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Reconstructing the prequels from what was implied in the original trilogy

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 (Edited)

So I think it goes without saying that the prequels fell short of what people were anticipating.

What was your favorite concept for how the prequels should have unfolded?

  1. What were the Clone Wars actually?
  2. How did the Republic fall and the Empire form?
  3. What was Palpatine’s actual backstory? (He was a puppet in ANH, ultimately becoming a Sith Lord in ROTJ)
  4. What were the Jedi really like?

For myself, I think that the cobbled together nature of the original trilogy works for 4-6 but creates plot complications. They are easy to overlook when they’re just backstory but become hard to reconcile when actually dramatizing them. There’s two kinds of problems, the canon established in the OT and the unforced errors Lucas introduced. A canon problem is how it doesn’t make any sense to hide Anakin Skywalker’s son with his uncle under his given name. An unforced error is introducing Anakin as a child when it was clearly stated that when they met he was already the greatest pilot in the galaxy. Another unforced error is deciding that Kenobi’s desert attire, similar to what others were wearing on Tatooie, now represents Jedi robes. This would be akin to the Nazis winning WWII and the last rabbi is in hiding but still dressed like an ultra-orthodox on his way to temple.

I think the basic structure of the prequels should have been like this:
Episode 1 – thematically like ANH. Introduced to a 20-something Anakin who is a spitting image of young Luke. A triumphant adventure, bonding with Obi-Wan, feels like there’s great things in store for these two. Would be set during the last Clone War.

Episode 2 – The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. The wars have ended and the Republic is busy losing the peace. He’s married the love of his life in the period between the first and second films. He’s becoming disenchanted with the obvious flaws of the Republic and he’s not wrong, those are serious flaws. He meets Palpatine, a sector governor during the last war who has now entered the Senate. The movie follows his disaffection from the Jedi, from Obi-Wan and his conversion to Palpatine’s point of view. Palpatine is not cackling crazy evil here, he’s presenting a very cynical and Machiavellian take on democracy and self-rule and the Republic’s rulers do little to provide a good counter argument. Palpatine becomes the leader of a populist reform movement with obvious fascist echoes and the Jedi eventually are moved to enter domestic politics and oppose it. The movie ends with the famous duel and Anakin is left for dead and he clearly must be, look at those injuries.

Episode 3 – Jedi Holocaust. You have the Jedi resistance treated as a Reichstag Fire moment and Palpatine is given emergency powers. It’s pretty much like a horror movie as the Jedi try to escape the borders of the Republic as they are hunted down. Pretty much every Jedi we meet in this film dies. Vader is introduced but is treated as a mystery. Who is this guy? He comes out of nowhere, he’s radiating the Dark Side like a reactor in meltdown and he’s slaughtering anyone who stands in his way. This mystery is hinted at when Obi-Wan survives an encounter and appears shaken, like he recognized him but it’s not confirmed because the mystery should be preserved for anyone watching the whole series in chronological order for the first time. The film would end with Palpatine being declared Emperor and the Republic becoming an Empire.

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I’ve been working on something like this in my head over the past few weeks. I plan on fleshing this out and expanding to full synopsis of each episode. My idea is to be true to the concepts developed in the OT while fleshing them out with cinematic and literary influences which are thematically close to the OT. Essentially my idea is to make the prequel films direct Kurosawa knock-offs set in the Star Wars galaxy.

Episode I will be a hybrid of Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. Anakin, 19, is a freelance pilot and scavenger on a mission to find an ancient jewel on a jungle planet. The opening scene is straight out of Raiders as Anakin finds a kyber crystal in an old Jedi temple but is chased away by pirates as the temple is destroyed. The pirates chase Anakin through space, damaging his ship and causing him to crash land on Tatooine. Anakin awaken to find Jawas dismantling his ship for junk parts but he is saved by the Old Man Lars. They go back to the Lars Homestead and meet Old Man Lars’ children - Owen and Padme (I’m only naming her this so it’s not confusing who the character is) - both around the same age as Anakin. When the homestead is attacked by a group of Tuscan Raiders and a bounty hunter, Anakin suggests fighting but Owen resists and Old Man Lars devises a plan: they must go to Mos Isley and hire a Jedi. When they get to Mos Isley, they meet Obi-Wan and discover he is involved in a quarrel between rival Hutts. The group is able to help Obi-wan and Anakin offers him the kyber crystal as payment to help against the raiders. Kenobi offers his help for free, but says even a Jedi is only one against a group of Tuskin Raiders. After the group returns to the Lars homestead to discover Old Man Lars killed and Padme kidnapped, they’re forced to go into space and find other Jedi to help in the rescue mission against the Hutts. From there, Obi-wan urges Anakin to become a Jedi and join him in the Clone Wars.

