Star Wars Episode III-The Triumph of Skywalker

Lately I’ve begun brainstorming a way of turning the darkest, most downbeat Star Wars prequel of them all into a feelgood movie that leaves the characters more or less in a happy place…sort of.

Anakin will be haunted by a potential turn to the dark side and the potential loss of Padme in childbirth through his dreams, and there are times in the film where you will see him presented with choices to go down, but through it all, even in moments of weakness, Anakin chooses not to act upon them. Palpatine is captured, Dooku is disabled and captured, Grevious is killed

It’s not all light smiles though, Order 66 still happens, and Jedi are still killed, it just happens much earlier in the movie so as to set up the council fleeing into the outer rims, setting up the movie’s climatic act, which just so happens to the first act of Revenge of the Sith!

I’m calling this “The Triumph of Skywaker”

IT BEGINS

Progress is going well, first draft was a little shaky, as they always are, I was building it off of remembering scenes and ran into a few narrative hiccups, but the good news is I think I have an 87 or so minute runtime for it, will try to extend it to a tidy 90

I got some suggestions on reddit on whether or not I should change the title of the edit so it doesn’t give away that it’s a happy ending

Suggestions included “Trial of Skywalker”

What do you guys think?

Well I mean the happy ending is the whole selling point of the edit so I don’t really see why the title would have to be changed to hide that.

Peter Pan said:

This sounds incredibly interesting. I’m excited to hear more details on the restructure. Like does Anakin follow the council into hiding or does he remain at Palpatine’s side, “staying loyal to the republic” until he changes his mind about Palpatine? In any case, the project sounds fascinating.

Thanks for the interest, it is quite a herculean task, and one I didn’t think was possible until I rewatched Episode III over the weekend and saw promise in the idea

In the first few test drafts, Anakin doesn’t go through much temptation, but it felt like there was no conflict and it could easily have been a day in the life for him and Obi-Wan rather than something more climatic that spoke to Anakin’s indecisiveness and morality, so in later drafts he’s tempted more and he goes through more trials, I don’t want to say too much just yet because I have to be certain some sequences work the way I’m theorizing,

I’ve tested something out that I thought for sure would need tweaking in the the first act though and that worked very well, so with luck what I’m building next for this matches my decades old memory.

Quick question to ask the devotees of the lore

Has a Sith lord or apprentice, ever, at any point, canonically ever been able to possess a Jedi master’s mind? And if so, what methods?

(And as a little tease, this part doesn’t involve Anakin)

…I guess the silence on the matter means that sort of thing hasn’t happened yet?

Anyway, here’s what I intend for my opening text crawl:

As the battle against the SEPERATIST movement rages on, the fearless JEDI KNIGHTS of the REPUBLIC contend with the rise of a new threat to the REPUBLIC…

With COUNT DOOKU missing in action, GENERAL GRIEVOUS has taken command of the separatist armies and begun a dangerous advance on the galaxy…

As the dream of lasting peace slips further and further away, for one troubled Jedi padawan, ANAKIN SKYWALKER, it all too easily manifests into a nightmare…

Thanks, I’ve directed the question there.

Thanks for taking an interest.

Got some interesting answers over on that reddit. Will work it into what I’ve got cooking!

This edit is a fascinating what if concept. I have no idea how this would work without things coming across as disjointed, but I at least commend you for trying.

Right, so in an update to this, I’ve had a few exciting new ideas, but I’m half-way through my current draft and to implement them would mean ditching what I have, so I may just make two versions and then determine through test audiences which is better.

In the meantime, the last scene of the first draft is more or less complete, so if anyone would like to preview that bit and give it feedback, feel free to PM me.

Just remember, it’s only the ending, not the full film, and it’s very brief, most of it is taken up by the credits