OK... it was commented on in Spaced (hilariously I might add) and has plagued forums since 1999...

Many of the populace loathes, or at least severely dislikes Eps I and II, so...

Lets say YOU had a time machine and one of those blinky devices from MIB. What would go back and tell Lucas? What storylines would you have had him commit to screen that would have been far less of a disappointment.

For the record... I think the actual PLOT to TPM and ATOC is a superb on going story. I love the Clancy-esq political intrigue and the like. My problem, as has been the problem all along IMHO, is the Lucas can't write decent dialogue for shit!

Kids HATE Jar Jar.

I'd tell him to get a proper director & writer

I think you missed my point... If you could have influeced Lucas whilst he was writing the prequel stories... what would you have changed/added/removed?

I would try to make him forget that such a thing as CG ever existed, and instead remind him of the joy of extras, and men in robot suits. And I would make him have meaner jedis, they are supposed to be fighting for there very existence... perhaps more jedi society backstory, they do kinda skip over the jedi academy, and in the second one, there are suddenly tons of jedi, and then they're gone again.

I think I would have had a lot of the back story of the first one stay the same... getting rid of Jar-Jar and getting a far better actor than Jake Lloyd, of course.

However, for the second installment, I would have had an army of Darth Maul clones. I would have also had Palpatine arrange for Shmi to be killed and make it look like the Jedi were responsible, either directly or indirectly. Have that be the catalyst for the turn to the Dark Side. Sure, you could have had some love back story there, but the end of the movie should have been the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight with movie 3 being totally dedicated to Vader leading the the Sith to destroy the Jedi!

Yeah, more muppets. I'd like to be his editor. I would have told him to cut the whole factory sequence and the bollock cows from AOTC and the midichlorians from TPM. An probably a couple of other piddling details that escape my memory. Other than those bits I like the prequels. Getting rid of Jar Jar would be a mistake.

No it wouldn't, you are wrong. They could have had a jar-jar thing that was more like Han, dashing and a bit of a rouge, insteaad of a useless flappy eared waste of space. He could have had a cool underwater ship with weapons and gadgets to avoid the big underwater monsters. Perhaps the gungun that jar jar knows during the big battle...?

It's not the broad brush of the plot I object to, it's the details.

Midichlorians!? Why?

TPM is essentially resolved by a kid messing around, not knowing what he was doing. You could argue that he is guided by the force, but there are few hints of this in the film: it looks like Anakin saves the day by accident. That doesn't fit well with the heroics in ANH and RotJ, or the downbeat ending of ESB. If Anakin must save the day, he should do so by great effort, and ideally with great sacrifice.

Why have Anakin make C-3PO? At no point in the original films does Darth Vader say, 'Oh, hang on, isn't that the droid I built when I was a kid?'

The whole Kevin the teenager and Queen Cocktease romance in AotC struck me as implausible and rather nauseating.

Both films could be improved greatly by recasting Anakin.

This sounds like I hated the films; I didn't, but they have some big flaws.

I agree with you there 100%. At no point during Anakin's journey in TPM did I feel concerned. When Luke got smashed by the Tuskin Raider, I remember being genuinely scared for Luke. Same with the garbage compactor/escape from the DS and then the assault on the Death Star. Hell, the end "space battle" was a complete let down!



That I have less of a problem with... protocol droids are a model and and, for the most part, look the same. And Vader has never technically been on screen with Threepio EXCEPT when Han is being frozen and he's then strapped to Chewie's back. Vader had other things to worry about there...

Not quite and yes. The love stuff could have worked if it had been written by someone who actually knew how to write romance. After all, you don't spurn someone whilst wearing a fuck-me leather bodice!

As far as recasting... Jake Lloyd yes... However, I will reserve judgement on Hayden until I have seen Jedi. Playing a brat is not easy. Look at Conner in "Angel". I thought Vincent couldn't act to save his life... then I saw him in the following season and he was really good. It's the role, because brats are just hateable!


That's where I am.  As a whole, I enjoyed them.  And I hate them for not being as perfect as they could have been!

I think we essentially agree. However, I think it would be more than a case of rewriting the dialogue. I would like their whole characters to be better developed and more plausible.



Jake Lloyd was just dreadful. Did you see the documentary on the first DVD that described the long search Lucas went through to find him? God only knows what the others were like.

I'm probably being unfair to Christensen. I haven't seen anything else he's done, though, so I judge him on this alone.

Another point, hot really related to the plot. We know that Natalie Portman can act from other films, but she shows little evidence in these. Other actors seem to be rather distant too. I wonder how much this has to do with Lucas doing almost all the backgrounds and half the characters in CGI, leaving the actors nothing to react to.

