Can the story of the prequels be fit into only three films?

One of the great things about the OT was the elaborate back story we got through hints across the three films.

I've been going through possible rewrites of the prequel story in my head and the more I do it the more I realize how difficult it is to fit the back story we get in the OT into only three films. 

The events preceding the OT are much more complicated than the story of the OT itself. Consider the events we have to go through:

1) We have to meet Anakin Skywalker, establish him as a good and noble person, follow his path to becoming a Jedi Knight and decline to the dark side.  That's a long path.  In the OT it took 3 whole films to establish Luke as a Jedi.  It might take 2 or three more films to convey Anakin's turn and his role in betraying and destroying the Jedi.

2) We have to follow Palpatine's rise to power.  I don't think we really need to see how he became Chancellor as that involves politics that feels out of place in Star Wars.  Showing this was one of the failings of TPM I think. 

3) A galaxy-wide war must be established.  Furthermore, there must be a good reason this war has to happen.  Yoda's line "Begun the Clone War has." always irked me.  Why did a war begin?  What reason did either side have to engage in battle?  What were the separatists angry about again?  We also have to see the war's destruction on the republic, and how Palpatine used this to bolster his power.

3) Besides all this darkness, there has to be some room for some good old-fashioned light-hearted adventure.  The chase in the asteroid-field, escaping the Death Star, and the speeder chase in the Endor forest are examples of this.

4) The Jedi have to be viewed in their prime as noble, sympathetic characters whose destruction is tragic.  They should be a brotherhood with close bonds, something we never see in the PT.

5) I'm not sure this is completely necessary, but there needs to be a love story between Anakin and Padme.  It's difficult to believe they could meet, fall in love, conceive a child all while Anakin is falling to the dark side.  There needs to be some more separation in time between these events.

6) I was very disappointed to never see Vader actually hunt down any Jedi.  We never saw Vader in his natural element.

7) There need to be more interesting characters besides Anakin/Vader, Obi-Wan, and Padme, each with compelling storylines.  What would Star Wars be without Han Solo or Lando, both of whose character arcs have little to do with the overall Skywalker focus of the Saga?  Another failure of the PT was its over-emphasis on Anakin.  We never followed another's character arc.

8) There was never really any interesting backstory to the prequels besides maybe Palpatine's mention of Darth Plagueis.  I would have loved to hear something about Yoda's past, perhaps how he was involved in the war that last destroyed the Sith, or perhaps how he and Sidious were once old adversaries.

9) I also would have liked to see the seeds of the rebellion.  A really cool concept I think is that the separatists could have actually been the good guys trying to free themselves from the corruption that engulfed the Republic.  The war could have split the Jedi.  Palpatine would then have a good reason to hunt down the Jedi to present to the public.

The complexity of the story and its forced insertion into only 3 films is one of the reasons I think the prequels failed.  Even had Lucas put more effort into making more consistent plot lines, better dialogue, and more sympathetic characters, this difficulty might have been too much to overcome.  In sum, the story is just too broad and expansive.

Seeing the success of the original Clone Wars cartoon as well as some the great HBO series like Band of Brothers, Rome, etc. lead me to think that prequel story would probably be the best conveyed in a TV series, perhaps in a 20 episode span over 2 seasons.  With limited funding in TV, I'm sure the use of CGI and special effects would be de-emphasized for a much stronger character approach.  The nature of the story also lends itself well to comic form.  Both of these forms of media bode well for fan-made prequel remakes in the future, and hopefully someone will professionally take them up to give us the prequel story we deserve.

I have thought about this many times my self.

it  can be done though. Look at the godfather for example. micheale starts out hating his fathers ways and  claims he would never become a man like his father.  he starts out innocent and a war hero  and eventully through  circumstances..(the  killing of his brother and fredo being inept)  he sinks into the abyss of his fathers ways    and  by the end of the movie he is even worse than his farther.

haljordan28 said:

and  by the end of the movie he is even worse than his farther.

His farjer?

hal, please don't ever change.

gobalicious said:

One of the great things about the OT was the elaborate back story we got through hints across the three films.

I've been going through possible rewrites of the prequel story in my head and the more I do it the more I realize how difficult it is to fit the back story we get in the OT into only three films. 

The events preceding the OT are much more complicated than the story of the OT itself. Consider the events we have to go through:

... ... ...

The complexity of the story and its forced insertion into only 3 films is one of the reasons I think the prequels failed.  Even had Lucas put more effort into making more consistent plot lines, better dialogue, and more sympathetic characters, this difficulty might have been too much to overcome.  In sum, the story is just too broad and expansive. 

I think you're including a lot of events that don't HAVE to be there.  Remember, the story worked just fine for 22 years without a prequal at all.