Episode II follows Anakin and Obi-wan as they return from the Clone Wars and Anakin falls to the dark side. It will be based on Throne of Blood/Macbeth.

Episode III will be told Rashomon-style with different people recounting stories of a mysterious Darth Vader killing the Jedi and the Empire taking over.

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Those ideas sound interesting. I’ve been outlining on my own to see how I think the PT and ST should have gone. I think I might try writing them out at around the same complexity as the original Star Wars novelization. Try to fit the mood, themes, etc.

What you’re trying to do sounds like that Dark Horse comic “The Star Wars” which was an adaptation of the very early Lucas Whills script. I haven’t read how they adapted it but I have read all of the Lucas drafts and they’re indescribably terrible. So much of Star Wars is carried by the style, not just the substance. It’s not Star Wars without the John Williams score, the classic sound design, the life the actors breathed into lines that just don’t pop when you read them on paper.

What’s funny is I saw the original nine films as envisioned by the original writers. Let me paste it.

Ok, having a little trouble finding it but this is gold, what this guy wrote. This guy paid attention. This is what was ignored when the prequels were made.

https://www.mikeruso.com/blog/alternative-star-wars-prequels-some-ground-rules/

And here’s some good points about how Lucas almost accidentally wrote a good prequel trilogy. It’s there in the bullet points and, with different execution, would be terrific. You just have a hard time seeing it through the horrible execution we got.

http://www.gamesradar.com/george-lucas-nearly-wrote-perfect-prequel-trilogy-he-just-didnt-seem-notice/

Yeah, I can’t find it. There was a bullet point list of what the nine movies were going to be hashed out around the time Empire finished filming. The films were going to be:

  1. History of the Jedi, how they got made
  2. Obi-Wan and Anakin fun time
  3. Fall of the Jedi
  4. ANH we got
  5. TESB as we got
  6. ROTJ would have been different. Leia is elected president and Han dies. Luke becomes big ol’ Jedi Master. Emperor doesn’t die yet.
    7-9 were not really outlined well but Luke eventually defeats the Emperor.
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jollyreaper said:

Those ideas sound interesting. I’ve been outlining on my own to see how I think the PT and ST should have gone. I think I might try writing them out at around the same complexity as the original Star Wars novelization. Try to fit the mood, themes, etc.

What you’re trying to do sounds like that Dark Horse comic “The Star Wars” which was an adaptation of the very early Lucas Whills script. I haven’t read how they adapted it but I have read all of the Lucas drafts and they’re indescribably terrible. So much of Star Wars is carried by the style, not just the substance. It’s not Star Wars without the John Williams score, the classic sound design, the life the actors breathed into lines that just don’t pop when you read them on paper.

What’s funny is I saw the original nine films as envisioned by the original writers. Let me paste it.

Ok, having a little trouble finding it but this is gold, what this guy wrote. This guy paid attention. This is what was ignored when the prequels were made.

https://www.mikeruso.com/blog/alternative-star-wars-prequels-some-ground-rules/

And here’s some good points about how Lucas almost accidentally wrote a good prequel trilogy. It’s there in the bullet points and, with different execution, would be terrific. You just have a hard time seeing it through the horrible execution we got.

http://www.gamesradar.com/george-lucas-nearly-wrote-perfect-prequel-trilogy-he-just-didnt-seem-notice/

Yeah, I can’t find it. There was a bullet point list of what the nine movies were going to be hashed out around the time Empire finished filming. The films were going to be:

  1. History of the Jedi, how they got made
  2. Obi-Wan and Anakin fun time
  3. Fall of the Jedi
  4. ANH we got
  5. TESB as we got
  6. ROTJ would have been different. Leia is elected president and Han dies. Luke becomes big ol’ Jedi Master. Emperor doesn’t die yet.
    7-9 were not really outlined well but Luke eventually defeats the Emperor.

