TheoOdo

Seeing as the Imperial Capital route is only a pipe-dream, I'd simply replace the Ewoks with Wookiees.

If a lot of new footage is going to be shot, I don't see why you wouldn't go the whole mile. They did, after all, plan a Wookiee ending before changing it to Ewoks.

It's easy to make the Endor environment a convincing Kashyyk and Wookiees make a more credible army.

We've known Chewbacca for the whole series, so it makes a more dynamic conclusion to finally see his race in action. We'd also get to see more clearly why "it's not wise to upset a Wookiee".

I think a Death Star should still be present, but perhaps should be destroyed early into the battle. I think having it destroyed by the crashing Super Star Destroyer removes it from the scene in a convenient way, before the palace is destroyed.

Change Akbar's relief reaction shot to after a full explosion of the Death Star and then cut back to the palace, where people are evacuating knowing that the Rebels have penetrated the service channel and are heading to destroy the reactor.

If we're going to fantasize, I think replacing the Ewoks with an ignored, marginalised populace of rebel aliens living in the darkness of Had Abaddon's undercity would be a good way to finish the story off.

It's a way of showing that the Empire's citizens are prepared for a popular revolution and, in showing the oppressed condition of these people, solidifying the evil of the Empire for the viewer. I also think a properly armed group of local rebels, who know their territory of the undercity far better than the Stormtrooper recruits who only venture there to harass and dissuade them, would make for a more convincing challenge to the Emperor's "finest troops".

This group would initially suspect Han and Luke of being imperial spies. Only once proving himself to have the powers of a Jedi would the leader of this group (who could, perhaps, mention having known Obi-Wan in the past) be convinced that they are working for the Rebel Alliance as they claim.

The whole "Imperial undercity" environment would also make for a more exotic fantasy setting than the national park of Jedi.

Combine elements of this original script with Harmy's comic-book style and you might be able to create an enjoyable little alternative to Jedi.

Bingowings said:

Beyond the obvious difficulty of creating new footage for the Imperial Capital sequences the main problem is the lack of an immediate threat or boon to push the Rebels to make such a bold move, especially after getting such a kicking as seen in ESB.

Re-taking the Capital would be the capstone of the Alliance's struggle (Episode IX material).

The only thing that would motivate them to make such a move so soon would be something that could threaten them with total and instant disaster or some piece of intelligence which would make the plan seem a viable option.

Something like a Death Star, or maybe two or some sudden and soon to be fixed weakness in the Capital's defenses.

Without a danger of that...magnitude (ahem) or an opportunity of that scale what's the rush?

I'm not dismissing the idea out of hand but posing it as a question which might open the door to thinking about solutions.

You're right. There would have to be many reasons for such a dramatic attack.

A second Death Star could remain one of the major motivations of the attack, but not the focus of the scene. The Emperor would still command it to assault the Rebel fleet in a show of power, before the Super Star Destroyer is unexpectedly sent veering off course, crashes into the incomplete structure of the Death Star and destroys it.

Their opportunity to attack the Imperial Palace would be a secondary motivation. In attacking the Death Star orbiting the Imperial Capital they are taking a risk they would not normally take, and they wish to maximise the potential military value of this attack by also attempting an assassination on the Imperial government. Even if success is (as always seems the case for the out-gunned rebels) a distant possibility, they have to make the best use they can of this brief moment in which "the Imperial forces are spread thin throughout the galaxy in a vain attempt to engage [them]".

EyeShotFirst said:

Now this actually looks Star Warsy. It has an ANH feel to it.

The lighting really helps.

Way more dramatic.

A lot of attention has been given in this thread to the second Death Star of Return of the Jedi. I have to say, I agree with Gary Kurtz when he says it was basically a remake of the first film.

I think this is wrong on two levels. Firstly, it's unoriginal. Secondly, it makes the conclusion of the saga less dynamic.

How to correct this?

Allow me to suggest a radical alteration.

Rather than the Death Star II, the entire final battle could instead take place on or in the space above the Imperial home planet. For now, let's call it "Had Abaddon" as in the original Star Wars outlines.

The Rebel plan, therefore, would be to knock out the planetary shield generator which is in place to allow the Imperial officials to decide who enters and who exits the planet. Essentially, Had Abaddon is a near prison planet with all movement in and out tightly controlled.

