Prequels Redux. What would you do?

[Murasakikitsune]

So just as the original series was "remastered" and had a bunch of unnecessary crap thrown in, the prequels always stand open to revision and as much retcon as can feasibly fit. I really did enjoy watching the prequels. I'm not a hard person to please. But I acknowledge that the writing and directing were less than optimal.

 

What I want to know is what the fanbase would do to change the prequels, using only the original film and not re-shooting anything. CGI and effects can be redone, but anything with actors cannot. It can be reorganized, cut differently, deleted scenes brought back in, or otherwise re-edited. It just can't be re-shot.

Note that if Han Solo can be nudged, there are a lot of options open to what you can manage.

 

Let's get some creativity flowing!

[Pietrastor]

Get rid of young Anakin in Episode 1 and recast Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. Small editing won't fix the prequels to me sorry It's not like Hayden and Natalie are just "bad actors", heck the latter even won an Oscar and was amazing in many movies I saw, but they completely sucked in their Star Wars role.

 

I mean, Emperor/Obi-Wan didn't have the greatest lines written either but their actors simply did ok/decent/good job delivering what they had to work with.

[Murasakikitsune]

Get rid of young Anakin in Episode 1 and recast Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. Small editing won't fix the prequels to me sorry It's not like Hayden and Natalie are just "bad actors", heck the latter even won an Oscar and was amazing in many movies I saw, but they completely sucked in their Star Wars role.

 

I mean, Emperor/Obi-Wan didn't have the greatest lines written either but their actors simply did ok/decent/good job delivering what they had to work with.

 

Edits are the name of the game. It's no fun if the only solution is to have a completely different movie. xP

[Suromir]

Edits are the name of the game. It's no fun if the only solution is to have a completely different movie. xP

 

without redoing it there is nothing to be done. TPM would be about 10 mins long and be almost only the duel between Maul-Jinn-Kenobi.

 

the other two would also be probably less than an hour long if all you can do is make edits and not add anything.

 

the movies need redone for there to be any "fixing"

[JCDenton]

Get rid of Qui-Gon, he served no purpose. He showed up, did some things Obi-Wan could have done just as well, and then died. He was a pointless character who only served to screw up pretty blatant statements by Obi-Wan about being trained by Yoda. No "point of view" about that, Ben.

 

Get rid of Dooku, prevent Maul from dying, and have Maul be the big bad for episode 1-3. Probably get rid of Grevious too. Might have been a cool character in the Clone Wars (I disagree that he was cool even there, but I know most like him), but he was pointless in the movies as well.

 

Anakin would have been older when he was freed from slavery by Obi-Wan, maybe not 20 years old, but old enough that his fall would give Yoda and Obi-Wan legitimate pause about training Luke so late in his life.

 

Anakin's legitimate grievances with the Jedi would be given more focus. He actually had good reasons to turn on them, they just weren't used. He grew up a slave on cartel planet, what was no doubt a warping experience for a child. Then he gets freed from slavery, but his mom is left behind, and the Jedi never bother to free her or anyone else on the planet, because they just don't care. They don't let him see or even contact his mother again, so he doesn't know what happened to her, until he starts having dreams of her death, which are promptly ignored by the Jedi until she's dead. Anakin's fighting a war that could have been over if not for the other Jedi pontificating about peace and becoming ever more resistant to the government's orders. Then he starts having dreams about the death of the wife the Jedi would deny him, and it's the last straw. He could have looked like someone that turned out of understandable desperation, instead of somebody that turned because he was a dopey idiot.

[Doctoglethorpe]

The PT is beyond redeeming without anything short of complete re-writes and re-shoots with new actors and definitely new directors.

 

I mean by re-write I don't mean the essential plot needs to be changed, but just about all the dialog should. Its so... contrived. Most of the time I think I'm watching a stage play rather then a movie. They don't talk to each other like real people talk, they talk like they are reading a script. Yeah, they always are but good writers make it feel natural. That has a lot to do with **** acting too though. Both need to be fixed.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Doctoglethorpe

[Jenzali]

Christensen and Portman are both very good actors. It was the script that was just so awful that it was impossible for either of them to work well with the story.