Your RotJ sounds a lot like the original plan for RotJ + original ST from the 80’s. Vader would die, the emperor would become the new bad guy, and Luke’s sister would be the new protagonist.

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Your RotJ sounds a lot like the original plan for RotJ + original ST from the 80’s. Vader would die, the emperor would become the new bad guy, and Luke’s sister would be the new protagonist.

I’m not so much a fan of it but they also didn’t put much thought into it so there’s not much to ignore.

the link above about what the prequels should have required does a great job of describing what needed to happen to fit with OT canon. The ones that stuck out most to me is that the Empire felt older but is literally the same age as Luke. And the whole celibate monk angle for the Jedi feels like a very late development.

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These all sound amazing. If these ever get into production I can do voice over work. I would love to help make these come true and watch them when they are done.

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It would just be prose. Just getting it written will be more than enough of a task to accomplish!

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jollyreaper said:

It would just be prose. Just getting it written will be more than enough of a task to accomplish!

If you ever were to want a voice actor for your this, I’m just a PM away.

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LordZerome1080 said:

jollyreaper said:

It would just be prose. Just getting it written will be more than enough of a task to accomplish!

If you ever were to want a voice actor for your this, I’m just a PM away.

What he Said!

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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These are interesting ideas.

I’ve also contemplated the issue of Luke using his Skywalker name. Sine we really can’t get away from that I think the thing to do is:

  1. Make Obi-Wan the protagonist of the film. He’s the character we follow in the trilogy.
  2. Play this thing out where Anakin has no idea of kids at all. Maybe he’s been made to believe Amidala is dead by episode 2 in a very convincing way. I think the only way to help this as mush as possible is to portray it as Anakin has no clue kids were conceived or born at all.

That last bit would have to be achieved by having a lot have to happen in Episode 2. Maybe “The act” happens in episode 2, but the fake death of Amidala happens there as well which would plunge him deeper into the dark side.

The third film takes place 9 months later. The birth of the twins occurs, and a side-bar adventure is Padme going through a series of events to hide the kids, and act that at one point leads to a sacrificial death. None of which Anakin is privy to as he’s busy with his Jedi Holocaust.

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jollyreaper said:

So I think it goes without saying that the prequels fell short of what people were anticipating.

What was your favorite concept for how the prequels should have unfolded?

  1. What were the Clone Wars actually?
  2. How did the Republic fall and the Empire form?
  3. What was Palpatine’s actual backstory? (He was a puppet in ANH, ultimately becoming a Sith Lord in ROTJ)
  4. What were the Jedi really like?

I was looking at your post and it brought me back to a thread from almost 10 years ago. There was a thread for an animated PT on the forum. Collectively, we worked out what specific info we learned about the PT era from the OT. Anything else we could create from scratch.

For myself, I think that the cobbled together nature of the original trilogy works for 4-6 but creates plot complications. They are easy to overlook when they’re just backstory but become hard to reconcile when actually dramatizing them. There’s two kinds of problems, the canon established in the OT and the unforced errors Lucas introduced. A canon problem is how it doesn’t make any sense to hide Anakin Skywalker’s son with his uncle under his given name.

Actually, this does NOT have to be a problem. Luke is only “LUKE” the entire time they are on Tatooine. That gives you a lot of leeway into how you want to tell your story. For all we know, he could have had the name Luke Lars (heck, they could be hiding out on Tatooine - the farthest planet from the bright center of the galaxy - under an assumed name to avoid persecution for being related to a Jedi). He only takes back his father’s name after his aunt and uncle were killed and he decides he wants to “learn the ways of The Force and become a Jedi like my father.” THEN he uses his father’s name for the first time and introduces himself to Leia as LUKE SKYWALKER! It all depends on how you tell the story of ep3.

