Bingowings

Howdee Shanerjedi! Some nice ideas there (which I assume you would get over by giving the Kaminoans a language and subtitles).

I liked Magnoliafan's idea that the big ball was a holy relic that the Naboo had pinched off the Gungans.

Without any explanation that ball thing is flipping weird (here Nass shout peace while holding up a huge bomb).

The hollow planet thing must have been a dropped plotline (I thought that George was going to have Naboo turned into the Death Star or something when I first watched it).

I always thought it odd that Sidious insisted that Gunray got Amidala to sign the treaty while Palpatine insisted that she didn't.

I read that as Sidious/Palpatine wanted the conflict to be drawn out with Gunray chasing the legitimate take over line to the point where it would patently obvious it wasn't, sending the Federation out of the Republic and taking his financial chums with him.

With half the money gone the two sides would be more evenly matched and would knock more out of each other until there was nothing left but to surrender everything to the Empire.

It was something of a win, win situation for Palps, either the Queen signed away her planet's sovereign rights clearly under duress creating a scandal in the senate or Nute Gunray would be sent home with a flea in his ear making him more resentful and buttered up for the Seperatist cause.

InfoDroid said:

The way I understand it is, the Sith are kind of like a secret society.  They officially "don't exist".  No one knows the Emperor or Darth Vader are Dark Lords of the Sith by the time we get to ANH.  And any suggestion of that is probably passed off as ridculous, politically-motivated rumor.  It's not public knowledge, and probably not something they want to advertise given the Sith's long dubious history.

Like David Icke's shape shifting lizards of the Illuminati, I suppose (that would explain the eyes)?

Sluggo said:

ben_danger said:

i love theodos dialogue, it brings some decent character to the federation goons, and calling to 'legends' of the jedi, makes them sound that extra bit more unknown that we need for suggestions that they are in the OT.

 

i would love it if the whole 'sith' concept could be written out. sith are one of my favourite things in star wars, but as they ernt invented until after the OT, it would be good perhaps to just have it that palpatine is a force user who indulges in the dark side, and anakin falls to the dark side. the 'sith' in this context may over complicate things perhaps? unless the term 'sith' could somehow be slipped into the OT.

 

the big jedi battle from AOTC would be really cool in TPM, for a climax in the centre of theed. it could perhaps eliminate the need for the gungan battle, and maybe the gungans altogether. perhaps as the republic refuse assistance, the jedi take it upon themselves to do so?

 

 They had the sith in the OT, they just never made it into the movies.  They were in the script of Star Wars and in the novel.  The scenes that mentioned Vader was a sith lord were cut.  It never established exactly what a sith was however.  The EU came along and expanded it in the 80's, then it was really expanded in the 90's, and sort of reigned in for the prequels.  It has always been sort of a mess.

Palpatine was invented as a senator who became Emperor through manipulating the system.  And he was a force user, but originally, he never really was associated with the Jedi or Sith.

 

My take on the Sith thing is why take it out if it's doing no harm?

If you watch the films from 1 to 6 by the time you get to ANH you know what a Sith is so you don't need to hear it again and again.

If you watch them in the order they were made it just adds a little extra to the story.

Not all Sith were Jedi so not every dark side user followed the path that Vader took, finding that there is a rival cult of Force users out there adds a bit of extra flavour to the story.

I can't see where you would put a reference to Anakin's piloting skills into a prequel crawl or why you would need to.

You see him pilot a Racing Pod, a Naboo Starfighter, an Airspeeder, a Swoopbike and a Jedi Starfighter in the films, the crawl is just a means of setting up what you need to know at the beginning of each film.

You can't do it for TPM because we haven't met him, the Seperatist movement is the big change in AOTC and the Clone War is the big event of between AOTC and ROTS.

Return Of The Flip Shot.

I think you need the Gungans (just not stupid Gungans).

I see them like native Americans during the American Civil War.

Their initial attitude would be resentment to both sides, it was always their planet and the Naboo and the Neimoidians are both invaders (all be it that the Naboo have been around long enough to be established as a seperate community).

They just want them to both bugger off.

But in the end they figure that the Naboo aren't a threat to their current way of life but the Trade Federation are and join sides with them.

Here's my stab at a new crawl for TPM (it needs to be spaced better because the .... is floating on it's own) :

Octorox said:

No offense but I completely despise TheoOdo's idea. The point of the prequels is to show the glory day's of the old republic and how they came to an end. There needs to be a huge but gradual shift in attitude and style from TPM to ANH. To have the Jedi and the Republic  already laughable Day 1 does not show that.

In an ideal world we would have seen some of those glory days but that's impossible without reshooting the films from scratch.

Whatever way you cut it the Republic and the Jedi are already on their way out at the beginning of Episode One (possibly after centuries of behind the scenes manipulation by the Sith or just by the sheer weight of the conflicting interests it had to keep in balance).

