What one element would you change of the Prequels?

Agree. Worst 3P0 participation in a movie.

 

"That Jar Jar Binks is the most annoying thing to happen in Star Wars."

C3PO: "Hold my beer..."

 

Posting in this thread again because this should have been a thing.

https

 

What if, after turning to the darkside, Anakin’s fighting style actually reflected his now unrestricted emotionality.

He’d spent his life like an animal locked in a cage made by the Jedi. But when he’s finally “freed”, he fights cold, calculated and dispassionate. The depiction doesn’t make much sense to me for where the character should be emotionally.

His fight with Obi-Wan doesn’t work for me at all. That’s probably the biggest reason why.

 

This. And I would have made Anakin a good kid, but with a temper. As the old saying goes "The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.'. Let him have gone after a villain for a justifiable reason but go overboard. And instead of understanding or an appropriate punishment. He gets the hammer and is filled with shame and it makes him do more wrong things to cover it up. Basically I would have made his downfall more organic.

 

I’ve always been conflicted on this topic. Like so much with the prequels, I really love the concept, but it just didn’t land for me on the execution.

I think it was an awesome idea to first establish Anakin as a young boy. He’s a child, still dependent on the affection and encouragement of an unconditionally loving mother, taken from her before he’d developed any sort of coping skills, and placed in the stewardship of these passionless monks. Not only could they not provide for his emotional needs, they actively rejected and discouraged them. He was made to feel wrong and deficient for being a little boy that naturally missed his mother. Filling him with shame and encouraging him to cover up his true feelings.

What sort of person would that type of upbringing produce? Probably someone who held deep seeded resentment and disdain toward the Jedi. Probably someone desperate to find the type of acknowledgement and affirmation the Jedi wouldn’t/couldn’t. To find it in a father figure like Palpatine, making him amenable to manipulation. To find it in a forbidden romantic liaison like Padmé, making him further jaded toward his allies. To then go to dangerous lengths in order to protect them. Falling incrementally deeper into that pit of philosophical betrayal, until he turns on them completely and unwittingly becomes the agent of evil Palpatine wanted.

The pieces are all there from the start. It’s a totally organic foundation for where the character ultimately winds up. It just never really comes together cohesively in-narrative for me.

 

I agree with you that on paper, Young Anakin is the right way to start Episode 1. I’m not blaming Jake Lloyd, but I think very few movies work that center around a kid because you can’t do much character development. ET and The Sixth Sense are one of those few movies where a child actor can hold the movie together.

That’s why the best way to view Episode 1 is Anakin as just a plot point (he is the chosen one). Episode 2 is really the story of Anakin/Obiwan and Episode 1 is more about QuiGon, Jedi Council, The Republic and Palpatine.

 

Yep. Shame is toxic and can lead to a lot of self destructive behaviour (which is what I believe was what drove Ren in the ST). If they had gone that route it would have made Annakin more sympathetic or at least understandable.

 

The thing is, I think that really is what George was going for. It just isn’t reinforced very well. Like going to a restaurant, ordering off the menu, and the waiter coming back with all the ingredients for making the meal. “Oh, I guess I have to take all this home and cook it myself . . . well, that’s disappointing.”

 

George is so good at creating stories.
He just struggles telling them in a coherent narrative voice at times

 

Just one element? If I had I'd go the source as saw it would be George Lucas.

Sorry George I love you for your contributions to my childhood and film history... no one will ever doubt your imagination but you werent the right person to helm a project w/ such high expectations that even the maestro himself couldn't deliver.

 

Darth Maul should be a villain for the whole trilogy.


I love these movie, but even as a 6yr old it really pissed me off that Lucas killed him in the first movie.
Maul had such a aura to him even tho he had like 2 min of screentime.

 

He should have been "the Phantom Menace" with the reveal he worked for Palps much later.
I like Dooku and all but really, it's probably better if it's just Maul again there IMO

 

I would have characterized Anakin Skywalker more closely to what we see in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The way I see it, the Anakin in the films and the Anakin in the show are practically different people in my eyes.

The Anakin in the films isn’t really a sympathetic character, excluding Episode 1 where he’s a generic kid. His downfall is supposed to be tragic, but since the audience forms no connection to him, the execution falls flat. As it stands, movie Anakin advances after Padme range from awkward to creepy, he probably got the worst dialogue out of any character from any of the films, we never see him doing anything heroic, and he willingly slaughters an entire village of men, women, and children before he even turns to the dark side. We also don’t see enough of Anakin and Obi-Wan being friends, which is unfortunate since their relationship is one of the most important in the entire franchise.

Compare all of that to Clone Wars Anakin. We get to see him being heroic and selfless, as a Jedi should be, but we see him straying further and further from that and ultimately coming closer to the dark side. His good traits endear him to the audience and makes his ultimate downfall much more impactful to the audience. He has growing darkness within him but we never see him doing anything outright evil before his turn like we do in the movies. TCW Anakin is also infinitely more charismatic and his friendship with Obi-Wan actually feels genuine. When I think of Anakin Skywalker, I almost exclusively think of Matt Lanter’s portrayal of the character.

Now I’ll admit that TCW Anakin has an unfair advantage compared to movie Anakin as he did have seven seasons worth of development and screen time, but I don’t feel like that excuses what, in my opinion, is a poor characterization of Anakin in the Prequel Trilogy.

