The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 261

Yeah, even old Ben wants Luke to kill Vader ...

so making "Padme" be optimistic about Anakin (and the little good left in him) is the better way to go ;-)

hm, that lightsaber swap does make sense - still wouldn't it be cool if Palpatine had a variation of Anakin/Vader lightsaber?

One of the often edited out sequences of TPM is the Bongo ride.

In it's current form it's just a showcase for now outdated special effects but I was thinking today about how it could be salvaged.

What if the droid army have an underwater variants of the STAP (STSP I guess) and the Bongo gets attacked by essentially robot frogmen in the James Bond mode. Jar-Jar could call the metal fish.

This would foreshadow the Gungans having to evacuate their home.

If they were taken out by one of the giant sea-creatures Gui-Gon's line about the the 'bigger fish' would be a reference to the living Force overcoming mechanical Force which has been a theme of Star Wars since Luke switched off his targeting computer and reaches it's zenith in the cyborg Vader being conquered by Anakin from within.

Besides I always liked those Scuba fights in Bond movies when I was a kid.

Maybe the droids piloting them could be made to look a bit more like men in wetsuits (painted black with flippers etc).

they did something like that in the Clone Wars series ...

maybe the idea to move the underwater city and combine it with the cloning facility is the most promising ?

so the Bond plot makes Obi-Wan the Jedi Agent (hey even his investigation scenes could come handy!) we want or need ;-)

the whole water-planet/underwater city could really be at one location, meaning one ocean on "Naboo" or "Alderaan" - so the connection can be made without too much space travel, where it isn't needed.

would be cool to have a sunny look at the cloning facility, without the rain and storm ...

Does anybody have read "The Star Wars" comic?

this sounds like it could be used as some sort of guide for a radical edit ...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Star_Wars

It would have been cool if Amidala's advisors in TPM dressed like Palpatine's advisors in ROTJ. It would show that the Naboo aristocracy is in charge of the Empire thanks to Palpatine's Naboo origins.

^This!

there are many little things that could have been used from OT to make the PT more "canon" ...

Anyway, I had some thoughts when reading about the final of Rebels and possible connections to Clone Wars:

- it would have been cool, to see two or even three "Sith" battle against each other (like was done in the Clone Wars), giving this idea more weight:

-- we have the character of "Maul", who acts as "General" for Sidious/Dooku, in Episode 1 he is wounded, but not killed, in E2 he is then presumed dead, only to reappear in E3 as "Grievous" (or "Vader")

in parallel to this, Anakin has similar trials, and loses arm/legs along the way to the final confrontation - ending with his duel against "Maul" (aka "Grievous")

So where does that leave Obi-Wan? maybe he didn't duel him then (resulting the lava beach and later breath-suit), maybe OB1 just faced "Vader" and held him off, to help someone (Padme or Bail Organa) escape to safety (or hiding) ...

Of course I have ;-)

tried to build a "mock" (or "Proto-Vader") out of both action figures - still needs some tweaking, but the idea is there ...

ok, what I wanted to achieve is, that there is still the "twist" or suprise "who is Darth Vader ?" - not that we follow Anakin down his "dark" path

with Maul and him, having similar injuries, the viewer an be lead to believe, maybe Obi-Wan meant Maul and not Anakin, when he tells Luke the tale (still need adjustment, but it's easier than calling OB1 a liar and so)

I was watching the extras on my finally purchased Star Wars blu-ray set.

There was that awful sequence where Anakin surfs the back of that cow/flea thing, (probably the worst effect in any film BTW) Nat Portman however delivered a genuinely touching expression of concern.

I got  bit of a brainwave.

What if Anakin's dreams get so strong he actually has seizures and passes out?

Maybe the awful "got ya" roll in the grass bit could be trimmed off and the sound from the deleted scene on the ship could be used to imply that Anakin has collapsed and is seeing his mother in peril.

This would help build sympathy for Anakin both from Padme and the audience and make their trip to Tatooine a little less reckless (seeing as he is supposed to be guarding her).

This would also help bolster the fugue state idea (that Vader is Anakin's subconscious Dark Side expressing itself during his unconscious moments).

