STAR WARS Movies Animated — Page 17

So, this is the thread I've been looking for.  I'm not sure how it slipped past me for so long- it's conversations that I've tried to start over in General Star Wars chat and never got very far.  

I've spent several days pouring over it and I have some comments.  On the one hand, I'm amazed at how similar ideas I've come to are to those posted here.  On the other hand, there are some terrible ideas here- ones that go so far as to make me want Lucas's PT back (which is saying something).  I'll refrain from being any more of a jerk and just slamming other people's ideas and I will try to offer some of my own.

First though, it frustrates me to see that people's needs/wants for the Prequels are wide and varied.  In my mind, I would hope that there was one right, obvious way to do these movies and that George simply screwed it up.  In reality, it seems that there are lots of contrary ideas and that while we can agree that Lucas's PT sucked, we can't agree as to the better way.

And also, it would be nice if we had a separate forum for this since there are so many topics to cover...

So here are my ideas, and please tell me what you like dislike.  I will defend the ideas that I think are worth defending, but I won't get offended if you disagree.

My Requirements:

1. The main storyline is the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker.  Anakin is the main character.  His fall to the Dark Side is told convincingly.  His "seduction" by the Dark Side.  He must be a character that you can buy as Darth Vader of the OT, though there shouldn't be things that give away the ESB reveal.

2. Each episode stands alone as a movie, but is part of the greater whole.  Structurally something like the OT is the goal.

3. The Clone Wars are handled in an exciting manner.  This is my biggest unknown...

4. The PT supports and enriches the OT.  This for me means preserving the "I am your father", "Leia is your sister" and "Yoda is a midget" surprises.  Therefore, Yoda cannot appear or be heard (but the more talking him up the better).  Episode 3 ends with a pregnant Notpadme, and a not yet revealed to be Vader Anakin.  More on this later.

5. It's sufficiently dark while still being fun and adventuresome.  Lucas claims he didn't do the PT first because it is darker than the OT and he wasn't sure people would go for that.  Later he claimed that Phantom Menace was supposed to be the funniest movie he'd done yet (yes! funnier than Howard the Duck!) and that anyone who didn't like the direction the Prequels were taking was forgetting that Star Wars is for < 10 year olds.  10 year olds have to like it, but so do 20, 30, 40 and 50 year olds.  (Sorry 51+ers.  You're off my radar.)

6. Anakin is likable.  His fall to the Dark Side is like losing a brother to addiction or something.  You cheer for him win, and you are sad with him when he loses.  You feel the tragic loss, as oposed to scratching your head wondering why or feeling like he deserved it.

7.  The Galaxy feels like the OT, but 20 years earlier.  What does this mean?  Is 20 years appreciable in Star Wars culture?  It is the death of the Republic and the formation of the Empire...

My Strong Requests:

1. Anakin is older than 20 but not much.  Any younger is hard to match up with the OT (Vader looks 60+ at the end of RotJ) and no more than 18 years pass between Ep 3 and 4 (Luke and Leia's age).  Too much older and we start to lose the Luke and Anakin parallels.  Oh yeah- 

2. Show parallels between Luke and Anakin.  Get out in front of and use to our advantage the father and son aspect of their lives.  How many sons here don't see more of their fathers in them than they can believe?  And how many of us are trying to avoid similar mistakes our fathers have made while running headlong into them?  And how many of us are able to stand taller because we learned from our father's mistakes.  I know that all applies to me.

3. Jedi vs Sith war!  My friends and I all expected "Braveheart" Jedi/Sith battles in the prequels.  The closest you can come is the end of AotC, but's that's a bunch of Jedi vs almost no Sith.  Actually, the closest you can come to this is BioWare's trailer for the Old Republic MMO.

4. Exciting Space, Air, Ground and Personal Battles.  The OT seemed to work these in very well...  Say what you want about RotJ, but the way it intercuts the Space, Ground, and Emperor's Throne room stuff is awesome.

5. Dark Side makes sense, kind of...  This is tricky, but I think you can walk the line where the Dark Side is presented to Anakin in such a way that the audience can understand the temptation.  The movies can't come off like a PSA for the Dark Side, but something that shows the seduction of it.

6. Yet!  While we can appreciate the temptation, we still know that the good side is good and the bad side is bad.  Not that everyone on each side is as good/bad as their side... but there are still good and bad sides.

7. A few surprises similar to what the OT was able to do.

8. Good dialogue.  Good action pieces.

9. The Galaxy cannot feel as small as it did in Lucas's PT.  Tatooine cannot be the most visited planet in the movies (what, does it think its Arakis or something?).  I am loathe to show any of Coruscant because I think showing the capital sort of immediately shrinks the rest of the Galaxy.

10. The Love story doesn't have to be as triangley as the OT's, but it should be something that we can buy.  I would like to see them actually married so Luke and Leia aren't bastard children...  But to be truthful I've had a hardtime working a wedding into my outlines.

Okay, and here are the actual ideas in no particular order.  (How many posts will I keep claiming have ideas when they infact have none?)