An unforced error is introducing Anakin as a child when it was clearly stated that when they met he was already the greatest pilot in the galaxy. Another unforced error is deciding that Kenobi’s desert attire, similar to what others were wearing on Tatooie, now represents Jedi robes. This would be akin to the Nazis winning WWII and the last rabbi is in hiding but still dressed like an ultra-orthodox on his way to temple.

This always bothered me as well. I think Jedi should have a simple UNIFORM, like a warrior monk idea, but it should be very distinctive. At the height of the power, Jedi should be recognized immediately and shown respect for their role in defending The Republic.

I think the basic structure of the prequels should have been like this:
Episode 1 – thematically like ANH. Introduced to a 20-something Anakin who is a spitting image of young Luke. A triumphant adventure, bonding with Obi-Wan, feels like there’s great things in store for these two. Would be set during the last Clone War.

Episode 2 – The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. The wars have ended and the Republic is busy losing the peace. He’s married the love of his life in the period between the first and second films. He’s becoming disenchanted with the obvious flaws of the Republic and he’s not wrong, those are serious flaws. He meets Palpatine, a sector governor during the last war who has now entered the Senate. The movie follows his disaffection from the Jedi, from Obi-Wan and his conversion to Palpatine’s point of view. Palpatine is not cackling crazy evil here, he’s presenting a very cynical and Machiavellian take on democracy and self-rule and the Republic’s rulers do little to provide a good counter argument. Palpatine becomes the leader of a populist reform movement with obvious fascist echoes and the Jedi eventually are moved to enter domestic politics and oppose it. The movie ends with the famous duel and Anakin is left for dead and he clearly must be, look at those injuries.

Episode 3 – Jedi Holocaust. You have the Jedi resistance treated as a Reichstag Fire moment and Palpatine is given emergency powers. It’s pretty much like a horror movie as the Jedi try to escape the borders of the Republic as they are hunted down. Pretty much every Jedi we meet in this film dies. Vader is introduced but is treated as a mystery. Who is this guy? He comes out of nowhere, he’s radiating the Dark Side like a reactor in meltdown and he’s slaughtering anyone who stands in his way. This mystery is hinted at when Obi-Wan survives an encounter and appears shaken, like he recognized him but it’s not confirmed because the mystery should be preserved for anyone watching the whole series in chronological order for the first time. The film would end with Palpatine being declared Emperor and the Republic becoming an Empire.

I always felt that the trick to making an awesome PT is to give the audience what they think they want: Things like badass Jedi and then flip the tables on them when they realize they’ve been cheering for and supporting the WRONG SIDE. The PT should end with the GALAXY cheering the rise of The Empire, but our hero (Obiwan) and the audience realizing how now things are worse. For Example, in the movie Swing Kids, as the Nazis invade neighboring territories, the German people are listening to the radio with pride, but you can see in the face of the boy in the back, that he KNOWS what they are doing is wrong…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRMTr6SniY8&feature=related

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  • I think that Obi-Wan had at least one other Apprentice. Tarkin knows that Vader was Obi-Wan’s Apprentice, but doesn’t know that Vader = Anakin. Obi-Wan having another Apprentice would explain this.

  • Maybe Yoda warned Obi-Wan and Anakin to stay out of the Clone Wars because war leads to the dark side, but Obi-Wan and Anakin didn’t listen.

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  1. Make Qui-Gon Obi-Wan’s elder brother.
  2. In the Naboo saber fight, Maul cuts off Qui-Gon’s arm. Right before Maul can finish Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan uses a mind trick to sneak up on Maul and kill him.
  3. Qui-Gon takes the role of Count Dooku. He escapes the Republic, leads the Separatists, yada yada. The key difference is that he is not in league with Sidious.
  4. Anakin slays Qui-Gon instead of Dooku at the start of ROTS.

Basically make it so that the character of Dooku does not exist and his role gets transferred to Qui-Gon, the Secessionist Light Side Templar.

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AveKender said:

  1. Make Qui-Gon Obi-Wan’s elder brother.
  2. In the Naboo saber fight, Maul cuts off Qui-Gon’s arm. Right before Maul can finish Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan uses a mind trick to sneak up on Maul and kill him.
  3. Qui-Gon takes the role of Count Dooku. He escapes the Republic, leads the Separatists, yada yada. The key difference is that he is not in league with Sidious.
  4. Anakin slays Qui-Gon instead of Dooku at the start of ROTS.