How's this for radical:  Have an actor play maul to be greenscreened into AOTC and ROTS.  In AOTC Maul replaces Dooku and is the main antagonist of all 3 films but is never referred to as "Darth Maul" but always as "Darth Vader".  In ROTS, everything culminates on mustafar as before, but with Obi Wan and Anakin both going together to face off against "Vader".  The duel commences as before but ends on the thing sinking into the lava.  Obi Wan force jumps to safety, but Anakin and Vader both are too late and fall over the lava waterfall together.  We would then move the scene where Obi-Wan looks at the security hologram more toward the end of the film, after the duel, but heavily edited.  It plays out as before with Yoda "If into the security holograms you go only pain will you find" and whatnot and Obi-Wan's response saying he has to know the truth.  But we never see what Obi-Wan sees in the hologram; just him with a shocked expression saying "it can't be.  it can't be."  

What this does is make it so we aren't confused as hell later during Ben's speech in ROTJ.  It all makes sense.  When he explains everything suddenly we as an audience know what he saw in the hologram.  Anakin turning to the dark side.  They both went over, but only Anakin survived.  He BECAME Darth Vader, literally taking over the life of his predecessor.  But before the reveal we assume that Maul/Vader survived and was pimped out with the robotics and suit to keep him alive.  

I have always hated the ideas and edits that simply remove anakin turning altogether or make it seem as though he died on Mustafar.  It still makes Obi-Wan seem like a lying asshole in ANH and diminishes greatly the surprise in ESB and honestly I feel it completely fails in it's sole purpose of preserving that reveal.  My way you don't feel like Obi-Wan is a lying asshole, the reveal is preserved and actually enhanced because you are presented a mystery of what Obi-Wan saw in the security hologram, and you are given clues  and suspicion.  This mystery is only completely answered in ROTJ.  The only problem I can think of would be explaining how Obi-Wan got Anakin's lightsaber to give to Luke.

Good point, but rather than erasing Dooku, I would add him to Episode 1 (as Bingo? once suggested) ...

 I really like the thing you did with the duel, it solves some problems.

the upside of characters like Maul, Vader and Fett, is that we could recast any actor and put them in costume or armor ;-)

As much as using other people as "Vaders" to mask Darth Vader's identity - is there not the danger that the big reveal in Episode V would suggest that the dead Anakin Skywalker is not Luke's father, but actually it was the red guy?

Why should that be? - "Maul" would not have scenes or a relationship with "Padme", so only "Anakin" or "Obi-Wan" would be potential fathers ...

and the idea Darth Lucas above suggested doesn't break the mold, but it inserts very fine the twist the official movies should have gotten ;-)

Surely you want to keep people guessing right up to Episode VI?

When we were children there was very heated discussions about if Vader was lying to Luke or not.

Watching some of the arena battle again I was wondering if it would work better as a night scene. With the various monsters picked out by moonlight and flashes of lightning.

It might make the sabers look better too.

The clones could arrive eclipsing the full moon.

It would make the place look less generic PT desert planet and there has yet to be a Star Wars night battle.

Bingowings said:

What if Anakin's dreams get so strong he actually has seizures and passes out?

Maybe the awful "got ya" roll in the grass bit could be trimmed off and the sound from the deleted scene on the ship could be used to imply that Anakin has collapsed and is seeing his mother in peril.

This would help build sympathy for Anakin both from Padme and the audience and make their trip to Tatooine a little less reckless (seeing as he is supposed to be guarding her).

This would also help bolster the fugue state idea (that Vader is Anakin's subconscious Dark Side expressing itself during his unconscious moments).

This would be fairly easy to pull off by cutting from him struggling atop the creature to flashes of his dead mother. We would have to end with Padme rushing over to his limp body, at which point we'd cut back to the Obi Wan plotline. We already have a shot of Anakin tossing and turning in bed to cut back to after that. I wouldn't necessarily use it to set up the "fugue state" concept, but it could potentially expand on his justification for going to his Mother (though it really isn't in keeping with the OT for the viewer to see these visions, so I'm not sure it would be desirable, personally). My main problem is the horrible looking creature. If Anakin could be shown showing off bucking bronco style on something else it could be useful maybe. 

Bingowings said:

Watching some of the arena battle again I was wondering if it would work better as a night scene. With the various monsters picked out by moonlight and flashes of lightning.

It might make the sabers look better too.

The clones could arrive eclipsing the full moon.

It would make the place look less generic PT desert planet and there has yet to be a Star Wars night battle.

I've always thought this, and not just because of the mockups we've had in the past. If they really wanted the seizure inducing amount of sabers they have in the Geonosis battle, then everything else needs to be toned down to sell it or it ends up far too busy. There's potential for some spectacular looking long shots of the battle where we can barely see the jedi or droids. Only their sabers and laser fire.

