones and one in dark lord again thank you very much) none were you should have shown obi-wan more. You complimented me on how well I depicted anakins conflict in Rise of the Dark Lord. 

I'm just saying because of the way lucas set things up in the OT the whole star wars 9 episode stories became the Skywalker saga for better for worse. Becus of that A Skywalker has to be front and center in each trilogy part. Considering that theyre producing all these other stories  and movies in the star wars universe in the coming years I wouldn't be surprised if they packaged the 9 episode box set as "The Skywalker Saga".

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RicOlie_2 said:

Please share your ideas here as well. I'm curious to see what people can come up with. There are naysayers who disagree that the movies could be any good without spoilers for the OT, but I think that if the PT was done vastly differently than it was, it could have been pulled off.

unless youre talking about showing the films in chronological order theres no real way to do prequels without spoilers. Not showing how things progressed from point A to point B by putting in red herrings and bait and switch things knowing what point B is  would just be confusing people unnecessarily. 

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But the whole point would be to throw people off a bit. Rather than ruining the reveal in Episode V, the idea is that it might even be more shocking to find out who Vader is if we have been mislead (though there would be clues along the way, and foreshadowing, but not obvious enough that one could easily figure it out).

EDIT: And the point would not be to confuse people, but to mislead them, until they have a moment of "now everything makes sense--I can't believe I didn't figure this out before" after the surprise of the reveal in ESB.

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RicOlie_2 said:

But the whole point would be to throw people off a bit. Rather than ruining the reveal in Episode V, the idea is that it might even be more shocking to find out who Vader is if we have been mislead (though there would be clues along the way, and foreshadowing, but not obvious enough that one could easily figure it out).

EDIT: And the point would not be to confuse people, but to mislead them, until they have a moment of "now everything makes sense--I can't believe I didn't figure this out before" after the surprise of the reveal in ESB.

 that would only work if we never saw 4,5,6 first... thats why I asked are you talking about showing the six movies in chronological order...becuz then you can do what your talking about in terms of misleading the audience. 

But if we've seen 4,5,6 first then we KNOW vader is lukes father, vader and obiwan had a falling out, luke and leia are siblings. vader is anakin skywalker. So knowing that if you show 1,2,3 and focus on a bunch of people who ultimately have no direct impact on those points listed yet get all kinds of focus and attention it would ultimately lead the audience into thinking "wha??" The function of a prequel isn't some much what happened but how it happened. 

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I think you're in the wrong thread. ;)

The purpose of this thread is to come up with prequel synopses that don't spoil the surprises in later episodes, allowing them to be watched by first-time viewers in episode order, which seems to be what George Lucas intended. Obviously that doesn't work very well with the prequels we have, but I think we could have been given prequels that worked as part of the saga and not just as prequels, if that makes sense.

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I think one of the most important things to consider when attempting to keep Vader's identity secret is that in order to mislead the audience, they must believe Obi-Wan's story in Episode IV.
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father."
After all, if Obi-Wan is known to be lying (there is no second apprentice, or the second apprentice does not appear to kill Anakin) it would be far too easy for the audience to simply connect the dots and guess it was Anakin.
I think the best way to do this is to have (similar to Duracell's idea) a second apprentice of Obi-Wan's throughout the prequel trilogy.
However, I think the apprentice  should be the main antagonist (replacing the roles of Maul, Dooku and Grievous.) (I like to call him Xanatos as a throwback to the Jedi Apprentice novels that featured a character of similar description.)
Obi-Wan would be attempting to redeem his former apprentice as he also attempts to train Anakin. Anakin and the apprentice would grow to hate each other over the course of the clone wars and eventually it would culminate with a final battle between the two where they both are severely injured (fall off the platform and burn perhaps).

Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.