The Rebels need to gain access to the planet so as to launch an assault on the Imperial Palace. They can do this by flying down into the lower city, through a service channel and destroying the palace's main reactor. Once the reactor is destroyed, it will explode massively and take the palace - and the vast majority of the Imperial government - with it. It would, in essence, be an intergalactic gunpowder plot.

Why would this work thematically?

Most of the series takes place on the frontiers of the galaxy. By bringing it into the belly of the beast, the tension would rise dramatically - unlike in the current version where (I feel) the Death Star's reappearance feels stale. Yet another conflict on the frontier.

How to do this?

There are, of course, certain problems. Namely, to design the setting for the city would be a very difficult technical task on the scale of the Blade Runner cityscapes. Secondly, there's the fact that most of the plot appears to revolve around the much maligned Ewoks.

One way of solving this would be to get your hands on the footage of Han Solo, Leia and the Rebels battling in the Imperial bunker. This, rather than the ground battle with the Imperial troops, could be the delay which causes the entire space battle to take place. Leia's seperation from the group would be removed and the speeder-bike section could take place along one of the speeder-lanes which we see in this Ralph McQuarrie illustration below.

The troops, after their encounter with the Stormtroopers, make their camp in one of the vast undercity pipe and electricty networks. On one of the unmanned passages, Leia confronts Luke about his unresponsive behaviour and he tells her that he's going to turn himself in to Vader. Vader's encounter with Luke on the forest walkway could be easily tranformed into a scene on a city walkway by changing the background into model shots of an oppressive, imperial cityscape as in the image below.

At which point, Luke is taken to the massive hive-like Imperial Palace and brought to the Emperor's quarters in topmost tower. The battle continues as normal. The Millenium Falcon, rather than flying over the surface of the Death Star, would now fly over a section of the city and down into the service channel toward the Palace's reactor.

The Palace is destroyed, the rebels celebrate and all seems well.

What's tragic, though, is it seems like this pretty obvious conclusion was in fact planned. All of the McQuarrie illustrations for these sequences already exist, such as...

Vader's arrival at the Imperial Planet

The exterior of the Imperial Palace

Vader's arrival at the Imperial Palace

Various scenes of the Imperial city

And Luke's arrival at the Imperial Palace

Edit the scene in Obi-Wan's home to make it so Luke knows that Vader is his father from the very start:

Luke: How did my father die?

Obi-Wan: Your father, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knight...He betrayed and murdered your father, from a certain point of view. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. Anakin was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force...

Luke: The Force?

Obi-Wan: Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power... etc.

The scene continues as normal then.

Alternatively, Luke's head explodes.

Those blades are beautiful, Angel.

One of the problems I've always had with RotJ is Endor. It was shot in a national park, and it kinda' shows. There doesn't seem to be anything threatening about it as an environment. Even Luke's old home, Tatooine, has the potential to be more threatening. Although it looks quite creepy at the landing platform with Vader at night, the rest of the time it seems as though the rebels are a hiking team rather than people infiltrating a strange world.

There must be some way to make it seem like the kind of exotic environment we're used to seeing in Star Wars - maybe a fog effect could be used or a shot of a very distant canopy, emphasising unearthly massive trees, which then pans down to show the rebels.

Any other ideas?

A universe in which the prequels are good would probably be such a paradise, I wouldn't be surprised if it did rain doughnuts.

In some alternate universe, this happened.

Like a story out of Sliders, I will journey into this dimension and retrieve them so that we may enjoy a prequel series that is good.

I'll pick up the Gary Kurtz version of Return of the Jedi while I'm there.

xhonzi said:

1. I too would like to get R2 and 3PO in the story as it's one of my oldest memories of what the prequels would be.  "The droids will be the only characters in all 9 films" or some such.  However, it's a rather sticky wicket since Obi-Wan shouldn't be the owner of the droids, and it seems really bad to have Darth Vader be their previous owner.  So... who does that leave?  I guess they can belong to Bail?  Not sure, but I wouldn't go with Anakin.

I see what you mean. 3PO does belong to Bail in this version, and is on board the Tantive IV. Anakin and Obi-Wan have no use for a protocol droid, but for a prince they'd be indispensable.

In this version, I wanted to introduce Anakin doing the one thing we know from Obi-Wan that he does well - being a star pilot. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to introduce R2 as well. If you think of Anakin simply as Darth-Vader-in-waiting, then it's definitely wrong for R2 to belong to him. But at this point, I'm thinking of Anakin as being an almost completely different character. By the time he's transformed into Darth Vader, he's forgotten about most his former friends - certainly about R2, just one of many droids he happened to own at one point.

