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What did the Prequel Trilogy need? — Page 3

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Lots of good ideas on Obi-Wan's and Anakin's introduction in the 'alternative prequels' in here...

...got me thinking about how i'd like to see them introduced...

...is there a place on this forum to post fan fiction? I've written a short intro to the two characters... Now i don't normally write fan fiction, this is my first go and I know how alot of it can make your stomach turn...
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There isn't a section devoted specifically to fan-fiction, but people have posted in the general Star Wars section before, and this thread about what the PT needed seems to be a fairly good place to post alternate backgrounds for characters.

War does not make one great.

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Bring it on, Bootfit! The more the merrier! I'd love to read your pieces!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I've just been thinking about the ages of Obi-Wan & Anakin. The age of Obi-Wan relative to Luke in ANH - he must be in his 60s, right?

I think that Anakin should be the same age as Obi-Wan. Sebastian Shaw was clearly cast for that reason.

This means that, with Luke & Leia at about 18-20 years old in ANH, this means that Obi-Wan & Anakin should be roughly in their 40s when Episode III ends. This also means that Anakin & Padme have to be together up to that point for Luke & Leia to be conceived.

You might get away with them being mid-30s and Obi-Wan in ANH being mid-50s.

Any thoughts?
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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I definitely agree with you.

Throughout ANH, Obi-wan is referrd to as 'old man' (by Han, by Vader, by owen). He is clearly at least in his early 60s. And yes, Vader should be of a similar age.

War does not make one great.

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Ok here's my first attempt at fan fiction - it's my idea of how I'd have liked the first reveal of Anakin and Obi-Wan in Episode I to have played out.

Click here...

Any critisism is welcome as long as it's contructive - and don't shoot me down for having diffrent ideas - this aint theforce.net
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Originally posted by: Bootfit
Ok here's my first attempt at fan fiction - it's my idea of how I'd have liked the first reveal of Anakin and Obi-Wan in Episode I to have played out.

Click here...

Any critisism is welcome as long as it's contructive - and don't shoot me down for having diffrent ideas - this aint theforce.net


That was really cool. It gave alot of mystery to Anakins past.
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And made me believe the 2 men had a friendship, which is something I NEVER believed in the prequels.

War does not make one great.

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What did the Prequels need?

CHARACTERS WE CAN LOVE AND ROOT FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lucas never sold me on any of the characters in the PT, except for ObiWan Kenobi, and when their fates are met at the end of ROTS, I felt nothing for them. Anakin should have been likable in AOTC, not whiny. He should have been a really likable guy that had these issues that many great men possess. Lucas made him whiny in AOTC, and I never gravitated to him, I never really cared about him, other than how he became Darth Vader. When he was finally lying there legless on Mustafar yelling ObiWan I was saying, "Thank god, put him out of his misery!"

Padme was another character I never really cared about. In TPM she is either in disguise or just talking monotone with no personality at all. In AOTC, she just falls in love with Anakin I guess for his looks, and by the time she dies in ROTS I could have cared less.

Lucas never made me care for the Jedi either in the PT, and when Order 66 happens, it is just a bunch of nameless jedi getting killed. Lucas should have picked 4-5 Jedi during the PT and just focus on them in small parts. And they should have been the jedi killed in Order 66, so you get somewhat emotional. All I remember about Order 66 is that they killed the Conehead Guy and the Green Chick with the nice body.

TPM should have been about Anakin, Padme, and Kenobi, and no one else. That movie should have been total character development minus QuiGon, minus Jar Jar, and minus all the CG nonsense that Lucas was obsessed with. The purpose of TPM was to show that Anakin & Kenobi were great friends, and Anakin was falling in love with Padme, and there should have been a 20 minute flashback of Kenobi finding Young Anakin and that would dispel 2 hours of Jake Lloyd.

TPM & AOTC should have been condensed to one movie, and ROTS should have elevated to two movies, because that is the red meat of the story, and that is why TPM & AOTC feel so out of place in the saga, and ROTS feels so rushed when watching it 1-6.

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Originally posted by: generalfrevious
I think Episode II was a little bit too modern, and Episode III was doomed before it premeired.
And no sane person likes the Phantom Menace


Heh, how interesting. I keep hearing how terrible TPM was, and I'll even agree that when connected to the Star Wars saga that is was pretty bad. But, as a standalone film, The Phantom Menace is entertaining to a fair degree. Its nothing great mind you, but it's not that bad either. Episode II and III on the other hand are horrible. I can defend all of these points logically as well. I'm quite sane.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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The Phantom Menace is my favourite prequel, but that's not saying much.

War does not make one great.

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The L.A. crowd that fills Graumann's Chinese on opening nights reacted best of the three to Attack of the Clones, perhaps feeling it was a major improvement over Episode I, perhaps reacting to the genuinely StarWarsian goofiness of it.