Basically make it so that the character of Dooku does not exist and his role gets transferred to Qui-Gon, the Secessionist Light Side Templar.

I think a complete reboot is needed. Not restructuring. Qui-Gon has no business being a major character at all. Obi-Wan should be a full-fledged Jedi Knight and aged enough that he’s had a few apprentices. Not to mention that in midst of 20 years, Obi Wan goes from looking like he’s in his late 30’s and then 80 in A New Hope. His age needs adjusting.

Naboo had no purpose. Alderaan needs to be a major planet in the films. We all know why.

I like the idea of uniforms. I too feel like it was strange the Tattooine clothing line becomes the Jedi robes.

I have a lot of thoughts about re-imagined prequels… Just need time to lay them all out.

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By this point its pretty well agreed that Lucas screwed up the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Everyone goes into their own reasons but why they really sucked seems pretty simple to me. Lucas, in an effort to fully explain how and why the Republic fell apart and to satisfy fan boys with too much fanservice, completely lost focus on how the story should have gone.

Prequels by their very nature have to slow the story down and explain how things got to be the way they are in the first movie(s) shown. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 are tight and concise when compared to 1, 2 and 3. The second trilogy never gets into too great a detail on the galactic civil war, all we get is cursory exposition from time to time. To be honest, in my observation of the stories, Luke didn’t seem all that interested in the Rebellion himself. He was a kid who worked his uncle’s moisture farm and was looking for any excuse to get out of that place. He joined the Rebellion because his guardians were killed and he had no other choice really. So it wasn’t necessary to get into detail about the conflict, we just needed to know enough to give the main characters a reason for all the running, shooting and hyper-spacing. Also the first few minutes of Episode 4 tells you all you need to know. When you see the words EMPIRE and REBELLION then see a little ship chased by a ginormous ship its pretty clear what’s going on.

The Prequels in contrast go into full detail on why and how The Galactic Republic have issues with the Trade Federatizzznnnnnn…excuse me, I nodded off. That’s what happens when you have to read boring political shit. Look at the opening crawl of the film and really read what’s there:

Turmoil has engulfed the
Galactic Republic. The taxation
of trade routes to outlying star
systems is in dispute.

Hoping to resolve the matter
with a blockade of deadly
battleships, the greedy Trade
Federation has stopped all
shipping to the small planet
of Naboo.

While the congress of the
Republic endlessly debates
this alarming chain of events,

the Supreme Chancellor has
secretly dispatched two Jedi
Knights, the guardians of
peace and justice in the
galaxy, to settle the conflict…

The bolded parts are what I call “snooze lines”. Taxation of trade routes? Blockade of ships? Endless debates?
And Lucas proceeds to show us all of that in detail. Instead of showing us the development of a young Anakin Skywalker, we get to see the convoluted schism that’s growing in the Galactic Republic. We didn’t need to know the intricacies of why shit was happening because this is Anakin’s story so we should be looking at the world from his point of view. We only need to know whats going as it pertains to him.

3 Fatal Mistakes George Lucas made with the prequels:

  1. ANAKIN WAS TOO YOUNG AND HAS LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DO FOR THE MOST PART IN ANY OF THE MOVIES.

Showing us a ten year Anakin Skywalker was a totally bad move. With the way Lucas wrote the story there was nothing for him to do and when you look at it, he only did two things of any significance in the whole film. The Pod-race scene and bumblefucking his way up to the droid control ship and accidentally blowing it up. That’s it. For most of its 2 hour running time Anakin is just in the background. Lucas completely wasted every opportunity he had to establish that character.

In episode 2 we see Anakin as a young adult but here he’s a full apprentice to Obi Wan, we never saw his training and development into a Jedi Padawan. They talk about his adventures but we never saw them. Again we only see Anakin do two or three things in the whole film. Fall in goofy-worst-chemistry-ever love with Padme, avenge his mother’s torture and murder, get his hand cut off by Count Dooku. Most of the film was spent with Obi Wan playing Columbo trying to figure out the overly convoluted schemes pertaining to the clone army.