I'll think seriously about this, though. Like many, I thought it was pointless and wrong for Anakin to have created 3PO as in the prequels. I wouldn't want to repeat that mistake.

2. It's nice to validate the Owen stuff, but I think it does more harm than good to "pop by Tatooine" just to keep up continuity.  I think the PT should have no Tatooine in them, and generally as little revisiting here-to-fore seen planets as possible.  I think the Owen stuff is ultimately unnecessary, and is forcing your story places it shouldn't go.

I can definitely see this. When I started out writing this, I wanted it to be as loyal to what we know of things from the original trilogy as possible while still remaining something that works on its own.

This is the one area where I've had a lot of difficulty (as I've said a few posts up). It's that line "He felt he should have stayed here (Tatooine) and not gotten involved" that's causing all this trouble. I would honestly prefer not to have them return to Tatooine, but it feels like my arms are tied by this.

I am still trying to find a better way to work this out - such as having Anakin's damaged craft be picked up by a merchant freighter piloted by Owen, who will mention that they once lived together on Tatooine and that he plans on one day settling down on a farm there. He would then invite Anakin to return to Tatooine with him, and Obi-Wan's statement would therefore not be entirely false.

Suggestions would be appreciated here.

3. I really like the "Star Defender" name.  How did you come up with it?

I thought the idea of the Galactic Republic using ships known as "Star Destroyers" was a bit too aggressive. The Galactic Republic is, for now, the good guys, so destruction isn't really their line of business.

"Star Defender" suggests benevolence. I'd also like to see this reflected in the design of the ships - similar to Star Destroyers, but more elegant. Something similar to the Venator-class ships which appear for a few seconds toward the end of Revenge of the Sith might work: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081116110404/starwars/images/8/87/Imperial_Venator.jpg

4. Similar to #2, I think you want to avoid Coruscant/Had Abaddon.  The galaxy is a big place.  Seeing "the centre" too much makes it feel much smaller.  There is already way too much "galactic shrinkage" in Star Wars.  My advice- never show the centre.

Point taken.

I was already thinking it was rather pointless to have them return to "the centre" when the military HQ environment has already been established. Considering that all they need to do at this point is rally the troops, to have them do it on Coruscant/Had Abaddon is overkill.

I'd still like to have Obi-Wan and Anakin meet with what remains of the old Jedi order, though. This could be done, however, on a new planet - I think a more naturalistic, secluded setting would suit the Jedi Order better than the gigantic inhuman city of the prequels.

5. Generally- don't worry so much about explaining stuff.  Yeah, Anakin should get a little pep talk about the force at some point in time.  It should be introudced to the audience as if they don't know what it is.  But you can certainly take it too far.  Remember the failure of midichlorians.

Another good point.

The reason I bring up the history of the Jedi and Sith is that I wanted to re-confirm the spiritual side of the two orders. It may not come across like this in the outline I have so far, but such details would be explained in action. We wouldn't be taking time out for long lectures.

VideInfra78 said:

How do the Clone Wars play out in your version?

In my version (and this may be controversial) the clones don't form an army at all. The Clone referred to in the name "The Clone Wars" is just one person - the leader of the antagonistic army. It is discovered in Episode II that he is a genetic reproduction of an extinct race of warriors.

I've decided to do this for a number of reasons. Firstly, the idea of the Galactic Republic - i.e, the good guys - using an army of mindless soldiers bred only to fight and die seemed a little morally warped to me. The Kaminoans even mention them being bred for perfect obedience.

This just doesn't stike me as something that the moral old Obi-Wan or the spiritual Yoda would have anything to do with. Yoda and Obi-Wan seem to me to be the type to emphasise the importance of the liberty of all sentient beings, and a clone army runs entirely contrary to such concepts.

So, what would later be dubbed "The Clone Wars" are already in full swing by the time Episode I opens - it's just not yet being called "The Clone Wars". Rather like the Galactic Civil War of the original trilogy, the Clone Wars would be the war of this Star Wars trilogy.

I'd be more than happy to!

Looking forward to reading it!

VideInfra78 said:

-I'd like to see you shy away from names like General Bad-guy and Darth Evil-doer like we got in the prequels.

Criticism accepted.

"General Tyranus" is sort of a placeholder title for the main villain.