Sidious exploits a very exploitable situation.

It may be that there never really was a golden age and that it's as mythical as Camelot.

A thousand generations is a long time to build up monumental nostalgia compared against even Galactic peace and democracy could be made to seem dull and disposable.

Like Joni sang, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

Monroville said:

Bingowings said:

Nero Fett sounds like a painkiller to me, actually I quite like Django Fett (it might even be possible to add a "D'" sound to the few mentions of his name).

I quite like the bright colours of the Naboo ships it sets them apart from the world of the OT and ties in with things like Von Richthofen's red Fokker.

So you'd rather him named after a banjo or change rolling in your pocket than a roman emperor?  <:)

 

You bet'ya, especially a Roman Emperor associated with incest, campness and insanity (sadly Aurelius Fett sounds more like a Michael Moorcock character than a bounty hunter).

Nero Fett sounds like a painkiller to me, actually I quite like Django Fett (it might even be possible to add a "D'" sound to the few mentions of his name).

I quite like the bright colours of the Naboo ships it sets them apart from the world of the OT and ties in with things like Von Richthofen's red Fokker.

I like the bubble vision monitor myself, it's a direct lift from the old Flash Gordon serials (including the noise)

one episode of which was called The Phantom Menace.

I love the look of the B-Wing so I'm up for that one.

I can't remember seeing any shots of B-Wing Pilots in their cockpits (outside the Rebel Assault II cutscenes which are sadly unusable because of the resolution, not to mention the acting).

BarBar Jinkx said:

I've been thinking about the confession scene in the garage in AotC

 

would it be possible to paint Padme out & have anikin confess the killings to a holographic Palpatine, & have Padme come in as Palps leave for the "I miss her so much" part

 

 

is this doable at all?

its been so long since I have watched this movie I just cant remember Anikins posture in the scene.

It's doable (though not easy) but possibly a little pointless and counter productive.

We find out in ROTS that Anakin told Palpatine and Anakin is meant to be keeping a low profile, hiding Padme from Nute Gunray and his agents so getting the Chancellor on the Batphone to have a heart to heart, even on the worst of bad days sounds like replacing one problem with another, rather than working as an active solution.

It might work though, all (like it's really easy and not time consuming at all) you'd have to do would be to take or fake footage of Palpatine looking concerned and paste it over the scene with Padme gone in the holograph style.

If George can have Terence Stamp deliver his lines to Amidala via a mop handle and drop her in later (so she can have the day off) in Episode One doing the opposite should be possible.

RoccondilRinon said:

I thought it worked, because that's the kind of movie Serenity is. Star Wars is more romantic, though; a Whedonesque death could stick out in a bad way.

Also, how can you say that? You'd rather see Kaylee dead?!

What's more romantic than an heroic act of selfless sacrifice?

Whedon didn't kill Ben.

Through the first two films the main characters have narrowly escaped usually at the cost of losing other characters.

Is Lando's death really that different from that of Biggs or Dack (we know more about Lando but not that much more)?

The Falcon is Han's batchelor pad, when the heroes first meet Han is almost literally solo, Chewie is his only pal.

By the end of the saga he has a different future ahead of him with a close circle of friends and a long term (by the looks of things) relationship so blowing up his flying fortress of solotude underlines that he isn't solo anymore. He doesn't have to watch his back as much now that Jabba is out of the way, we know there is more to him than money and the Force isn't such a hokey thing to him either (his bad and funny feelings prove this).

So the death of Lando and the destruction of the Falcon serves a duel purpose, though it needs to be framed in a convincing way.

The opening crawl is a great way of addressing some of the problems with TPM.

It's the first crawl in the saga so it should set up in very broad strokes the bear essentials for understanding the film.

If it had a paragraph explaining that after a thousand generations the Republic is crumbling under it's own weight, that the Jedi after defeating their rivals the Sith a thousand years before are bound by a code limiting their authority within Republic borders and another setting up the Federation's claim to the planet the audience would have almost everything upfront without the need for expositional dialogue.

The current crawl contains some of those details but it's crouched in terms that are rather dull and taxation is a something most people go to the cinema to forget about.

Magnoliafan's slave plot adds menace but if the Naboo and the Federation are part of the Republic it doesn't make sense that the Jedi wouldn't stop it.

JasonN said:

JediMasterFisher said:

That youtube reviewer knows nothing about the story of Star Wars. He says the Jedi were bad because they did not lead an army to free the slaves. Doesnt he realize that would start a war with the Hutt clans and that wouldnt be good.

How could he?
Apart from seeing Jabba in the first 1/3 of RotJ (oh, and that bullsh*t scene in the SW Special Edition), the Hutts play absolutely NO purpose to the story of the six SW films, so why would the reviewer (or for that matter, the majority of the audiences who saw these movies) have any knowledge of that "Hutt war" concept???