The Prequals don't HAVE to exist. Consequently, a question to be asked is what would be the BEST story to tell.

We don't NEED to see Anakin become a Jedi. He could be one at the start.

We don't NEED to see the Clone Wars. Perhaps the start of the story is the immediate aftermath of this galaxy wide conflice.

We don't NEED to see a love story. Anakin might start the story with a wife.

We don't NEED to see Palpy's rise to power. The rise of the empire could be experienced from other characters POVs.

I'm not trying to argue with your thoughts. Only to point out that there's no need to answer every possible question posed in the OT.

"need" was a poor choice of wording.  Obviously including all of these is not strictly necessary (nor the existence of the PT).  This is intended mainly as a list of things I have seen other critics state were improperly explained in the PT, and the difficulty faced in actually explaining them properly in only 3 films.

Ideally, I would like to see all of these events told because they can be told in a good, coherent story.  I'm all in favor of leaving some prior events to the imagination, for example where Yoda and the Emperor came from, as any attempt to explain their back story tends to corrupt their majestic characters.

A lot of what leads to the Clone Wars could be very boring (e.g. taxation of trade routes), which is why I would like to start it basically at the first battle.  I agree the insertion of a love story is not needed at all, but it mirrors the OT very well and I think there is a hint of it when we hear of Leia speaking of her mother in ROTJ.  Nor do I think we need to explicitly see Palpatine's manipulations to gain power.  Hearing his voice blare propaganda would kind of ruin it for me.  It could be handled with much more subtlety.

Agreed. I think the events of RotS could be made into three films and work just fine. Nothing we saw before that really matters and besides that it was all boring.

I have considered that idea myself.  Most of what we expected to happen in the PT was packed too tightly in ROTS, but I think it would be too diluted if spread over 3 films.  We see Anakin as a Jedi doing great things as a pilot in battle.  Frustration with the Jedi and the war leads to dark thoughts.  That's maybe one film.  Then he turns in the next, hunts Jedi, and gets put in the suit.  That's another film.  If you try to stick in a third film you'll end up in territory where you are struggling to decide what to put in it from the above and still be coherent.

Perhaps I want a prequel story that explains too much, but hopefully it leads to a discussion of what should and should not be put in the story.

haljordan28 said:

I have thought about this many times my self.

 

it  can be done though. Look at the godfather for example. micheale starts out hating his fathers ways and  claims he would never become a man like his father.  he starts out innocent and a war hero  and eventully through  circumstances..(the  killing of his brother and fredo being inept)  he sinks into the abyss of his fathers ways    and  by the end of the movie he is even worse than his farther.

 

 

The Godfather is a different type of movie though.  It is entirely character-focused.  Star Wars is more than that.  There is action, adventure, pseudo-religious themes, etc.

It could have been done, had Episode I not being completely wasted. Episode II should have been Episode I (well, a good Episode II, not that crap that was made).

We didn't need to meet Anakin as a kid, since by Episode II he's almost a new character. Lucas wanted it to be a child to make the separation from his mother more traumatic. That in itself is an unnecessary sub-plot, not to mention that I hated the "monk" aspect of the prequel Jedi and there's no reason why he should never see his mother again, but that's another discussion.

The whole "Anakin was a slave when he was a kid" is irrelevant later on, and it's really kinda stupid. Anakin doesn't seem to have it so bad while being a slave, in fact he looks very middle-class. Sure he has to work for Watto, and yes, children shouldn't work, but what else is there to do on Tatooine. Did they have an excellent school that Anakin wasn't attending?? I don't think so. Watto even let him go early that one time we did see him working, and he yelled Yipee!! (like Watto's a cool boss). His house doesn't look that different from Luke's. The whole slave was pointless.

Then Obi-Wan and Anakin have like two lines of dialogue together in Episode I. What a waste. We should have seen the training and the formation of their friendship in Episode I.

Diego said:

The whole "Anakin was a slave when he was a kid" is irrelevant later on, and it's really kinda stupid. Anakin doesn't seem to have it so bad while being a slave, in fact he looks very middle-class. Sure he has to work for Watto, and yes, children shouldn't work, but what else is there to do on Tatooine. Did they have an excellent school that Anakin wasn't attending?? I don't think so. Watto even let him go early that one time we did see him working, and he yelled Yipee!! (like Watto's a cool boss). His house doesn't look that different from Luke's. The whole slave was pointless.

 Seriously!

If you read a quick synopsis of TPM, who would guess that "being born into slavery on a harsh desert world" would have no bearing on Darth Vader's development... other than not caring for sand.

And wait... does he still have that bomb in his head during the other movies?

