What one element would you change of the Prequels?

There're a plethora of bad decisions I wish could have been reversed but since you'e asking for only 1 change...
DARTH MAUL - I'd keep him as the only Sith apprentice throughout the trilogy, feature him as Palpatine's true
executioner, develop his story, give him ulterior motives, have him turn on the Emperor (thus developing a natural
necessity for a new henchman, Vader)

 

Wauw.. many Great ideas!

I don't really know IF i Can pick only one thing..

But Darth Maul definitely, he was way to Awesome to be killed off that soon and that easy.. as many others before me has already said, he should have lived through the trilogy and become the badass Sith he had potential to be, after all he might be the coolest character of the PT ..

On the other hand, Jar Jar was terrible, and the story might have been more likeable if bad attempts of this sort of humor, had been left out.. same goes for the C3PO scene in AOTC.. seriously what was GL smoking???

Then again we had some poor dialogues, some less than impressive acting..

Some romantic scenes that didn't serve their purpose!! Like at all.. they were terrible..

We had an age difference between Anakin and Padme that some people dislike? And I agree, even though it's "only" like 6 years or so?

But yeah.. they could have put ep.1 and ep 2 together as ep 1.. sort of.. I mean they could have started with making Anakin a bit older when we first meet him, build on the brother like connection between him and Obi-Wan and maybe slowly build the romantic aura around Anakin and padme in what should have been a better Ep 1 .. and then let us see a full Jedi hero experience in Ep 2, build even more in the relationships between characters.. in an not so awkward way.. so that we would love the characters even more by the time of Ep3 where Anakin ultimately will turn to the dark side..

That said: I realm the like the prequels!! All of them.. yes I wanted to change quite a few things.. less CGI, better dialogue, better acting, better executed story, more Darth Maul! And so on...

But yeah, they are as they were made! We can't change them! But after looking at some of these ideas.. let's just say wauw! We could have made these movies quite great haha

 

The one change I would have made is for GL to bring other directors in to help him curate what he was trying to do.

I like the PT but there are so many things wrong with it. I just watch them to have fun and try not to take it so seriously. Watching them with the mindset that they are live action cartoons makes it easier

 

One pivotal rule holds true for the entire Lucas/Star Wars oeuvre: Never, never create a character, especially an antagonist, with a gorgeous costume and fantastic moves, unless you intend to develop him. The fans will fall in love, then pine away when you kill the character prematurely. Darth Maul was fantastic not just for the makeup, lightsaber and brilliant choreography, but for the feral creature beaming forth from Ray Park's eyes. I do not know what his voice acting is like, but he created something so interesting that it forced a highly unlikely resurrection in The Clone Wars cartoon. In the OT, Boba Fett had maybe 3 lines, but he has legions of fans. Even Darth Vader was underdeveloped during the OT, though that was understandably meant to keep him mysterious. OK, that's all.

 

Re-watching the OT I could never get what made Boba so popular with the fans. LoL
He's just a side dude who intercepts already captured & frozen Solo.

In the PT I have to give thumbs up to Temuera Morrison for his excellent portrayal of Jango!
I really enjoy his short tense exchange with Obi Wan in his quarters with young Boba.

 

I think the reason Boba is so popular is because he is mysterious and he looks awesome. Same with Maul.

 

@Cole Perhaps, but at least Maul was developed enough for a few tense moments while Boba is never even explored visually. He is the focus of attention for maybe 2 or 3 shots in the OT... Sure his outfit was awesome when seeing those films as a kid, but don't recall giving his character much consideration.

 

I get what you're saying. But the little bit of dialog he got. "He's no good to me dead". Saying that to Vader like he's not even the slightest bit scared of him. Vader pointing at him and saying "No disintigrations". Those are two pretty darn intriguing lines that let you know this guy is a known badass.

 

I'd have had Anakin in The Phantom Menace the same age as Luke in A New Hope. And he would already be a Jedi Padawan.

 

I would tone the love story WAY down.

 

I'd just write it well.