George could have solved all this by just having Qui-Gon say something along the lines of "The Jedi are forbidden to interfere outside the Republic", when Anakin asked if he was there to free the slaves.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Bingowings, you've hit it on the head brilliantly:

"The potential for re-editing and reworking here would be to partly underline and partly make clear these story aspects by trimming away or shifting around aspects which confuse these aspects of the story so instead of being negatives they actually enrich the story."

Exactly.

"Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should)."

I also had this same idea a while back...if I were to do my own edit I might even leave out the Anakin killing sandpeople scene ENTIRELY! Crazy huh? :D

"Restructuring TPM so it flows from Coruscant to Naboo cuts out all the wandering about and leaves Amidala with no proof of an invasion to back up her claims.:

Woah! This sounds interesting! Want to elaborate? ;D

I outlined some of this someway back so I culled this from previous musings:

(Amidala is on Coruscant when Naboo is attacked BTW)

Bingowings said :

 My idea for the beginning would be from the scroll down to a full Naboo hanging in space the Trade Federation ships surround the planet (does anyone have any more back views of the Trade Federation ships btw?).

Then we see an edited version of Sidious (fully concealed as in many edits) telling Nute Gunray he can land his troops and the landing ships and fighters descend.

Fighting breaks out in Theed (some of the buildings are destroyed).

Then cut to Coruscant and Amidala's meeting with Palpatine (with the message from Sio Bibble edited in) and an altered Jedi Council meeting where Qui-Gon claims to sense the chosen one and he's discovery is linked to the Naboo crisis.

Then the Senate meeting which removes Valorium, then the Queen opts to go back to Naboo to end the crisis.

The Jedi are sent to protect her but they can not call for war against the Federation until the Blockade is confirmed to be unlawful.

Her ship is attacked on route and she has to land on Tatooine.

They meet up with Anakin, gain the parts they need, Anakin joins the Jedi hoping to liberate Tatooine at a later date (giving Anakin a noble intention for leaving his mother behind rather than just seeing the stars).

They break through the blockade and create a hasty alliance with the Gungans. The Gungan's attack the bulk of the droid army, The Jedi attempt to shut down the shields for Trade Federation command ship and encounter battle droids (which should rarely if ever speak and certainly should not be the comic relief goons as seen in the theatrical version...incidently they do sound good in German) and finally the Sith Lord they first encountered on Tatooine, the Naboo fighters clear the path for the Jedi and take on the full Federation fleet (not just one ship making it an more hopless fight) and the Queen and her troops storm the palace.

 I'd keep the Gungans but dub them so that Jar-Jar is now the Gungan ambassador and represents his people just as much as Amidala. He is a bit out of water but not the buffoon we see in the original cut.

 I'm going to play with the idea that instead of there being a single droid control ship the whole blockade is there (the Naboo have more fighters, squadrons added by changing the colours of the fighters to blue, red etc:

but they are still greatly outnumbered because they have no capital ships or droid fighters)

 

I actually like the idea of R2 being blue because he's one of blue group's astrodroids (Naboo seems to be obsessed with aesthetics).

Qui-Gon and Obi Wan have to get onto the fleet command ship to stop signal jamming so they can get a distress signal to the Republic to send for help (and they fight Maul there, also moving the droid battles on the ship from the beginning of the film to the end).

 That way the sabre battle is more associated with space battle and the Gungan battle is more associated with the throne room.

Anakin doesn't destroy the command ship he just destroys a ship single handed and deliberatly (not by accident).

Once Nute Gunray is captured he orders the ships away (to save his skin) and the Droids power down on his command not because one ship is destroyed (which seemed a stupid way to run a war in the first place).

 Sorry if it reads a bit jumbled but that's the pain of cut and paste.

 If you scroll back a bit I also suggested that the Trade Federation had an ancient claim to the planet, which would remove the stupid taxation plot device.

AxiaEuxine said:

Bingowings said:

vaderios said:

Thats for Bingo.

I took the concept from AOTC that shows the battlefield so why not have the same here..

-Angel

That's another great mock up there Angel.

 

That is beyond awesome. Great idea. Id be interested to see what it looked like in blue for some reason.

 

It's quite good in blue too :

You could re-use the canyon to do a video adaptation of the skyhopper race from the ANH Radio adaptation (that would make a really nice Easter egg somewhere).

Only joking, you have enough on your plate as it is ;-)

vaderios said:

Thats for Bingo.

I took the concept from AOTC that shows the battlefield so why not have the same here..

-Angel

That's another great mock up there Angel.

Ripplin said:

^What am I supposed to be looking for up there, Bingo? :p

Can't you see the posted images Ripplin?

They are showing up here and were posted in the same manner as all my others.