In episode 3, we see Anakin killing up a bunch of people and succumbing to the dark side but because we’ve spent so little time with him up to that point, we’re not emotionally invested in his fall, we’re just watching it happen.

  1. MISUSED PADME

Lucas wanted parallels between the first and second trilogies so we see Leia, an activist princess, fully involved in the Rebellion. We first see her relaying the plans for the Death Star back to Alderaan but that was at the height of the rebellion so things are pretty much in a shambles and the Rebels need all the help they can get. Padme on the other hand is a Queen pre civil war and while Naboo was under seige and she was something of an exile for the duration of the story, the Queen was never at any point in any real danger. I mean the chick who was her decoy queen was never shot at or in danger of being killed. In fact Padme running around disguised as her servant actually put the Queen in harm’s way much more than if she just sat around wearing the kabuki garb. But the parrallel Lucas wanted to show was like Leia, Padme had no problem getting down and dirty herself if need be. But it was a pointless parallel because both of their circumstances are different. And Padme being the real Queen automatically removes her from the action. Forcing the issue just didn’t sit right with the film.

George Lucas in writing the prequel stories made the fatal miss step that many writers even successful ones make which is giving the person with the most power the most freedom to act. Which is not how rank and power works in real life and shouldn’t in fiction. The King or even General is never going to lead his troops into battle. The person who is at the center of power is the furthest removed from the action. Another great film franchise and TV show that makes that mistake famously is Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry wanted to make a story about the adventures of a star ship crew. He wanted the show to feature characters who had the power to make decisions and make things happen so we follow the captain of the ship around the galaxy as he gets into trouble and has adventures. But centering the show around the captain and the first officers was such a confining mistake that he had to compensate by never allowing the captain, Kirk in the original series, to ever act like a proper captain. So you have episodes where Kirk, Picard, Janeway or whoever are constantly doing common reconnaissance or heading up away teams on dangerous missions. Things no captain or any first officer would be allowed to do. On one hand its understandable as to why it was done that way considering budgeting and cast size but still its a mistake. Lucas does the same thing but his reasoning seems to be closer to not caring how rank and procedure works than anything else (which is why Jar Jar Binks and Han Solo are given a General’s position with command power in their films even though they really did nothing to deserve it). So we end up with Padme Amidala, an activist Queen who is constantly getting into gun fights.

  1. WAAY TOO MUCH FOCUS ON SECONDARY/POINTLESS CHARACTERS

Because Anakin was a small child with nothing much to do, the first film spends most of its time following Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn around, then we see what the Viceroy is doing, the Gunguns, Palpatine and Queen Amidala/Padme. We spend so much time with all these other people it’s easy to forget that this is supposed to be ANAKIN’S STORY. And even in the other films we’re dealing with senate meetings and long scenes of expositions with other Jedi/Sith characters and lets not get into the detour with Jango Fett which was totally pointless and lightsaber fight scenes…God, so many lightsaber fight scenes.

What Lucas is that the Star Wars nine episode series is about the Skywalker clan. That’s it. That’s who we focus on, that’s who we follow. No Skywalker, no care! Lucas himself established this pattern and theme with 4, 5, and 6. When A New Hope starts off we see Vader and Leia, then we go to Luke, then back to Leia, then Luke again, some stuff with Vader and back to Leia and so it goes. That’s it. We see the same pattern in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. All the major points of all the films deal with a Skywalker.

If Lucas had paced 4, 5, and 6 the way he did 1, 2 and 3 then we would have seen long scenes with Grand Moff Tarkin and Ben Kenobi and Owen Lars. There would have been drawn out side stories with Greedo and Jabba the Hutt (actually there was one with Jabba that Lucas originally cut from the original Star Wars film then re-inserted in the later, tinkered with, extended versions but it doesn’t enhance the story one bit.). Boba Fett would have taken up a third of the last two films alone. And while we’re talking about “the Fett”, Stop riding his jock already!!! Boba Fett was a one off character who had little effect on the story and DIED in Return Of The Jedi…yes he died, he was supposed to, you know why, because he’s just a side character!