It remains to this day my far-and-away favorite of the prequels .... but, tellingly, I can't so much as sit through it nowadays.


.


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Originally posted by: CO

What did the Prequels need?

CHARACTERS WE CAN LOVE AND ROOT FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lucas never sold me on any of the characters in the PT, except for ObiWan Kenobi, and when their fates are met at the end of ROTS, I felt nothing for them.


Sorry to double post, but I just want to give a big 'hear, hear' to CO's entire post about why, essentially, the prequels fail. No one gives a fig about the characters.



The same was hardly true of Luke and Leia and Han. The world loved them.



There are a thousand truths about why the prequels were inferior. But that's the ultimate one right there.


.

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Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen
The L.A. crowd that fills Graumann's Chinese on opening nights reacted best of the three to Attack of the Clones, perhaps feeling it was a major improvement over Episode I, perhaps reacting to the genuinely StarWarsian goofiness of it.

It remains to this day my far-and-away favorite of the prequels .... but, tellingly, I can't so much as sit through it nowadays.


.


Isn't it funny how TPM made the most money of any PT movie, but you constantly hear from the defenders that ROTS is the best?

The reason TPM made the most money of any PT movie was because EVERY SW fan saw it atleast once, and many walked away for good.

TPM - 431 million
AOTC- 310 million
ROTS- 380 million

If you think about it ROTS should have made the most money out of the three. This was the reason we wanted the PT, we wanted to see why Anakin became Darth Vader. And the fact that it doesn't even come close to TPM, which was so reviled in '99 because of Jar Jar and many other problems, tells me that alot of older fans who loved SW back in the 70's/80's just walked away in the summer of 99 from SW.

Now there were the faithful naive fans like me who saw every PT movie hoping Lucas would get this one right, and that is why no PT movie bombed at the box office. But the sad fact that a SW movie that has 2 hours of an annoying Jar Jar Binks, and overlong Pod Race, and weird looking Yoda puppet, a monotone boring Padme, and a little kid who cant act, and it still made the most of the 3 PT movies, tells me Lucas lost more fans with the PT than gained them.



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Every one of them made more then the OT movies, though.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Honestly, I don't mind Anakin being a whiny lovesick teen in AOTC. When I first saw that movie, I was 16, and I was feeling pretty much the same way at the time. What needed to be done, though, in my opinion, to make him more compelling, is to show that he's more than that. When push comes to shove, he has to show himself as a mature and capable Jedi who puts his duty first. That was barely touched upon in the movie. There wasn't much of an arc. He started out as brash, and he ended up as brash. Even when he was being heroic, he was being arrogant. And something that piqued my interest early in the movie was never elaborated upon. When Anakin and Padme meet with the queen on Naboo, Anakin is asked his opinion of the situation, and Padme totally cuts him off and disses him at the same time. There's a tiny bit of tension, but by the next scene, it's all romance and hugs and flowers again, and this power struggle is never brought up again. That would have been a whole lot better. They love each other, but they are both very strong and somewhat controlling people who both want to be in charge, and it causes sparks, maybe similar to Han and Leia but more serious. Plus, it would set up something of a shaky relationship for the next movie. They are truly in love, but there's an element of distrust and always that one little seed that could cause destruction at any moment. And since Anakin's original motivation for turning to the dark side was a lust for power (before the ridiculous turn evil for love thing), it might work better with Anakin having previously been shown to fight others (including his wife) for power and authority over situations.

My other thought is that it might have worked better had the roles been reversed. Rather than Anakin being the chaser, and Padme being the voice of reason, it should be the opposite, with Padme almost being a temptress. So then the main conflict wouldn't be "she loves me, she loves me not," but it actually would be, "Do I go with my feelings, even though I know I shouldn't, or do I act on them?" And, like Padme did in the actual movie, he should reject her on logistical grounds but have his decision inwardly torture him for the remainder of that storyline. But once again, there's no conflict the way it is now. Anakin doesn't have to make a choice. He's already made it when he sees Padme in his very first scene in the movie. The only conflict is getting her to feel the same way.

And, of course, I always have to wonder what in the world Lucas was thinking when he set up this love story as an encounter between a 14 year old girl and a 9 year old boy?! I can live with the five year age difference, but I find it hard to believe she would have fallen for him when her earliest memories of him are of him running around yelling, "Whee!"

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: boris
Every one of them made more then the OT movies, though.