1. Setting. The Clone Wars, with an emphasis on WARs.  Ash, I came to the same Clone War I and II conclusion you came to but from a slightly different angle.  Mostly from a single line from Luke, "You fought in the Clone Wars!?!?"  It seemed to him like World War II was to Americans at the time.  Not so much Korea or 'Nam.  But it seems to me, and I postulated some of this in my General SW Chat thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Space-War-Mechanics/topic/10621/ that the more technology is involved, the shorter the warfare.  There are no 100s years conflicts in our modern theatre of war like there used to be.  War seems to be about comparing forces.  When their force is gone and yours is still standing, then you win.  It's easier to compare technology so the more of it is involved the faster you find out who has the stronger force and the sooner the conflict comes to its end.  At any rate, it's hard for me to imagine a single war to stretch out for many years in the Star Wars Universe.  The reason the Rebellion lasts as long as it does is because they are also hiding from the Empire so that they can't simply be wiped out.  If you had a War between two or so equal armies that weren't in hiding... seems like one side or the other would win pretty quickly.  Therefore, there had to be multiple Clone War's for them to have had a combined length sufficient to leave them in the collective culture for Luke to cry out, "You fought in the Clone Wars!?!?"

When you think of it, a trio of movies known as Star Wars showed very little War.  The main trio or quad of A New Hope aren't soldiers or even officially aligned with one side or the other.  Leia is, I guess, and she sends the call to adventure to Luke and he picks up the rest of the cast.  They're Rebels by the end, but the story by and large is not of the War but by a few people caught in the middle of the War.  It might as well have been called "How I Spent My Space Summer (and blew up the death star) by Luke Skywalker" as "Star Wars."  So, this is either an argument for or against what I'm about to say next: The main characters of the NPT (I usually call it the MPT for Mulligan Prequel Trilogy) should be soldiers in the armies of the Republic.  What they're actually fighting about, how the Clones play into this and all of that I can't seem to figure out... just that the Clone Wars should be portrayed as outright war between at least two large factions. 

Which brings me to my next point:

The Republic has no armies and navies of its own.  I would compare it to the Allies in World War II or to some degree the United Nations.  The Republic is a republic of worlds and is a minimalistic government.  To jump to the chase, one of the consequences of the Clone Wars is that the Republic model is considered to be insufficient to keep peace in the Galaxy (too much freedom for bad guys) and the Empire grows out of this.  Also, I think the "price" and "damages" of the Clone Wars has to be so high that people would be ready for a more controlling government if it could promise peace.

Which brings me to my next point:

Anakin is a pilot in the Navy of Planet Y.  He and Captain (or Sergeant) Obi-Wan Kenobi of Planet Z meet when their respective militaries join forces on Planet X.

Which brings me to my next point:

Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is both a Jedi and an officer in the Army.  Just like Luke is on Dagobah.  Being a Jedi means doing your real job 9-5 and doing Jedi stuff on evenings and weekends maybe other special occasions.  I know the analogy isn't the best, but it's something like being a member of a Lodge or a Freemason or something.

2. Alderaan has to be a major player in the story.  It's somewhere in the line "General Kenobi served my father in the Clone Wars" and the fact that Leia is handed off to Bail to raise as his daughter.  Like a lot of you, that tells me that Notpadme has some strong Alderaanian connection, but what it is exactly I haven't nailed down. 

Also, and it heightens the emotion when you see it blowed up good in A New Hope.  This is the kind of "casting shadows onto the OT" that I think could be done well on in the NPT.

I still have more ideas, but I've run out of time to get them down here.  I promise I'll get back to this in the next day or two or three.

TheBoost said:

xhonzi said:

 

1. The main storyline is the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker.  Anakin is the main character.  His fall to the Dark Side is told convincingly.  His "seduction" by the Dark Side.  He must be a character that you can buy as Darth Vader of the OT, though there shouldn't be things that give away the ESB reveal.

Personally, I'm just as interested in Obi-Wan, bold Jedi Knight. I see the NPT as more of his story, or at least a buddy-film.

My version would have Obi-Wan be a primary character (like Han was in the OT) without being the main character.  I think he would have an interesting storyline but I can't see him getting billing above whoever plays Anakin.

The OT had the same three actors billed at the top in the same way.  Phantom Menace top billed Liam Neeson, Attack of the Clones top billed Ewan MacGregor, and Revenge of the Sith top billed Hayden.  I think this sort of shows the fractured idea of "who was the story about" for the whole of the PT.

4. The PT supports and enriches the OT.  This for me means preserving the "I am your father", "Leia is your sister" and "Yoda is a midget" surprises.  Therefore, Yoda cannot appear or be heard (but the more talking him up the better).  Episode 3 ends with a pregnant Notpadme, and a not yet revealed to be Vader Anakin.  More on this later.

I disagree. The PT is IMHO supposed to be seen after the OT for the purpose of explaining and enriching things. The OT is not supposed to wrap up the PT's story. Any plotline that allows for that secrecy to be kept will be needlessly convoluted and I think unsatisfying.