Monroville your link isn't working at this end.

Remember we were told the every special effect element had been recomposited for SE?

OPPS!

The stories are actually rather simple in the prequels (they just seem more convoluted than they actually are because of a variety of tonal miscalculations which might be navigable).

None of the prequels are as complex as ESB which is in itself a rather simple story.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

I think these reviews should be required viewing for all who participate in this thread! ;)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6ACD497626B01244

 

Seriously, I've been thinking through all that this dude has been saying...some fresh insight from this guy!

Those reviews are an interesting springboard for thinking about what works and what doesn't but he does miss some of the potential of reworking them (which is understandable as that isn't his aim).

His criticsm of the Jedi, the Republic and the Senate stems from taking at face value what Ben and Yoda said about them in the OT.

Ben and Yoda were the last two Jedi in those films and they wanted to bring down the Empire and it's leader.

Their ideology was in direct competition with that of the Sith and the Empire and while it's possible to get into a debate how honest they were with Luke, you don't need to to appreciate they manipulated him into acting from their point of view.

The same goes with Ben's accounts of his friendship with Anakin.

We don't see the whole picture of Ben and Anakin's relationship in the prequels (there may have been a lot of moments of a more friendly nature that we don't see) but the with negative side we do see in the prequels Obi-Wan is only witness to some of it (most of his complaining is done out of his view to Padme).

While I agree the Padme/Anakin relationship is seriously flawed, seriously flawed relationships exist in the real world, Padme may be suffering from something like battered wife syndrome, where she repeatedly puts up with or turns a blind eye to obvious and dangerous situations, hoping it will get better at some never reached better time.

The Jedi and the Republic have been around for a thousand generations and covers much of the galaxy.

They might have started as optimistic and positive organisations (just as the League Of Nations/United Nations were) but both have been hamstrung by the unwieldy size and complexity of the area they are supposed to represent and by the dogma they operate within.

Which would explain why the Jedi can't liberate slaves outside the Republic and why they can't save Shmi Skywalker (they can only act within the jurisdiction of the Republic and they don't want to encourage personal emotional attachment in their acolytes). It's arguable that these are the very attitudes and limitations that lead to Anakin's fall and the rise of the Emperor.

While I'm no fan of overly explaining everything a few lines explaining that this frustrates some of the Jedi (other than Anakin) would have gone some way to turning that percieved negative into a palpable positive.

The potential for re-editing and reworking here would be to partly underline and partly make clear these story aspects by trimming away or shifting around aspects which confuse these aspects of the story so instead of being negatives they actually enrich the story.

Re-painting Dooku as a Jedi dissenter shows that not everyone agrees with the Status-Quo and such people can be manipulated to do the opposite of what they intend.

Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should).

Restructuring TPM so it flows from Coruscant to Naboo cuts out all the wandering about and leaves Amidala with no proof of an invasion to back up her claims.

Removing the reference to Padme dying of a broken heart puts the blame on Anakin.

The key is to try and figure out what George wanted to do and hammer the prequels into a shape where it actually does that instead of getting lost in the torrent of miss-steps that bogs them down.

Confused Matthew's calls for explanations are really a call for the removal of much of the already unnecessary exposition (or maybe they aren't going by some of his other reviews).

When we see people standing around explaining the frankly obvious it creates a jarring sensation when the audience is expected to figure out things for themselves.

It was like George sometimes wanted to just throw the audience in to a world and get us to figure it out for ourselves (like the OT did so well) and then blinked and started to explain things (usually the wrong things) and then gave up.

AxiaEuxine said:

oh yeah, some one else that hates the prequels, what a breath of fresh air that was.

It might not be a breath of fresh air but most of the comments in those reviews are pertinent to this thread which is about radically shaking up the prequels.

He brings up a lot of what many viewers believe to be problems (I don't agree with everything he says but he brought to my attention a few things I hadn't thought of before and underlined a few things that I did notice but in a different way).

Looking at those elements and trying to figure out a way of working around them is a positive thing and some edits have already gone some way to addressing them already, there may be other approaches to the same problems or approaches yet untried to others and that's what this thread is all about.

That said, he is a bit of a dork when it comes to the majority of his other reviews.

Sluggo said:

doubleofive said:

Since we don't have shots of Billy Dee saying how the Falcon is too damaged to make the shot, we have to think of other alternatives.

 

 What if there were alarms in the cockpit and/or flashing lights indicating there is a serious problem with hull.  Or maybe the additional crewman in the Falcon's cockpit could shout something about there being system malfunctions or a hull breach or something.  Nein Numb could also be re-subtitled to carry on a conversation with other crew in the back.

One of the crew needs to be altered anyway (because of the reason that vaderios pointed out some time back, namely laughing his boobs off when the Death Star destroys a Rebel ship) so you could replace him with someone suitably panicked.