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RicOlie_2 said:

I think you're in the wrong thread. ;)

First of all, ^ this. If you are convinced the prequels cannot be done without spoilers, simply say so and just let us have our fun by brainstorming. :)

Secondly, I agree with Sunrider101. We need that "second apprentice" character to allow Obi-Wan to maintain some credibility in the OT. The culmination of Anakin being seduced by the Dark Side happens when, in a final showdown with "Xanatos", he lets his anger take over so that he can win the battle. After he survives, he realizes that anger and hatred are the only way to truly gain victory. We don't see who wins, but Palpatine taunts him the same way he taunts Luke in RotJ. We see the hatred on Anakin's face before they both fall from view. Then Obi-Wan's explanation to Luke in RotJ still makes sense.

As far as central vs secondary characters, Anakin would still be a central character, but the story would just be told more from Obi-Wan's point of view. Kind of like Professor X and Magneto in X-Men First Class.

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NeverarGreat said:

Perhaps the story doesn't need to be done vastly differently than the prequels to have no spoilers. As I've posted incarnations of this story elsewhere, this will be draft three of an evolving set of ideas forced into formation. Make of it what you will:

...

 There's some great ideas and suggestions in this thread, but this has easily been one of the most entertaining fan written prequels I've ever read.

But I don't quite get the ending. So is the hooded figure that presumably kills Anakin a clone of Anakin? 

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Voss Caltrez said:

NeverarGreat said:

Perhaps the story doesn't need to be done vastly differently than the prequels to have no spoilers. As I've posted incarnations of this story elsewhere, this will be draft three of an evolving set of ideas forced into formation. Make of it what you will:

...

 There's some great ideas and suggestions in this thread, but this has easily been one of the most entertaining fan written prequels I've ever read.

But I don't quite get the ending. So is the hooded figure that presumably kills Anakin a clone of Anakin? 

Oh wow, it was fun to re-read that outline! I was getting kind of nutty by the end there, and I don't really like the red-robed figures angle anymore. But in response to your question, I intended the mysterious warrior to be the sum of Anakin's fears about himself, much as Luke faces the sum of his fears as Vader while training with Yoda. However, the audience is encouraged to consider the possibility that it could be a clone of Anakin, or just a secret apprentice of Obi-wan, simply as misdirection. In my version of events, after the shadow figure deals his killing blow to Anakin at the end of Episode 3, Anakin would realize that he was still alive and that his opponent lacked physical substance and was a manifestation of his own dark nature. Realizing that it was his own nature that led the Jedi order to its doom and destroyed the Old Republic, Anakin is crushed beneath the weight of his failure and becomes a shadow of his former self, and takes his place at the Emperor's side.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

Anakin is crushed beneath the weight of his failure and becomes a shadow of his former self, and takes his place at the Emperor's side.

This is something that I always felt was missing (among many other things!) in the PT. Even as a child, I was always moved by Vader's line in ROTJ: "It's too late for me, son." We never got to see any remorse from Anakin in the PT, unless you count the horrible "NOOO!". I think there was also a whiny and insincere "What have I done?" when Wingless Windu took his dive out the window.

You could convey this remorse and make the audience think that Anakin dies at the end of Ep.III to still preserve the reveal. Presumably dies in battle or duel? Have it happen off-screen: Obi-Wan tells Yoda/Padme later "I sense a disturbance in the Force. I believe Anakin is gone."

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^Conveying the idea that he died through a disturbance in the force is a good idea. Ideally, any duel would still be shown, however, with the outcome being off-screen. Obi-Wan would really be sensing Anakin becoming consumed by the Dark Side, while the audience would interpret his statement as meaning Anakin was dead.

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BelatedMedia’s “WHAT IF STAR WARS EPISODE III WERE GOOD?” video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wKqH6vlGHU) kinda dives into this topic. In it, there is no other apprentice shown, and there is a battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar but it doesn’t show a couple of things: Anakin burning, Palpatine declaring himself emperor, or even directly call Padme’s kids Luke and Leia.

It does hide the spoilers but not in the same manner like what I’ve seen in this thread. It’s pretty interesting and I suggest to give a watch to have a better idea of what I’m talking about.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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This idea involves there being a bad guy called “Darth Vader” already in place as a separate entity from anakin.
Three way volcano/mustafar duel between Obi-Wan, dark/turned anakin, and Vader. There is a situation like in ROTS where they are fueling on a platform that is falling/sinking into the lava. Obi wan gets tossed aside. And watches as anakin and Vader fall seemingly to their deaths. It would appear almost as though anakin sacrificed himself for Obi wan.
Later in the film, we see a charred hand pulling themselves out of the lava. The body is unrecognizeable.
We can then get the “birth of Vader” scene minus all the talk of padme.