 

For me the prequels were pretty much George Lucas making the exodus in space but he made a lot of twists to try and through people off many of these twist were not for the best i'm not saying all of them but everyone's surprise at Darth Vader being Luke's dad and it being so big inspired George Lucas to put to many unnecessary twists in his prequel trilogy I guess when you look at it that way it was all our faults. The best twist was the queen and the handmaid. And the worst was Anakin telling obi wan you're like a father to me he wasn't they were more like brothers.

 

In the empire strikes back Luke said when he was looking for yoda that he was a great warrior how can you be a great warrior and not ever fight. When he said war doesn't make one great he was not saying he never fought he was just saying violence isn't the only solution to a problem.

 

Others have touched on this above, but I think Anakin could have been better developed in Episode 1. We did start to see noticeable cracks in his personality in Ep 2, but I think we should've started to see that right from the beginning. He seemed a bit too sweet and innocent in Ep 1 compared to what he eventually became. I'm guessing that the contrast there was deliberate, to make his fall to the dark side all the more tragic by showing how noble and kind-hearted he was in the beginning. But even with his kind temperament, as a child we should've still seen glimmers of his dark potential, even if they were subdued. Overall I think the Clone Wars series caught a better balance of showing Anakin as openly heroic but still noticeably flawed.

 

Getting rid of Episode 1 entirely would be my answer but I don't know if that's cheating the system. Over the past year or so my opinion on the movie has become a lot more positive but still feel a lot of it is inconsequential to the rest of the saga.

If that is cheating the system, I would then choose to just give more time to Padme. I think getting her point of view with a few things in the prequels, especially in ROTS would be fascinating.

 

I would change Jar Jar being held responsible for Palpatine's rise to power. It felt like Lucas caved in to pressure from all the haters with that decision, and didn't even give the character any dialogue in Episode III.

 

I would’ve fired the person behind the script & had it rewritten.

Show more elements of Anakins anger & development into the darkside. They basically flipped a switch and hes like ok I’m a sith now.

I revised this script suggestion for Attack of the Clones / Sith during the factory sequence.

Attack of the Clones

In previous meetings Palpatine would suggest the jedi way wasn’t strong enough to protect his loved ones. Some day he might have to use abilities the jedi scorn but would that be wrong if he was saving his love? Feeling passion & anger makes you stronger whats wrong with that if it can help save a life ?

During the factory sequence Palpatine & Dooku would engineer it so that Anakin would have no choice but use darkside abilities. Anakin would be captured & Amidala about to be incinerated in the pot like in the movie.

Numerous droids and Genosians would be holding Anakin mocking him as he watches helpless. As the molten liquid is about to drop Anakin gives in to his anger, ( queue Vaders theme from Empire Strikes Back when he fights Luke ) yelling NOOOO he suddenly crushes the Genosians holding him, stands snarling and blasts the rest with force lightning. Then pushes the pot down and hands her a weapon, she notices his eyes are slightly glowing and hes totally enraged. She never saw what happened being in the large pot but surveys the damage, burnt and smoking corpses Genosians & droids everywhere Amidala whispers “what did you do ?”

“What I had to,” Anakin snarls, “ What I must do.”

What follows would be wholesale slaughter as Anakin just goes berserk. Elsewhere in the complex Obi Wan is detained in a shielded room but hears distant explosions & alarms start to sound. The power cuts and he’s able to get free and immediately senses Anakins intense anger... and the darkside of the force.

Short version, Obi Wan witnesses Anakin massacring Genosians using the darkside of the force but shows up and talks Anakin down. Promises to not say anything because he’d be kicked out of the jedi order. That he will help and trust him.

They get captured again the small battle happens at the end.

Queue third movie, Anakin still meeting with Palpatine who suggests Obi Wan will betray him he knows your more powerful. Anakin doesn’t believe this but hes called to the jedi council. Meets with Amidala who unbeknownst to him was already meeting with Obi Wan to discuss what she saw Anakin do and shes worried about him. Anakin is slightly annoyed and suspicious at this the two meeting in secret. She suggests it must be Palpatine & Obi Wan suddenly puts the pieces together. Anakin gets angry and disagrees.

They leave for meeting with Council.

He arrives with Obi Wan who warns him about Palpatine. Anakin brushes it off. Says he doesn’t know what the meeting is about Anakin thinks hes being inducted into Jedi Council as a master.

They walk in and Yoda pulls Anakins saber away with the force finds he’s restrained. Yoda turns and activates a viewscreen. They watch video of Anakin fully given to the darkside slicing down everything in his path using force lightning...”

Yoda comments the video was sent by an anonymous user ( Palpatine in reality) and without allowing explanation Yoda votes Anakin out of the Jedi banished. Anakin looks to Obi Wan who says nothing and all the other masters agree.

Anakin gets banished from the jedi order his saber taken hes placed in restraining bolts and taken away. Obi Wan pleads for his friend to no avail and brings up Palpatine Yoda acknowledges this.

Anakin is being shuttled away in defeat when it gets attacked. Clones board the ship and tell Anakin to follow. They take him to Palpatine who reveals his true identity. He lies saying all he ever wanted was to help he tried warning him about the jedi and obi wan.

The jedi show up like in the movie, Anakin is subdued while other masters fight Palpatine. As Windu is about to strike him down suddenly he can’t talk, he clutches his throat and lifts in the air by Anakin whose eyes now glow with the dark side. Palpatine force lightning himout the window and queue the apprentice bit rise Darth Vader and Order 66.