 

i.e. It wasn't that they weren't able to play their characters convincingly, it's that the characters were unconvincing in the first place.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Jenzali

[Doctoglethorpe]

Christensen and Portman are both very good actors. It was the script that was just so awful that it was impossible for either of them to work well with the story.

 

i.e. It wasn't that they weren't able to play their characters convincingly, it's that the characters were unconvincing in the first place.

 

I just flat out disagree. Especially on Portman since Ive seen more of her roles. She's too dramatic. Again like a stage-actor. Only movie that actually worked in her favor for was Black Swan. Seemed in-character for her to be like that, like the role was made for her specifically.

 

Not saying the writing and directing wasn't also bad, but lets not excuse bad acting out of some unfounded modesty.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Doctoglethorpe

[DarthDymond]

Christensen and Portman are both very good actors. It was the script that was just so awful that it was impossible for either of them to work well with the story.

 

i.e. It wasn't that they weren't able to play their characters convincingly, it's that the characters were unconvincing in the first place.

Agree that it wasn't just the actors, though I can't imagine what they were thinking with some of the line reads they gave.

 

I'd add that in addition to a mediocre script (with regards to dialogue) the director really failed to pull convincing performances out of them. Some of the lines, as written, could actually have worked if they'd been read in a convincing way. But if what we got in the final product were the best takes available, then there was a complete failure to get the caliber of performances out of these actors that they've shown they're capable of elsewhere.

 

Seriously, who looked at the cut of the Naboo scenes between Padme and Anakin in Ep. II and thought those were good enough to put up on screen?

[AlexDougherty]

Make young Anakin older, about sixteen-eighteen. Get rid of Jar-Jar Binks. Remove most of the politics, yes it happened, but we don't want to see the political manouvring, just show the results. Give Darth Maul some actual force powers not just lightsaber skills. Get rid of the speeder chase from episode two, it was just mostly special effects no real chase feel. Get rid of come over to the darkside speech by Count Dooku, or replace it with better dialogue if you keep it. Replace most of the twirling moves in lightsaber fights, it was overdone, short decisive swings work better than long sweeping moves. And finally rework the seduction of Anakin by Palpatine, it didn't come across quite right.

[Murasakikitsune]

The point of this game is to figure something out that could feasibly be done for a re-release. They're not about to create a whole trilogy to replace the crap one.

[Doctoglethorpe]

The point of this game is to figure something out that could feasibly be done for a re-release.

 

Nothing.

 

Think of the worst edits they made to the OT, that's every single minute of the PT.

[psandak]

Let me first say, that I am with you ZoeTuah, I am fairly easy to please, and for me the PT is not as bad as some make it out to be. Should some if not a lot of the movies been done differently? Probably yes.

 

That being said...

The point of this game is to figure something out that could feasibly be done for a re-release. They're not about to create a whole trilogy to replace the crap one.

Nothing.

 

I agree that nothing can be done to tweak the existing films. No amount of editing, or tweaking the CG will make the PT movies any better than they are.

 

To answer your specific question, and I am not even sure if it is possible even with ALL the original unedited footage, I would center the PT around Obi-Wan rather than Anakin. Obi-Wan's story in the PT is quite close to that of Luke in the OT: young man thrust into a situation beyond his control, he overcomes the loss of his mentor and defeats an evil, he takes on greater responsibility because he is expected to do so, he has his share of setbacks but overcomes them, and he finally learns/realizes that even though he does not want to he must confront and defeat a close friend.

[DarthDymond]

I would center the PT around Obi-Wan rather than Anakin. Obi-Wan's story in the PT is quite close to that of Luke in the OT.

I remember reading an interesting article a few years back about how the PT, after they were released, actually changed the focus of the OT. If you watch all six in chronological order: Luke isn't the main character of the OT any more, Vader is. The entire arc of the six movies becomes one long story of a hero's fall from grace and eventual redemption.

 

The Secondary Main character passes the torch from Qui-Gonn to Obi-Wan to Luke, and in addition to their own character arcs (Obi-wan and Luke do go through complete Hero's Journey arcs) all three intersect with Anakin in trying to put/keep/return him to the right path - which Luke ultimately succeeds at. But again, the story is completely centered around Anakin, even when he's Darth Vader.