-Although I like what you've done a lot more than the prequels, it does seem to mimic TPM a bit with Naboo being replaced by Alderaan. Anakin and Obi-Wan instead of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan navigating through nature after a misguided landing and stumbling upon beasts on their way to the city to find a queen/princess. Although, to be honest, I'm not that familiar with the TPM. Maybe I'm wrong about this.

No, you're right - and it's something that bothered me for a while. I knew there were certain things that needed to happen in this outline, and it was difficult to find a way to get them all in without mirroring too much any of the previous Star Wars films.

For example, when I first tried to write this outline I started with Anakin living on Tatooine with his brother, desperate to get away - but that was far too much like Star Wars. Then, I thought about having him already be out there in the galaxy, with Tatooine simply being a bad memory for him - but that necessitated that he return at some point in the course of the story so that Obi-Wan's claims that "[Owen] felt he should've stayed here and not gotten involved" and that Anakin left Tatooine with him on a "damn fools idealistic crusade" remain truthful.

Also, I wanted this story to be self-contained. Just as Star Wars starts off with the problem of the Death Star and concludes with its destruction, so this story should start with the invasion of Alderaan and end with its liberation. That's a lot like TPM, it's true, but (and maybe I'm just excusing myself here) I don't think it's the general shape of TPM - that is, planet invaded, heroes escape planet, heroes return and liberate planet - that was the problem with it.

As much as it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, I can't deny that this has ended up being structured similarly to TPM. I just hope that this actually works. If it doesn't, I'm prepared to return to the drawing board.

-What happened to the Mandalorians? They defeated the Jedi and then...? Went back home?

The Mandalorians didn't actually succeed in defeating the Jedi, they attacked and brought ruin upon the order before finally being repelled. In the aftermath of the attack, the traditional structures broke down and dissent eventually caused many Jedi to give up the old ways and head off on their own spiritual missions - sort of like freelance Samurai. The Jedi order remains, but its glory days are behind it. Obi-Wan is constantly butting heads with the order - his youthful enthusiasm contrasting with their stoic traditionalism.

Eventually, Obi-Wan will succeed in bringing the divided Jedi back together - the mavericks reconciling their differences with the keepers of the order. Just as it seems as if the glory days are on the edge of being restored, well...you know the rest. But that's a story for Episode II and III.

A good read, interested to see where the clones come in.

Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciated!

xhonzi said:

Other than that, I like your take on the well-intentioned but gullible and weak willed nature of his character.

I have to say, I don't like the gullible or weak willed take on him. Vader was never a character who suggested a lack of intelligence to me, certainly not a lack of will power.

He has intelligence and will power, he just uses them for evil.

The question the prequels need to answer is why a once good man would do this. I may just be repeating myself here, but when you live a state of chaos there is a natural tendency to seek out order - if the chaos is great, you may sometimes even seek out a rigid, confining order - not just outside yourself, but inside yourself also. Just as the outside world of the galaxy would have been wrecked with conflict, so Anakin's inner-world would have been boiling over with fear, anger and desire.

A Jedi's life is all about facing such conflicts, but finding inner-peace through discipline. Facing outer horrors but maintaining inner sanctity. The war Anakin found himself in, however, was too much for him and he sought an easy way out of the suffering, an easy way to silence his troubling emotions. In the pursuit of this, he made himself "more machine than man" and transformed himself into the kind of monster he'd been fighting all along - "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster" and all that.

The disorder of the galaxy caused him pain and he was desperate to be free of it. To this end, he tried to rid himself of that which personally caused him pain - his very humanity - and that which was the origin of the pain to begin with - the disorder of the galaxy.

There's even a hint of this being the case in Return of the Jedi. When Luke asks Vader to come away with him, Vader says that "Obi-Wan once thought as you do". It may be that Obi-Wan had once entreated Anakin, then suffering emotionally, to simply give up on the galaxy - to seek out the life of a hermit so as to maintain spiritual sanctity, even at the expense of participation in the material world. The alternative was, after all, the Dark Side.

I'm rambling now, but this is all stuff that will eventually be included in my alternate prequel outlines which I'm slowly working on in the Script Writing and Re-Writing forum.

A more interesting way for Anakin to have turned to the Dark Side would have been for him to have experienced powerlessness and suffering during the Clone Wars and wanting to end it. He could have also seen ignorance and incompetence causing pain and prolonging the war.