 

@Fiddlestyx I always felt the love story was a central theme of the trilogy and always wondered how the trilogy would look if it was done extremely well.... particularly the latter dark moments, the frustration and anger.

 

@Ben_Kenobi The love story was definitely a central theme, it defined what Anakin went through and gave up. It all just seemed too mushy to me, Anakin came across as a whiny little brat (I'd like to use a different word in place of brat).
It could be possible to do the love story "extremely well", but they did the exact opposite of that. Star Wars didn't need lovers frolicking in a meadow.
I guess I would feel differently if ep. 1,2 and 3 had come first, but knowing Vader first, I just don't think I can accept who he once was, because of the way he was portrayed in the PT. The way I feel isn't necessarily right, it's just my opinion.
In my mind, they took the original bad-ass and turned him into a pansy (because of the love story).

 

Anakin should have been older.

It's also pretty ridiculous that Natalie Portman is immune to aging, while Anakin goes from 8 to about 25.

 

This is a rather large (all-encompassing) change, but it has to do with the antagonist of the series; so here it goes.

I would've had Darth Maul remain alive and active for the entire trilogy, maintaining the same role that both Dooku and Grievous played in his substitution -- removing the two latter characters from the films completely.

I'll stop myself from going into a rant or further elaboration, unless requested to do so.

 

This is kind of a cheating answer, but I would have waited until the year 2020 or so to make them, post-Disney deal, and after the sequel trilogy is done and released.
I would much rather have seen the prequels brought to life by the hands of the current team at Disney/Lucasfilm.

 

Just one thing? Well, I don't need to say "the position of Vader's hands on the table in RotS", because they fixed that in the second version of the trailer and stoapped him looking so "fabulous", detracting from his overall, well, self.

I loved the designs of the characters, ships and locations in the PT, so that was fine. I loved the political side of the stories, that was great. I loved certain moments in the movies (the battle between Maul, Jinn and Kenobi - but not the end; the battle on Kashyyk; the massive space battle above Coruscant), so I'd keep those.

What I didn't love was the excessive silly "comedy", definitely Padme and Anakin's unbelievable "love" development, the wooden acting (save for Ray Parks, Ian McDiarmid and Yoda). But only slightly more than those things was the terrible script and dialogue writing. So I would have taken the treatment (by which I mean George's final script) and hired the How It Should Have Ended team, Lawrence Kasdan and Adywan, and got them to complete the script properly.

- The HISHE team needed to be involved to point out all the stupid mistakes:

- Lawrence Kasdan should have been there to give the script a feel more in continuation with the OT.

- Adywan needed to be involved because of his incredible eye for detail and sense of reason. In case you haven't yet seen his work, I can't stress how much you need to go look it up. Here's an example of his work:

 

As I mentioned in introduction thread,
I would made Jar Jar more inteligent and not full retard at least + the dialogues in Hyden Christensen and his acting in Episode 2 are really horrible.
I disliked this Anakin since watching the Episode 2 in cinema and wonder, how he actually isn't that bad in Episode 3.
He is not A+ great actor, but in a movie surounded by people like Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson - just wow.

 

My one thing to change would be a better written and more coherent overall story. A lot of weirdness and even odd acting can be forgiven/made to fit if the story is strong and engaging. To me the PT story feels like a lot of fire-fighting and ad-hoc awesomeness, with only a cassual interest in telling a tale that actually has something to say.

Although the PT is not as bad as some insist, it is not as good as it could, or should be either.

 

I didn't read all the posts yet but I wanted to add that one under-lying point or tone of ROTS, would for Anakin to slowly start to doubt Kenobi & begin to think Obi-Wan had a romantic interest in Padme. (obi-wan)
That slow burn could come to a volcano in the 3rd act climax of ROTS.
The dialogue and rational of Anakin in the climax is way, way off. Kenobi is just like WTF? He also does not seem intimidated or concerned about Anakin's Jedi power.
You also don't clearly see Padme is serious jeopardy or at risk of dying or having her twins die, .

Even dir Kevin Smith railed against those scenes and lines in the 3rd act.