I would pay every cent I have to see that bomb go BOOM!

TV's Frink said:

I would pay every cent I have to see that bomb go BOOM!

VADER: Obi-Wan, we meet again at last.

OBI: What's up slavey?

VADER: What's that in your hand!?!

OBI: Just a little remote control I bought at Mos Espa.

:::click:::

VADER: Nooooooooooooooooooo-BOOM!

TheBoost said:

Diego said:

The whole "Anakin was a slave when he was a kid" is irrelevant later on, and it's really kinda stupid. Anakin doesn't seem to have it so bad while being a slave, in fact he looks very middle-class. Sure he has to work for Watto, and yes, children shouldn't work, but what else is there to do on Tatooine. Did they have an excellent school that Anakin wasn't attending?? I don't think so. Watto even let him go early that one time we did see him working, and he yelled Yipee!! (like Watto's a cool boss). His house doesn't look that different from Luke's. The whole slave was pointless.

 Seriously!

If you read a quick synopsis of TPM, who would guess that "being born into slavery on a harsh desert world" would have no bearing on Darth Vader's development... other than not caring for sand.

And wait... does he still have that bomb in his head during the other movies?

Wow!  Old man Watto had the key to stopping Vader the whole time.  

 So what in TPM is actually relavent to the OT?  Palpatine does some things that eventually result in his becoming elected Supreme Chancellor?  That takes up, maybe 10% of the movie?

Sluggo said:

So what in TPM is actually relavent to the OT?  Palpatine does some things that eventually result in his becoming elected Supreme Chancellor?  That takes up, maybe 10% of the movie?

Jar-Jar steps in some shit.  I'm sure Lucas had some clever mirror thing going on with the OT there.

the godfather is indeed a very different type of film but I was just pointing out it is possible to have a character  go from noble and good to evil in the period of  3 hrs or 3 films.

does anyone like the idea of another film set between episode  3 and 4?  I think it has many things that could be shown. For one vader hunting down  what is left of the jedi. Vader says in episode 6 that obi-wan once thought as luke did when luke was telling him to come with him and  it is not too late. We could see  obi-wan trying to approach vader and get him to turn back to the good side.  There is a scene in episode 4 where vader tells  ben on the death star  "YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME BACK"   as if  ben had been on the death star before and  when  ben and luke and han first see the death star they debate what it and and then all the sudden   ben says  "its a space station"  I know the force told him that but it is possible that ben had seen it before or even been in it. Ben could  approach vader in this film on the death  star when he tries to get  him to go back to the good side.  It could also have scenes of qui-gon training obi-wan on tattoine.It could show and give reasons why owen dislikes  ben so much.

I think there are many good things  a film in the middle could show and touch on.

For one person the overall story of the prequels could be condensed into a single film, while for another it would take five. It all depends on how you feel the story should unfold, what should be emphasized/deemphasized, etc.

I think the prequels can be fit into one minute, but what do I know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9y7alBW3o

What, no death star explosion?

*sad clown*

xhonzi said:

Well, I typed this fantastic wall of text here and I thought to myself- I should put this into a notepad incase it fails to post... I didn't.  And it did.

So here's the crappier shorter version that I can rewrite without breaking my own heart:

1. Are you all aware of the rewrites forum here on OT.com?

2. Who expected to see Vader in 2 of the 3 PT movies?  I wanted to see him in 0 of the movies because I wanted the movies to end with the apparent death of Anakin.  I know a lot of people wanted more Vader than was had.  Just wondering how many people wanted 2 movies of Vader...

3. When laying out a structure for my mPT to follow, I came up with 4 rought movie plots.  Which isn't quite true- I came up with 4 movie endings.  Which also isn't true- I wanted mEp1 to be a light hearted romp where everything about the mPT could be established and importantly- the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan could be firmly established.  Then I wanted to get into the fall in mEp2 & 3, but I had 3 movie endings within that structure.  To make a long story short, I had to compress the first two structures into a single structure and I think my story was the stronger for it.  It gets into the danger a little earlier than I had wanted, and it short changes the "Obi-Wan and Anakin" are best buds timeline somewhat...  But what can you do?  You can't release 4 Episodes prior to Episode 4.

4. I had a 4 in my previous post.  I wonder what it was about?

TO BE CONTINUED!

waiting...

I expected to see Anakin the heroic young adult in the first two films and Vader in the third (possibly with the implication that Anakin is an early victim of his treachery).

A brief mention of Obi-Wan having previous pupils would have been enough duck and cover room.

Vader fried by Obi-Wan should have already a masked armoured wraith but not needing the iron lung.

That way future generations could have watched the films in either order and still enjoyed the surprises.