What is your take on PT villains?

How do you handle antagonists in your prequel rewrites? Are they confined to Anakin and/or Palps, or do you introduce at least one more "Big Bad" or any named secondary antagonists?

I'm interested in hearing what you guys have to say about how you would have done Dooku or Grievous or Maul, or even how you made up your own villain(s) from scratch (which is what I did) if you so choose.

Well, in my original rewrite, I obviously went beyond using Vader and Palpatine as the only primary antagonists.

I expanded on Maul's character, moving him away from Lucas "Dark Smithers" persona and putting him in the Sidious role, effectively giving him his own distinct persona. I tried to make him darkly seductively, but I don't know if I succeeded in conveying that well. I was also planning on depicting him as having a brotherly love and devotion to his master, but that, of course, never came to be.

With Grevious, I revamped him completely. I make him a completely organic being, dropped the "General Grevious" moniker for the EU-derived Qymaen jai Sheelal, and gave him the "ANH Vader" role for my Ep. I rewrite; he was this relatively minor character who would keep popping out from time to time to act as a horribly malicious bastard to the innocents around him. I had him blown to bits at the end, and planned to resurrect him in his more familiar cyborg form in the Ep. II rewrite.

I was developing Dooku into the character I wanted him to be in Lucas' PT, an honourable Jedi with good intentions who still manages to fall to the dark side, a sort of Vader precursor if you will. He would have been good friends with Obi-Wan until Qui-Gon died while under his care; at that point Dooku begins to habour resentment toward the younger Jedi, secretly blaming him for his apprentice's death, starting him on his journey down the dark path. I would have shown him lose his faith in the Republic and the Jedi way and followed his progression from Jedi Master to Dark Jedi.

I also planned on bringing the EU character Asajj Ventress into my Ep. III rewrite. I was going to stay true to how she's been portrayed in the EU more-or-less, but I was going to ditch the twin red lightsabers for one blue and one green lightsaber.

As for my new rewrite ... Should I ever get to writing it, I will add the spirits of long-dead Sith Lords into the mix. They will serve as the villains who originally seduce Anakin to the dark side, becoming his first dark masters. Beyond them, though, I don't have any defined big bads in mind, and probably won't be bringing any PT villains into the mix this time around.

Since Palpatine's not really a chessmaster with the villains (only manipulating things with the Republic, nothing more) both my central antagonists represent that aspects of the Mandalorian Coalition.

The lead big bad is the female general of the Mandalorians. Deadly, and remarkably experienced, but there's also hints of something deep with her with suggestions that the invasion of the Republic is really a last effort to head off the Mandalorian's complete entropy and extinction, because from their standpoint its either defeat the Jedi and re-solidy their place in the galaxy, or go down fighting in defeat.

The other big antagonist is a former major crime lord who commands the clones of the raw infantry. In a character sense, he's a much darker version of Han Solo: a rogue and charming in his own way, but also completely and utterly ruthless about his goals. While the Mandalorians and the Criminals/Pirates are technically in an alliance, both don't really like each other, but need one another in order to take out the Republic and the Jedi. 

Mandalorians bring the cloning technology and experience against the Jedi with the criminal powers providing the manpower for cloning and knowledge of the Republic's weaknesses. Its an enemy that can differ enough from the Empire to provide a contrasting villain while still being a large enough threat to provide tension. 

I have three big bads.

The first and most immediately obvious big bad is Legate Ceres, the supreme ruler of the separatist movement called the League of Sovereign Planets. She leads the charge against the Republic in the Clone Wars, severing the head of the Republic in the war's very first battle (by all accounts a tactical victory). A dark side-corrupted Jedi, her interactions with Anakin Skywalker prove to be of critical importance in the tale being told in my prequels. She is the white whale to Skywalker's Moby Dick. But even in death, she attains a spiritual victory. Though her League armies ultimately lose the Clone Wars, she wins in a way only the dark side of the Force can claim a victory: through corruption of the opponent's character...in this case of the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. Ceres appears in Episode I: In the Age of the Jedi and Episode II: The Dark Times Begin.

The second big bad is Admiral Palpatine, founder of the Galactic Empire. A charisma afforded to him by the dark side of the Force allows him to unite large swaths of a scarred galaxy under his dark ideology: the right of the strong (Human) species to rule over the rest. In pre-Clone War times he was the Vice Chief Officer of the Republic Navy, constantly using his dark side powers to scheme and plot as the "power behind the throne", never seeking to be put "on the spot" politically. But his delusions of grandeur after Ceres' brazen attack on Coruscant and the subsequent collapse of the Republic allow him to take control of his homeworld of Anaxes and use it as a base of operations to forge an empire of dominance and strength, but at the cost of any and all humanity. It is he who convinces Anakin Skywalker that the dark side could provide order to a galaxy in turmoil. Palpatine only appears in Episode II.

The final big bad is Anakin Skywalker, and indeed the big bad that the entire series has been building up to. It is not until the final act of Episode II, that Anakin finally becomes convinced that the dark side of the Force is the only way to bring order to the galaxy. But near the end Episode III, the full extent of Anakin's madness is revealed. He kidnaps the mother of his children, Jeni, and locks her down on the fortress world of Had Abaddon so that she can carry her twins to term, thus providing Anakin with the genetic crop to start a new dark Jedi order with which to overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy as a new dynasty of darkness. The final mission of our heroes is to break into the Had Abaddon Imperial fortress and rescue Jeni from the clutches of the traitorous Anakin Skywalker. While Anakin himself appears in all three prequels, his "big bad" role is only fulfilled at the end of Episode II and all throughout Episode III: War of the Skywalkers.

We never see the famous black armor suit, nor is the name "Darth Vader" ever uttered in the trilogy, but I do my best to imply that this Anakin Skywalker is in fact the same man as the one who strikes down Ben Kenobi in cold blood on the first Death Star.

Likewise, we do *not* see Palpatine use Force Lightning at any point in his screen-time during Episode II. He is shown to be gifted in use of the Force in other ways.

      I liked EatonB's take on Palpy and his relationship with Ani. Palps honestly tries to help Ani and isn't lying when he claims to have some ability to assist in saving Padame. My take on the Sith relationship is that there is a great degree of loyalty amoung badies up until the apprentice begins to feel powerful enough to take over. The Sith are less one-dimensional when they have an honest passionate concern for each other.

      I've suspected that in a prior iteration of the prequel story arc Padme was a Force-Wielder. My interpretation of the end of ROTS was that Padme's body had become dependent on Force energy and when she concieved twins by another Force-Wielder they began to drain the Force from Padme's body. Maybe this could explain why Force-Wielders are discouraged from marrying each other? Palpy could then step in and honestly help keep her alive with his knowledge from Plagueis. 

Darth Maul should have been female.

Darth Maulina?

Maula would have a nicer ring to it, if it didn't bring to mind the Holiday Special.