The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 361

I’ve always been a bit suprised at how frequently people suggest making alternate trilogies using, for example, one edited original movie plus two new movies compiled from TV series episodes. To me that always felt a bit like putting the cart before the horse - it’s mainly convention and cultural dominance of the format that makes trilogies the de facto release approach. As with my Clone Wars edit, I always felt like the priority should be simply presenting the best content in an appropriately consumable way. If that means a movie within a trilogy, great, but if it means a single movie, or even keeping a show as episodes, fine!

There are definitely good reasons to present a trilogy - which typically features a nested three-act structure focusing on core characters and similar evolving themes - so for example Obi-Wan’s TV show might well work as a third prequel if it does enough to contnue the arcs of Obi-Wan and Anakin that it feels like a direct continuation.

But it’s not necessarily necessary!

Taking Book of Boba Fett as a counterexample to the idea of moviefying a TV show: While I completely agree that it could do with some dropped plots and probably restructuring, I’d still approach it quality-first. The flashbacks are great and roughly movie length, so perhaps they’re a movie, or a couple of episodes. Maybe that content belongs before Mando season one, or as a flashback after Boba is encountered, rolling him into the wider Mando story. And perhaps it was odd to have the two-episode Mando diversion, in which case maybe it’d be better to spread that Mando content throughout a (shorter) series of Boba episodes, so it’s a smaller diversion per episode, and the whole show can behave more like a direct continuation of Mando, with the flashbacks having been already covered?

I’d always be more inclined to keep as much that’s good (world-building isn’t necessarily filler!) as possible, and then structure the presentation around what I have.

Vladius said:

StarkillerAG said:

RogueLeader said:

I sometimes think it would be better to just remove the episode labels from all of the movies.

That sounds almost treasonous, but when I think about it, it’s actually a brilliant idea. Removing the episode titles would both reduce the inflated importance of the “Skywalker Saga” that caused the sequels to feel so disappointing, and allow for animated and TV content to be incorporated into the movies (like I was suggesting with my “Expanded Saga” idea) without it feeling too jarring.

You know you don’t have to call it The Skywalker Saga, right? That was a cynical marketing term created to advertise/justify episode 9. It seems like everyone here bought it hook, line, and sinker but you literally don’t have to. Just call the movies whatever you want and ignore the sequels.

The term “Skywalker Saga” may have been officially embraced during the marketing of TROS, but it’s been around since the prequels: This thread called the movies the “Skywalker Saga” all the way back in 2005. No matter what it’s called though, there’s always been a sense of inflated importance given to the mainline “saga” movies, and I feel removing the episode titles would help reduce that.

Vladius said:

Yes everyone would do well to keep in mind that the first time that anything was called “episode” was with the release of Empire Strikes Back in 1980, where it was abruptly called Episode V with no explanation. Lucas claims to have planned out 6 movies, 9 movies, 12 movies, or whatever, but the other main purpose of it was to hearken back to the experience of going to see serials like Flash Gordon in the theater and starting in the middle with whichever one you happened to catch - if you missed a previous episode, it was just gone. That was also the purpose of having title crawls, to catch you up on any exposition that you probably missed.

The idea of having something missing was intentional. Strictly speaking, the prequels are just as unnecessary to the structure as anything else. They were themselves a fun thought experiment, there was no reason to expect that they might get made.

The idea of episode numbers in general may have been inspired by serials, but I don’t think Lucas ever intended to not make Episodes 1, 2, and 3: Although his plans for post-ROTJ movies fluctuated constantly, he always said that he would make a trilogy set before the OT later on. He even specifically told the EU writers not to set any of their works before the rise of the Empire (except for the Tales of the Jedi comics), since it would contradict his upcoming trilogy covering those events. It was only with the advent of high-quality CGI in the mid-90s that Lucas decided it was finally feasible to show his concept of the Clone Wars in live-action, with the Special Editions being used as a tech demo for some of the things he was planning to do.

Revenge Of The Sith Trailer (MGSV - Nuclear Style) by me.

https://youtu.be/S4--vczPMHY

paja said:

Revenge Of The Sith Trailer (MGSV - Nuclear Style) by me.

https://youtu.be/S4--vczPMHY

This is sublime.

The concept of the Sith is a good idea but all the details that Lucas outlined about them should be ignored.

In ANH when Tarkin says “The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion”. This implies that Vader is meant to be a “Dark Jedi” or a Jedi who uses the dark side of the force, so the word Sith shouldn’t be used in the PT.

Things like the Rule of Two were just made up as an explanation for why Vader and Palpatine were the only ones in the OT.