Actually that isn't true, The Original SW still beats them all even without adjusting for inflation:

Unadjusted:

SW - 461 million
TPM - 431
ROTS - 380
AOTC - 310
ROTJ - 309
ESB - 290

Adjusted for Inflation:

SW - 1.1 Billion
ESB - 628 million
ROTJ - 601
TPM - 542
ROTS - 380
AOTC - 342

My theory is the Original SW had a mass audience of fans that loved the good vs evil story, and that is why no SW movie has even come close to it. ESB/ROTJ/TPM have roughly the same audience of SW diehards that love the OT and were dying 16 years for a SW film. After TPM, alot of OT fans bailed on the series, and the only ones left to see AOTC/ROTS are the OT fans like me who were going to see all 3 PT movies regardless of the quality, and the PT gushers who loved the movies, hence why the audience slowly shrank. My theory is the PT gushers are not nearly as big as the OT fans in the early 80's.
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I don't think TPM made so much more money just because it had more Star Wars fans going to see it, though I do believe that may have been the largest factor. I think it genuinely was a better film on some level as well. Even if its just an immature "kid's" film with "annoying," digital characters, and even if it cleary ruins Star Wars elements, it is still watchable all on its own. The other two PT fims have nothing redeemabe on their own. They totally rely on the original Star Wars and its portrayal of Darth Vader to generate even the slightest shred of interest in a movie-goer.

Originally posted by: Yoda Is Your Father
The Phantom Menace is my favourite prequel, but that's not saying much.

There must be more out there who agree with us! Hopefully they're not all under the age of ten!


Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Honestly, I don't mind Anakin being a whiny lovesick teen in AOTC. When I first saw that movie, I was 16, and I was feeling pretty much the same way at the time.


Strangely, I believe Hayden Christenson actually did a good job at his acting in AotC. I thought he pulled off the whiny thing pretty well, same with his desire for Padme. Unfortunately, the dialogue he was given was retchingly bad and his whiny nature in the story's plot was totally overdone. (Does George Lucas have any concept of subtlety?) I was also very disappointed by the pathetic simplicity of the love story between Anakin and Padme which was flat at best. I bet your magnification of a power struggle in the relationship between him and her would have been a good way to spice it up.

Once again, George Lucas' writing lethargy surfaces.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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There must be more out there who agree with us! Hopefully they're not all under the age of ten!

No, I agree as well. In retrospect, TPM is a much better and more cohesive movie than II and III. It just went downhill from there.
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I will put in my vote as my favorite prequel being AOTC. Of course like everyone has said, this is no endorsement that the movie is great, but I was thinking about all 3, and probably this one to me would be the one I rank as the best.

TPM just has too much Jar Jar, and it annoys the shit out of me everytime I watch it, I just can't get past how annoying he is and how he ruins every scene. I think it comes down to this:

What annoys you more? The AOTC romance? or Jar Jar in TPM?

I can put up with the romance in AOTC, so that is probably why I rank it higher. I do like the whole Kamino sequence and the Clones, it was one of the few things from the PT that added to the OT. If you think of the saga 1-6, when Vader flies away after the Death Star has blown up, one scenario is he goes right to Kamino and tells them to get some more Stormtroopers ready, cause the Empire just lost all of them.

I guess another reason I like AOTC, is that is the only movie that ObiWan is really the lead character in the movie. Anakin/Padme are just in boring scenes falling in love, and ObiWan is really getting all the good action scenes, and he was the only character I truly cared for in the PT.

I do like the ending montage once Dooku goes to Coruscant, and John Williams score is great too, but enough about AOTC, I don't want it to come off that I actually think it is a great movie. To me it is like an election that you don't like any of the candidates, but you vote for the lesser of the two evils.
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I just watched ADigitalMan's fan edit of Episode 1, which he named "A Vergence in the Force", yesterday. Now let me say that I've only ever seen the theatrical cut of Episode 1 once, on opening day back in 1999. I've tried to watch it again on a few later occasions, but the poor and rampant style and execution gets at me every time and I just have to shut it off. To me, the worst aspect of the movie is the excessive slapstick in general and overexposure of Jar Jar in particular. In ADigitalMan's edit most of this has been cut, and after so many years I was eager to get my hands on a version I could watch until the end credits, which I did. My compliments to ADigitalMan for his skillful and outstanding editing work! Having said that though, the movie is still too long and it still doesn't come close to working for me at all, in spite of the fan editor's talents and good effort.

In general, whereas the OT comes across to me as a timeless, lighthearted and epic fairly tale, the PT just comes across as a commercial turn-of-the-century marketing effort. As far as Episode 1 goes, I don't feel anything for any of the characters, except for Jar Jar who still fills me with contempt every time he shows up onscreen. Even most of the other aliens either act or look corny and cartoonish: The nemodians, Boss Nass, Watto, Sebulba, the pod race announcer creature and even the charismatic Jabba we knew from ROTJ has been turned into a visage for slapstick comedy in this film. Episode 2 and 3 did only slightly better. The OT introduced C3PO, R2D2, Jabba the Hutt, admiral Ackbar etc. There's just no comparison for me.