The audience would assume the figure to be Vader when in reality it was anakin. He ceased to be anakin skywalker and “became” Darth Vader. In this incarnation “became” means he took up the mantle. Kind of like the dread pirate Roberts in the princess bride.

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Hi guys. I know we’ve talked about having Obi-Wan, instead of Anakin, to not spoil the OT’s secrets, but there’s this idea I’ve had after watching TFA, where it might be possible to have Anakin as the main character without spoilers. It is a really, REALLY far stretch, and it can only be done in one installment (movie, book, comic, etc.), but I think it’s possible.

The idea is that Darth Vader is a leading figure in the Empire/decaying Republic, fighting against small pockets of resistance against the government (which happen to include the Jedi). The twist is that there’s no suit, so we know what he looks like, but he’s only called “Darth Vader” throughout the entire thing.

Anakin’s real name is hinted at as he comes across the vagabond Jedi and Vader’s mentor, Obi-Wan (who’s trying to hide as many Jedi from Vader), Queen Padme of Naboo (who’s either starting to show signs of pregnancy or already given birth and the kids aren’t revealed until the OT), and several other familiar faces (maybe include Owen and Beru) . As Vader encounters these figures, it’s hinted at his past as Obi-Wan’s pupil and Padme’s lover/husband (who unknowingly has sired children, but that’s only known if you watched the OT first), and he becomes conflicted between his loyalty to Palpatine and to his loved ones who want him back.

More hints are dropped, such as Obi-Wan shows Vader Anakin’s lightsaber (Vader’s using his red one at this point) and Vader interrupts Obi-Wan from fully saying “This is the blade you wanted your children to have.” We see Vader has great hatred for Anakin, who he claims was weak and that was why he killed him (even though it’s not overtly stated that Anakin suppressed the good in him to become Darth Vader). We can explore Vader’s past by showing the wounds (physically and possibly mental) he suffered from the Clone Wars, and why he fell to the Dark Side (only tiny bits as we don’t want to spoil the surprise).

At the end, by whatever circumstance, Vader has fully accepted the Dark Side. Padme (pregnant or already given birth) is scarred by Vader, who then tries to eliminate the rest of the Jedi. This leads to a right with Obi-Wan on a lava pit/planet, and Vader gets his suit (but it can be more hinted at than anything else, since you don’t have to show it). Padme is shown to have lived, but it traumatized by the event and eventually dies after giving Leia to Organa, while Obi-Wan has gone to Tatooine to watch over Luke (Luke and Leia are hinted at than shown, since them showing up in the OT is good enough).

Again, this is a really far stretch, but I think it can work. Certainly not as a trilogy, but a single film would suffice. What do you guys think? Would it work? Is there a way to stretch it into a trilogy? Please let me know. Thanks.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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I feel like it could be a trilogy, but not with that as the main plot. The second movie could culminate in the battle between Vader and Obi-Wan (perhaps Obi-Wan could be thought dead, so that his existence is a reveal in itself in ANH), with the third having something to do with Vader hunting down the Jedi. There’s no need to worry about his suit being spoiled for the OT, as it would be different, and only vaguely reminiscent of the one in the OT.

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That could actually work. I was planning just one installment, but since you gave your idea, I think a trilogy could work with some tiny changes, and I’m working on it now. Thanks for that.

BTW, when talking about Vader’s suit, what differences would you suggest? I’m kinda thinking the helmet retains its overall look but Vader includes Anakin’s armor in TCW’s first few seasons with a dark robe over it.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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For the helmet design, I would look at some of the concept art for it. I’d also make it look slightly more primitive, maybe, so that the OT Vader looks like an improvement. Maybe some sort of combination of Luke and Vader’s headgear in this image (you could have tubes coming out the side of Vader’s helmet, and have some sort of oxygen tank on his back, like Luke does in the picture):