I get it, Boba Fett is cool looking, with the helmet and the gear and jet pack, I totally get it, believe me. He’s a space bounty hunter for cryin’ out loud! If man ever colonizes space, I guarantee you there will be a line around the corner for intergalactic bounty hunter and I’ll be at the head of it. I even had the classic Boba Fett poster as a kid. So yes Boba Fett is the man. But that doesn’t negate the fact that he was just a side character. His fanboy popularity is the reason Lucas shoehorned him into the prequels and even in that its pretty clear his presence is even more marginal than it was in 4 and 5. Every fan fiction story has Fett surviving the Sarlacc Pit and its so much bullshit. And I can only HOPE they don’t do a Boba Fett stand alone story!

I could go on forever about all the mistakes and bad turns 1, 2 and 3 made but rather than do that lets go into how they should have gone so that the prequels dovetail more smoothly into the next episodes. Keeping in line with how 4,5, and 6 went and how they focused purely on a Skywalker and the person most directly involved with them, my version of the prequels does this.

In doing my version, the most difficult aspect I encountered was showing Anakin’s rise and fall and properly stretching it out over three episodes. In episodes 4,5,6 there were three story arcs that ran concurrently but in and of themselves were pretty straight forward. Luke had the hero’s journey, Leia had the rebellion and Vader had straight villainy. In all of that there was no real conflict for the individuals. Luke goal was to be a Jedi, Leia’s to win the war and Vader to destroy the Rebels and turn his son into a Sith. Anakin, on the other hand, is the major focus so his journey is becoming a Jedi, faltering and turning into a Sith and that has to be laid out equally for each episode. The problem I kept running into was even though I was trying to shift focus to the proper character and change certain aspects of the stories, I was still using Lucas’s character more or less the same way he did and pacing and plotting was very similar. The result was by the third episode I would have a number of sub plots that needed resolution and Episode Three would become a jumbled mess that was more than twice as long as the first two.

And then it hit me. Is it necessary to follow the way or all the characters Lucas used to tell the stories? Is it necessary to know exactly the cause of the civil war? All of the background information we know about the Star Wars universe comes from the novels, what makes that the only way to tell these stories? Even though George Lucas okayed the information in the novels and comics he didn’t have that as a resource for 4,5,6, and since those are the works most beloved, I’m going to base my version of 1,2,3 only on the information from the second trilogy.

I’m not changing the underlying conflict between the Separatists and the Galactic Republic or the blockade of Naboo, I’m just de-emphasizing them in favor of watching Anakin become a Jedi.

It occurred to me that of all six films we only saw one Jedi training session and that was Yoda training Luke on Dagobah in ESB. There was one brief thing Obi-Wan did with Luke in ANH with a helmet and light saber but that was just a few seconds. There has never been a formal training sequence. Well here it is. A good portion of this first film will deal with Anakin’s training and rise as a Jedi Padawan as it should have all along.

In trying to closely adhere to the original trilogy’s style and pacing, it became apparent that Lucas was using the old 1950’s matinee style of telling this story. Which consisted of a lot of “wipe” transitions and a story line that was continuously forward moving. There are no flashbacks, jump ahead, narration, exposition or any other devices normally used today to tell a story. The only thing close that could fill in details would be the opening crawl and once that’s over its off to the races. I found it a bit confining way to tell a story personally but that’s how the saga goes. Telling the story in a different way just isn’t “Star Wars”.

Here’s my idea of the prequels redone:

Star Wars prequels rewritten treatment - The Phantom Menace - http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Star-Wars-Prequels-rewritten-The-Phantom-Menace/id/16971

Star Wars prequels rewritten treatment - Enter The Clones -http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Star-Wars-Prequels-rewritten-Enter-The-Clones/id/17141

Star Wars prequels rewritten treatment - Rise Of The Dark Lord - http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Star-Wars-Prequels-rewritten-Rise-Of-The-Dark-Lord/id/17391

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Before the Jedi founded the Republic millennia ago, the Sith ruled the galaxy with an iron fist. The Sith aristocrats enslaved entire worlds to do their cruel bidding, even teaching some of the slaves rudimentary Force techniques to drive the labor of their comrades.