As for the perpetrators of the PT, Darth Maul has always appeared to me as just another very uninteresting, old and kitchy style satanic character that wasn't given nearly enough screen time to be an effective enemy. This is much of the reason why the final saber fight in Episode 1 has no emotional impact on me whasoever. Dooku in Episode 2 is better executed for sure, but I still don't care. Give me the OT any day of the week.

When it comes to costume design, the PT has nothing that comes close to the visual coolness of stormtroopers, TIE pilots, snowtroopers, biker scouts, Darth Vader and Boba Fett, except for the obvious variations on the stuff created 25 years earlier. I don't really care that the imperial soldiers can barely see through their helmets, the OT wins hands down. As for spaceship and set design, I'll take the death stars, TIE fighters, X wings, Y wings, Millennium Falcon, star destroyers, cloud city, AT-ATs and AT-STs over anything I've seen since.

Save for a few pieces of music, I also find John Williams score for the PT to be rather uninspiring. I don't think he is as creative today as he was in his earlier years, but what he was given to work with for these films didn't make things easier for him of course. The fantastic score of the OT is an integral part of the films that contributes immensly toward keeping the viewers emotionally attached and some of the pieces stand well even on its own, without the movie to support them. As far as sound effects go, the OT gave us the on/off, hum and clash of the lightsabers, the blazing lasers, the shrieking TIE-fighters, Vader's breathing and voice and the list goes on.

I'm going to download ADigitalMan's edits of Episode 2 and 3 as well, since this is probably the only way I can make myself bother to watch these films again, and I'm sure I'll enjoy them much more than the theatrical and DVD releases.
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It still makes absolutely no sense to me that they didn't bother to create a single Clone Trooper outfit for either of those two movies. They just look so damned liquidy plastic in every closeup, and the reflections on their visors are just hideous! And to a degree of comparison, I can almost understand it when they're useless cannon fodder. But then you get to ROTS where a clone trooper (Cody) is a supporting character with interaction and a decent amount of screen time, yet they couldn't even be bothered to build a suit even for him! Instead, they just put Morrison in a blue suit. I guess they figured he would have looked too good standing around all those digital lackeys of his.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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That amazes me too. And Cody's floating superimposed head really bugs me. But I'm never watching ROTS (by choice at least) again so I guess it doesn't matter.

War does not make one great.

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About Jar Jar . . . I'll admit that I can stand him. Even though slapstick humor and fart jokes don't work in Star Wars, at all, I can still find myself laughing at them a little bit as a guilty pleasure. For me, I get amusement from the idea of someone "failing upwards," like Rick McCullum or some other foolish person. Again, there's nothing particularly good about him, but I can tolerate him in my amusement I guess I could say. Also, I was always sort of impressed in a technical way at how they could make a digital character look almost decent next to everybody and on real movie sets (most notably after seeing how horrible the digital Jabba looked in those scenes with Han Solo in the special edition of Star Wars).


Originally posted by: lord3vil
Save for a few pieces of music, I also find John Williams score for the PT to be rather uninspiring. I don't think he is as creative today as he was in his earlier years, but what he was given to work with for these films didn't make things easier for him of course. The fantastic score of the OT is an integral part of the films that contributes immensly toward keeping the viewers emotionally attached and some of the pieces stand well even on its own, without the movie to support them. As far as sound effects go, the OT gave us the on/off, hum and clash of the lightsabers, the blazing lasers, the shrieking TIE-fighters, Vader's breathing and voice and the list goes on.


That right there is why I like episode one the most I'm guessing. The music was far more gripping and moving, even if nothing on the screen deserved it. I think John Williams started figuring out that Star Wars had become a joke by episode two and stopped trying as hard.


Oh yeah, another reason I liked episode one was the larger nature of everything. You had small scale troops fighting alongside the jedi or flying to defend their planet. They were sort of put in as token elements, yet at least they were present. In the two later movies it was all about the main characters and if they could make enough meaningless clones to fight the aready mindless robots or not. Everything fet so small by comparison.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: Tiptup
About Jar Jar . . . I'll admit that I can stand him. Even though slapstick humor and fart jokes don't work in Star Wars, at all, I can still find myself laughing at them a little bit as a guilty pleasure. For me, I get amusement from the idea of someone "failing upwards," like Rick McCullum or some other foolish person. Again, there's nothing particularly good about him, but I can tolerate him in my amusement I guess I could say. Also, I was always sort of impressed in a technical way at how they could make a digital character look almost decent next to everybody and on real movie sets (most notably after seeing how horrible the digital Jabba looked in those scenes with Han Solo in the special edition of Star Wars).


Yeah, I agree. I never really had any problem with Jar-Jar, although it's fun to make fun of him, and I didn't really miss him when he started to magically disappear.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.