 

Of course, now with post RotJ movies coming out, that literary analysis is likely to fall by the wayside, and each Trilogy will probably be viewed as the separate, if related, story of a different generation in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

[Suromir]

I remember reading an interesting article a few years back about how the PT, after they were released, actually changed the focus of the OT. If you watch all six in chronological order: Luke isn't the main character of the OT any more, Vader is. The entire arc of the six movies becomes one long story of a hero's fall from grace and eventual redemption.

 

The Secondary Main character passes the torch from Qui-Gonn to Obi-Wan to Luke, and in addition to their own character arcs (Obi-wan and Luke do go through complete Hero's Journey arcs) all three intersect with Anakin in trying to put/keep/return him to the right path - which Luke ultimately succeeds at. But again, the story is completely centered around Anakin, even when he's Darth Vader.

 

Of course, now with post RotJ movies coming out, that literary analysis is likely to fall by the wayside, and each Trilogy will probably be viewed as the separate, if related, story of a different generation in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

 

well..yah. That was GL's intent. He said many times while doing the PT that it was Anakins story. No reason for that write-up to even exist when the writer/director/creator flat out TELLS you that.

 

that's like me doing a literary analysis of Lord of the Rings and saying it was a story about Frodo's journey and plight with the ring....no crap.

[Kilikaa]

Christensen and Portman are both very good actors. It was the script that was just so awful that it was impossible for either of them to work well with the story.

 

i.e. It wasn't that they weren't able to play their characters convincingly, it's that the characters were unconvincing in the first place.

 

Chrstensen and Portman had no chemistry. None. They were ok/fine on their own, but together they just didn't work well. The script and directing would have some negative effect, but they just did not feed off each other well. Not to mention Portman's character seemed to be badly written in RotS. Considering what she had to work with she did ok, but the character was just a shadow of what it was in the first two films.

[CyberTronX]

Strangle Jar Jar Binks (or just let Sebulba do it, because you know he would have) so Palpatine doesn't become king overlord, cut Queen Amidala's hair. Prequels fixed, done.

 

No but seriously? Recast anakin/padme from episode 2 onwards, and give Jango Fett more screen time, because he's amazing.

Edited May 10, 2013 by CyberTronX

[October]

I would've liked to see more of the Emperor. I mean, he's a pretty big deal for the series, but frankly, he's a minor character as well in terms of screen time and dedicated plot, etc. IMO at least.

 

Like, show him steadily coercing Anakin to the dark side, not just doing it in the 3rd episode.

[October]

Anakin's legitimate grievances with the Jedi would be given more focus. He actually had good reasons to turn on them, they just weren't used. He grew up a slave on cartel planet, what was no doubt a warping experience for a child. Then he gets freed from slavery, but his mom is left behind, and the Jedi never bother to free her or anyone else on the planet, because they just don't care. They don't let him see or even contact his mother again, so he doesn't know what happened to her, until he starts having dreams of her death, which are promptly ignored by the Jedi until she's dead. Anakin's fighting a war that could have been over if not for the other Jedi pontificating about peace and becoming ever more resistant to the government's orders. Then he starts having dreams about the death of the wife the Jedi would deny him, and it's the last straw. He could have looked like someone that turned out of understandable desperation, instead of somebody that turned because he was a dopey idiot.

That is actually really, really good. I would've much preferred to watch that.

[Doctoglethorpe]

That is actually really, really good. I would've much preferred to watch that.

 

Read the book.

[October]

Read the book.

 

Did I not say watch? Because this is a discussion about the movies.

Edited May 11, 2013 by October

[Themanthatisi]

Get rid of young Anakin in Episode 1 and recast Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. Small editing won't fix the prequels to me sorry It's not like Hayden and Natalie are just "bad actors", heck the latter even won an Oscar and was amazing in many movies I saw, but they completely sucked in their Star Wars role.

 

I mean, Emperor/Obi-Wan didn't have the greatest lines written either but their actors simply did ok/decent/good job delivering what they had to work with.

 

They did not act so well, because they lacked a good director... Lucas may have a great mind, but he is not a director, he just thinks he is. lol.

 

However, for me, I can live with the prequels if somehow they can remove Jar Jar, I wont even watch EP.1 again.... makes me sick.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Themanthatisi