Over time these slave drivers turned against their masters and instead liberated their brothers and sisters from the Sith yoke. In this way the age of the Jedi dawned upon the galaxy.

The first Jedi led a successful rebellion against this ancient Sith imperium. The revolutionary forces pursued the Sith to their final holdout of Korriban.

On Korriban the Sith royal family apparently committed mass suicide. But little do the Jedi know that this action was a ritual to disembody their spirits, to weather the ages and bide their time for the fateful day that the Sith could one day retake the galaxy.

The Sith ghost finds its opportunity in an ambitious Republic Senator named Palpatine.

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There’s a lot of tangles in what was implied from the original trilogy.

“You fought in the clone wars?”
That felt like a throw away line, but I assumed that there was were multiple wars involving clones. Like The Punic Wars. I also assumed that Obi-wan had had a long Jedi career, that involved him being involved in possibly multiple wars.

“I haven’t been called Obi-Wan since before you were born.”
This gives the film a nice past, as if so much had happened PRIOR to ANH. But it doesn’t make sense if you think about it. It’s assumed that Luke was conceived while Anakin was still good, and that means that Anakin hadn’t yet turned to the Dark Side, joined the Emperor and help establish the Empire.

“Powerful Jedi was he, powerful Jedi.”
It makes it sound like Anakin was this super powerful Jedi, but prior to his fall, we didn’t see him do anything that average Jedi couldn’t do.

“When I met you father, he was the best pilot in the galaxy.”
Anakin clearly had a different career prior to becoming a Jedi.

“You father’s lightsaber…he wanted you to have it.”
This implies that Anakin either knew he was going to have a kid, or that Luke was already born when he said that.

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I think the prequels would make a lot more sense if we (and Obi-wan) met Anakin when he was at least a teenager, or ideally in his mid twenties, after he had already made a name for himself as an ace pilot. I’m imagining an early aviation enthusiast who joins the military to fight in WW1 for king and country. Much of Anakin’s powerful exploits happen on alien battlefields and away from the eyes of the general populace in the galaxy. Each episode concerns a different war, these wars being ever larger threats in the galaxy intended to sow unrest and drive the people into supporting a military dictatorship. Anakin is devoted first to the Republic, for he has a wife and family to protect on a peaceful world, while Obi-wan only has the ideals of the Jedi. Thus, they grow farther apart politically and ideologically even as they grow closer in friendship.

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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@NevararGreat

Did you write a prequel story with clones who fight to live?

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Voss Caltrez said:

@NevararGreat

Did you write a prequel story with clones who fight to live?

No, but wasn’t that the original idea of the Clone Wars from Lucas? I remember something about the clones being from rich families intent on gaining political power. My most developed outlines had the clones either follow the AOTC canon or have them be Bossk-esqe aliens who have ceased evolving with recombinant DNA and settled for massive replication.

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:

Voss Caltrez said:

@NevararGreat

Did you write a prequel story with clones who fight to live?

No, but wasn’t that the original idea of the Clone Wars from Lucas? I remember something about the clones being from rich families intent on gaining political power. My most developed outlines had the clones either follow the AOTC canon or have them be Bossk-esqe aliens who have ceased evolving with recombinant DNA and settled for massive replication.

Oh, okay.
Well, anyways, you’re above premise for how the prequels should have been was great. I like how their two different beliefs (family man vs nomad) would eventually and logically move them apart.

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Yoda warns Obi-Wan and Anakin to stay out of the Clone Wars because war leads to the dark side. However, Obi-Wan and Anakin are determined to save the galaxy, so they join the Clone Wars anyway. As the Clone Wars go on, Anakin becomes convinced that only a totalitarian regime with a strong military can “save” the galaxy and he comes to feel that giving into his hatred helps him defeat what he sees as threats to the peace and security of the galaxy.

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One thing. If there’s any way to have “Vader kill Anakin”, you should. It would fit exactly with what Obi-Wan said. My best idea is in Episode 2, we just see Anakin trapped somewhere or seperated and Obi-Wan has to abandon him and Vader appears saying “I killed Anakin” to make Obi-Wan want to turn to the dark side? I got nothing.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.