I have this crazy idea that the PT would actually set up a Sequel Trilogy.  That some seeds planted by the NPT would bare fruit in a ST.  But probably not.  As to the order of the films, we'll probably have to agree to disagree on when you should watch the NPT.  As someone else said, it should be modular to the point you could watch it before or after the OT.  But I think preserving the surprises is at least a worthy goal.

3. Jedi vs Sith war!  My friends and I all expected "Braveheart" Jedi/Sith battles in the prequels.  The closest you can come is the end of AotC, but's that's a bunch of Jedi vs almost no Sith.  Actually, the closest you can come to this is BioWare's trailer for the Old Republic MMO.

I don't see the need to add the Sith. There's no reason in the OT to assume there ever was a band of evil Jedi-types. Perhaps Anakin, once bad, can lead a contingent of fellow fallen Jedi against the remaining Jedi, but the whole Organization that Serves the Dark Side has never really worked for me and seems un-OT.  

I actually don't care for or use the term Sith much.  I prefer Dark Jedi or Fallen Jedi... but I'll get into that in another long post in the next couple of days.  But I think the concept of the Jedi having been wiped out by Darth Vader suggests that there would be a bunch running around at this point in time.  It might just be something I can't have, but I've always wanted to see lots of blue lightsabres running at an equal number of reds.

5. Dark Side makes sense, kind of...  This is tricky, but I think you can walk the line where the Dark Side is presented to Anakin in such a way that the audience can understand the temptation.  The movies can't come off like a PSA for the Dark Side, but something that shows the seduction of it.

I agree, this is the central line of Anakins character and needs to be very very well handeled.

9. The Galaxy cannot feel as small as it did in Lucas's PT.  Tatooine cannot be the most visited planet in the movies (what, does it think its Arakis or something?).  I am loathe to show any of Coruscant because I think showing the capital sort of immediately shrinks the rest of the Galaxy.

Can't agree more.

 

 My thoughts in bold.

 Thanks!

xhonzi said:

Okay, and here are the actual ideas in no particular order.  (How many posts will I keep claiming have ideas when they infact have none?)

1. Setting. The Clone Wars, with an emphasis on WARs. 

I also meant to say that in my mind currently, the NPT would start with the beginning of the last Clone War (Clone War II as it were) and end with the conclusion of that war.  I'm not married to it, but that's the plan I've been working off of.

And one more thought: The OT got away with a loosely associated bunch of rebels because that's what the Rebellion was.  If the Clone Wars were more based on full assault warfare, then it seems to me that the main characters would have to be soldiers in that war, not so much bystanders that get caught up in it.

Other threads I wrote when I could have been posting in this thread:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Prequel-Approval-Ratings-Speculation/topic/10641/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Infinities-and-What-it-could-mean-to-the-Prequels/topic/10723/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/I-cannot-disobey-my-master/topic/10669/

Why Jedi don't do battle (you have to have the book too)
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Which-pre-99-EU-Book-is-this/topic/10675/

This thread beginning at this post:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/How-would-you-have-done-ROTJ/post/366464/#TopicPost366464

And some from this post:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Vader-and-Dark-Empire-Emperor-Clones/topic/4463/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Prequel-total-rewrites/topic/3605/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Hypothetical-What-would-you-KEEP/topic/10309/

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Fall-to-the-Dark-Side/topic/8843/

I have to say I'm disappointed with the response to my longwinded posts above (thanks theBoost!).  I was all prepared for people bagging on my ideas... I think the silence hurts more.

I do think the person of Notpadme is a hard one to nail down.  It looks like we're collectively all over the board here as far as if she's:

1: Royalty, military, enemy or servant.

2: From Alderaan or not.

3: Her relationship to Bail.  My first inclination was to make her of an Alderaanian royal family who is betrothed to Bail.  I've decided that's maybe too obvious.  What if she is Bail's younger sister?

I did like the idea (lost track of whose) to make her have more of Luke's complexion and let Anakin have Leia's.

It's so easy just to retread the Han/Leia relationship here... but the Anakin/Padme relationship is so bland that it's probably best to do retread a good relationship than to invent a new terrible one.

The name that I've been playing around with for her is Valeria/Valaria.  I can't decide on the spelling.  What do you think?

TheBoost said:

 

My first objection to secrecy is I have not heard nor can I imagine any ending to Episode III wherein the main character's horriffic climactic fate is left unseen/ambiguous/confusing enough that secrecy could be maintained in any enoyable way.

 

Good to know.  So if we could find the right way to do it, you wouldn't be opposed?

That does more to change the nature of the OT more than all the flipping CGI Yodas in the world.

 You're saying this is a bad thing, right?  I assume you are and I agree with you to a point.  When working with an established series, you can either enrich, destroy or try to leave alone the original material.  I would think the goal of a NPT would be to enrich, which is to change but I can see the fear of destroying based on out recent past experience.