Here's an idea. What if, in the scene when the surviving Jedi are pushed into a tight circle, with their fallen comrades around them, they're illuminated by a sudden spotlight? At which point the voice of Dooku (or whoever) demands their surrender. The viewer wouldn't know until this point the extent of the Jedi losses but suddenly we see these are all that's left and we see the bodies just out of the spotlight, with the odd limp arm illuminated by it. It could be quite effective.

Too much concern about the reveal, as if it were the pivotal point of the whole saga.

Think how the prequels played out, and you'll find that if Vader spoke his truth it would have been a truthful and strong moment as in I am your father.

They could have kept the original ObiWan killed your father, and it would still be true and an "awesome WTF moment"

This meaning there might not be a point in making the effort to twist 600 minutes of PT just to preserve 1 minute of OT no matter how idolised by the pop culture that moment is.

Even if you somehow managed to make Maul survive and be Grievous, and Grievous "be" Vader, or make Dooku be Vader, or if you filmed a second apprentice to ObiWan just to make him be Vader, you would still have Anakin going down and falling, regardless of whether you cut mustafar out or not.

What's more that could be pleasing to watch as a fan edit, where you constantly are subject to the tought of "he moved the pieces that way, and took this off and put this, etc." but if you saw that movie for the first time, it might feel rather inconclussive. This is what I think is the real trouble of "fixing" the PT to match the OT when it comes to Anakin's "secret": best case scenario is a film where you have this iconical war hero, who is the protagonist of the movie and at some points dissappears but he doesn't have a funeral, nor a mention. Inconclussive. And if you add to that the fact that a black knight with heroic proportions now replaces the old cyborg that would-have-used to be the sidekick of the emperor, there's little room for secrecy.

I think it might be too much effort wasted. Darth Vader can very well be a pathetic character without diminishing him. It's us who believed he suddenly was the primal source of evil and power. And, in a big exercise of fan-service Lucas made Anakin be "the chosen one" and all sorts of things that enhightened his position within the hierarchy of the Jedi and thus the Sith.

OT is different and always was. It was sillier. There are humorous scenes with Vader in ESB, it's us who want him to be more "badass" than he is. And that has made the Star Wars experience flatter. Perhaps the problem is to believe that everything should have been darker and more serious while maybe the real thing is to make it more innocent, naive.

Have you seen how stupid does Kylo Ren look in the trailer of TFA when he makes a completely ridicolous stance just to activate his sabre? That's because Abrahams is a fanboy too. I want vilains to be bad people, not cartoons of evil.

ben_danger said:

As much as using other people as "Vaders" to mask Darth Vader's identity - is there not the danger that the big reveal in Episode V would suggest that the dead Anakin Skywalker is not Luke's father, but actually it was the red guy?

 Absolutely there is, but I don't see that as a "danger".  There are a few possibilities going through your mind when "I am your father" comes up: 

He's lying.

Maul/Vader is Luke's father? wtf?

Anakin is actually the Vader in the suit.

Ultimately you get the same thoughts as when you originally saw ESB and heard the reveal.  Now, I never really thought preserving the reveal was as important as other people do, simply because in most edits I find that good story ends up being sacrificed to accommodate the reveal, but upon stumbling upon this idea, I feel it's a way we can create both a good story and also preserve the reveal.

Also a plus of this idea is (with little editing) you could still have the scenes where Palps finds crusty vader by the lava and Vader is "constructed" and put in the suit.  Since the burned up body is fairly unrecognizeable, you may just assume it's Maul/Vader.  The only giveaways would be lack of horns and the close up of his face, easily edited around to be less obvious.

Cast an actor as Tarkin to replace Jar Jar's political role in AOTC and possibly have him replace Mas Amedda as Palpatine's second-hand man.

Mithrandir said:

Too much concern about the reveal, as if it were the pivotal point of the whole saga.

That's because it is.

Once you get past the one off that Star Wars (1977) was billed as being and get into a multi-episode saga that moment changes everything and defines the whole story.

For good and bad ROTJ and presumably the ST tell the story of the fallout from that revelation and the PT is about what led to it.

It's also the most unexpected kick in the teeth the saga has thrown any character in the saga, if not mainstream cinema in general.

I'd really have have a good hard think to come up with a similar cultural impact.

And it wasn't part of the original plan either, just like killing Ben.