When Obi-Wan says to Vader “Only a master of evil Darth” this implies that this is the first part of his name and not a title that was given to him, so all other Sith/Dark Jedi shouldn’t have Darth in their names. Palpatine should just be known as Palpatine, Count Dooku should just be known as Count Dooku, and when the name Darth Vader comes up it shouldn’t be revealed that it’s referring to Anakin.

Tantive3+1 said:

In ANH when Tarkin says “The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion”. This implies that Vader is meant to be a “Dark Jedi” or a Jedi who uses the dark side of the force, so the word Sith shouldn’t be used in the PT.

Things like the Rule of Two were just made up as an explanation for why Vader and Palpatine were the only ones in the OT.

A lot of people assume that, but Vader and Palpatine were always supposed to be called “Sith”, even when the OT was being made: there was a deleted line in ANH’s Imperial council scene where Vader was said to be a “Sith Lord sent by the Emperor”, and the novelization referred to Vader as a “Dark Lord of the Sith” in his very first scene.

When Obi-Wan says to Vader “Only a master of evil Darth” this implies that this is the first part of his name and not a title that was given to him, so all other Sith/Dark Jedi shouldn’t have Darth in their names. Palpatine should just be known as Palpatine, Count Dooku should just be known as Count Dooku, and when the name Darth Vader comes up it shouldn’t be revealed that it’s referring to Anakin.

That was obviously the intention in ANH, but only because they hadn’t come up with the “Anakin became Vader” twist yet: “Darth Vader” was supposed to be his actual name. But once the father twist was written in ESB, Obi-Wan suddenly started saying “Vader” instead of “Darth”, implying that “Darth” was now a title given to Vader once he turned to the dark side.

Overall, I feel like the portrayal of the Sith in the prequels is perfectly consistent with their portrayal in the OT, and I don’t really see the need to radically change it for “consistency” like some editors have done. I’m fine with cutting the Rule of Two though, but only because Disney has pretty much forgotten about it with all the Sith Inquisitors and Sith Acolytes running around.

StarkillerAG said:

That was obviously the intention in ANH, but only because they hadn’t come up with the “Anakin became Vader” twist yet: “Darth Vader” was supposed to be his actual name. But once the father twist was written in ESB, Obi-Wan suddenly started saying “Vader” instead of “Darth”, implying that “Darth” was now a title given to Vader once he turned to the dark side.

If Darth Vader was meant to be his actual name then after they came up with the “Anakin became Vader” twist, it should be implied that this is the new name that he took on when he turned to the dark side. In ROTJ when Luke says “I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father” Vader says to him “That name no longer has any meaning for me”.

There should be more human Jedi depicted in the PT and not just have it be mostly aliens with the rest of the majority being young children.

Ob-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, and Anakin in AOTC & ROTS are the only ones to fit this category.

Tantive3+1 said:

StarkillerAG said:

That was obviously the intention in ANH, but only because they hadn’t come up with the “Anakin became Vader” twist yet: “Darth Vader” was supposed to be his actual name. But once the father twist was written in ESB, Obi-Wan suddenly started saying “Vader” instead of “Darth”, implying that “Darth” was now a title given to Vader once he turned to the dark side.

If Darth Vader was meant to be his actual name then after they came up with the “Anakin became Vader” twist, it should be implied that this is the new name that he took on when he turned to the dark side. In ROTJ when Luke says “I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father” Vader says to him “That name no longer has any meaning for me”.

That’s an interesting idea, but I feel like it wouldn’t really work with just editing the movies. The only way that would really make sense is if “Darth Vader” was an already existing character who Anakin killed and stole his identity (similar to Char from Gundam). But since no character like that exists in the actual prequels, I feel like the only good option for a fanedit would be to keep “Darth” being a title.

Vladius said:

Tantive3+1 said:

You’re right, though the Sith are a group of Dark Jedi, so from an outsider’s perspective they’re effectively the same. Vader is also a former Jedi himself anyway.

It should be stated that all Sith/Dark Jedi were former Jedi’s.

Vladius said:

Tantive3+1 said:

Vladius said:

Tantive3+1 said:

You’re right, though the Sith are a group of Dark Jedi, so from an outsider’s perspective they’re effectively the same. Vader is also a former Jedi himself anyway.

It should be stated that all Sith/Dark Jedi were former Jedi.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The Emperor wasn’t.

Your right. That would mean he didn’t have to be a Jedi to start off as a force user.

Also, for a better explanation for why Vader and The Emperor were the only Sith/Dark Jedi during the OT is because the Jedi defeated all the others with Palpatine’s rise to power being because of his strength with the Force, his ability to see the future, etc.