From this, a desire of order and control could have very easily emerged. It would have been easy for Palpatine to then convince him to support his authoritarian ideals, by simply suggesting that the entire conflict was a result of weakness and an excess of liberty ("We can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy!"). Then he offers the emotionally crushed Anakin the ways of the Dark Side to medicate his personal sense of powerlessness and weakness. It becomes hypnotising and seductive, and he loses his sense of who he was completely ("You don't know the power of the Dark Side! I must obey my master!").

In this way, Anakin's fall could have been initially driven by an understandable desire to end suffering in the galaxy before it was perverted into a lust for control and power. This would mirror nicely with Luke's desire to end the suffering of his firends in Cloud City and the obvious risk this posed for his training.

(This doesn't happen in the prequels. Anakin's mother's death was not a result of the Clone Wars in Episode II or any political conflict, and therefore couldn't reasonably be taken to have effected him a political way - especially since it is even before his mother's death that he expresses sympathy for fascism.)

This is silly, if you ask me.

Before we can move on with even more material, I think we need to sort out the mess that the canon is in. If I were in Lucas' shoes, I'd step up and start to sort through this mass of contradictory material and select only the very best for a new "Alternate Canon".

I'd release restorations of the theatrical cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy and return the first two unaltered installments to their status as canon. I'd finish off by selecting the best of EU material - comics, video games, novels etc. - for re-release under this new Alternate Canon brand. Then I'd have completely new prequels made, with a talented writing team and director.

Then, only then, with solid foundations, would I begin to even consider making some new material.

As it stands (and it's very tragic, really) the Star Wars franchise just isn't worth more material.

You can't forgive someone who isn't sorry.

You certainly can't forgive someone while they are committing the offensive act.

Although it would obviously be ineffective in the way it's presented in the Phantom Menace (a single ring of warships around the center of the planet), a blockade could still have great strategic value in occupying a planet. It would require thousands if not millions of ships, however, stationed in a grid not far from each other all around the planet so that they can intercept any craft attempting to exit. 

skye1083 said:

I see your point. It's harder to go from coward to love interest. I just hate to see another idealized female. Perhaps she should be impulsive - definitely a trait Luke and Leia share. Her brother wants to wait for a solution and she has other ideas? ...

She asked for Obi-Wan to come to Alderaan against her brother's wishes, he refuses to be seen aiding a Jedi, and she sneaks out to rescue them. So Bail is still trying for a peaceful solution, while NotPadme sees the writing on the wall.

Her impulsiveness works for her here, but it comes back to bite her later in the sequel.

I really like this. It also explains her presence in the forest at the time of Obi-Wan and Anakin's arrival. I'll edit the original post to include this element soon. 

Thanks!

I've always wondered what it is about ESB and Gary Kurtz's contributions to the series that GL dislikes so much. 

skye1083 said:

Over all, I'd say it's a good start.

I don't think Anakin needs the Force lecture until after he sees it in action. And when he does explain it, it should be shorter that the one Luke gets. Mostly, because they're in a hurry and it keeps the original scene special.

As for the princess rescuing them, it seems a bit convenient to have her as a guardian. Perhaps she was trying to escape - making her the coward and not her brother - and Obi Wan and Anakin unintentionally shame her into going back. If you do want to keep her as a forest guardian, then please, no white until the end of the movie. It's symbolic of her accepting her destiny.

Thanks for the feedback!

I see what you mean. Looking back, the princess being there just at that time does seem like a bit of plot convenience and it also seems unlikely that Obi-Wan would stop mid-mission to explain the nature of the Force to his pilot. Probably it should be spread out over their journey to the core world and explained further in some sort of Jedi temple style place. 

I think it's a bit of a problem for her to be an out and out coward, though. An adolescent fear of responsibility is more forgivable than absolute cowardice - and I doubt Anakin would be able to develop an attraction for her if she were a coward.

Trouble is, Zam flees the Jedi. What good is an assassin android if it has a sense of self-preservation? 

If I were programming an assassin droid, I'd make it have concern for nothing except the mission. 

vaderios said:

TheoOdo said:

Instead of voting for a clone army, the senate is voting on whether or not to construct a secret, planet destroying weapon capable of taking out the planets now constructing overwhelming numbers of battle droids. Amidala, for obvious reasons, opposes its construction. 

By Episode III, the partially constructed Death Star looms over the Coruscant skyline - an awful reminder of things to come.

Im digging that! In fact its inspiring for mockups :)

thanks for the ideas

 

-Angel

Cool!

Can't wait to see 'em!