I know that both Ewan and Liam both said that they hated it, and you could see how much Ewan had improved between films. He was so better able to focus on what he was doing...

I'll still keep my fingers crossed that ROTS is the apology!

I would blank his mind and tell him he had a brainwave to have Iain Banks write the plot and Ridley Scott direct it, then he could just roll around in his big piles of money wooping feebly till the cows come home.

Convince him that prequels are a bad idea altogether.

EDIT unless you're Andy Lau or Alan Mak

You should check out Shattered Glass. He basically plays a whiny little shit in that as well but to maginifcent effect. Little Anakin saving the day by accident was the other thing that bugged me, I knew there was something else.

I've been wanting to see Shattered Glass... I really have to rent that some time.

My better half saw him on stage in Canada. He played a brat there as well. Perhaps he's getting typecast here!

Watching the screen tests of the kids for the role of Anakin in TPM on the dvd you can see a bit of the discussion between Lucas and his staff about who to pick. They use the cringe-inducing dialogue of "are you an angel?" in the screen tests. Jake Lloyd gives a completely wooden performance but there's another kid who actually manages to make the dialogue sound natural. All of the staffers are pushing to hire the other kid but Lucas wants to go for Lloyd saying something along the lines of 'it will be take longer to get the performance out of Lloyd but it'll be worth it in the end'. I sat there wishing he had gone for the other kid instead......

As to other changes, better dialogue, less cgi, no bloody midichlorians and some actual dialogue between Obi-wan & Maul in their duel at the end of TPM. It looked like a great fight because of the technical expertise but it didn't feel like a SW duel because it was silent. There should have been banter between them with stuff like Maul taunting Obi-wan over the death of Qui-gon. Particularly the bit with Obi-wan dangling over the side of the shaft, Maul is in a perfect position to start gloating but says absolutely nothing.

I'd force George to watch DVD's of the entire run of Farscape to show him how well plotted, epic Sci Fi should be done.

I dunno... I think Maul's facial expression was as much taunting that was needed... The look on his face as he paced back and forth before the enegy shield spoke volumes!

But it would have been nice if at the last second, just before he gets chopped in half, he lets his guard down to taunt Obi-Wan about the weakness of the jedis and the strength of the sith and then WHAMMO, get chopped in half you evil red and black freak!

OK... admittedly, that would be cool.

Another thing that I would have added was Qui-Gon in spirit form!

I think that george needed to spend more time on the characterizations, the characters seemed a bit two dimentional. And as ive said before CGI doesnt make a good film. All it can do is enhance a good story.

There is a saying at my filmschool which i think is appropriate

"You can only shine a piece of shit for so long, and in the end its still a piece of shit"

EP I:

Remove:

Jar-Jar,
Obvious Palpetine is the Umpire - look we've got him in a sideshot,
Length of podrace,
Flimsy shooting of the gun Queen (democratically elected too, hmm) Amadala does,
Anakin accidentally being a brilliant pilot and saving the day
Crappy "always 2 there is, nomore, no less" line Yoda does as already mentioned sideshot comes into play,

Add:

Reference to Qui-Gon Gin being a 'grey' Jedi - possible contender for darkside perhaps due to the way the force is not used to its full potential all the time, or seeing it as a superiority right -or sommit,
More Jedi,
Better thru-the-city shots of Courasant (like in ESB on Cloud City-remastered),
A bit of arrogant turmoil between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan,
A bit more edge.

EP II:

Remove:

Jar-Jar,
Mace Windu (Or at least his and all the other Jedi's acting when they are on Geonosis - Lets force push some baddies away really unconvincingly, I wonder who she was sherpa'ing)
The Dawsons Creek script writers for the 'Lovey' bits,
The OC writers for the 'It's all Obi-Wans Fault!!" - angsty bits,
The earwax from Obi-Wans ears outside the nightclub, it takes Anakin twice to tell him that He is a She,
Hayden Christensen as Anakin (and acting),
C3PO getting a soldierbot body and also the lines he must spout when R2 is helping him,
R2D2 FLYING!!!!,
Christopher Lees lightsabre scenes,
The Jedi Council and it's not thinking, yeah that Anny, he's abit off the rails, yeah, lets send him off to Naboo with that questionably aged/sexual attractive Ex-Queen, Lassie that he fancies,

Add:

Humour in the chasing the bounty hunter scene: "Sorry Master....",
Better Jedi,
Clone interaction. esp when they see the rest of the universe,
Cliques of the future Emperors, maybe some Rodian with a red hand mark on his face,
Perhaps a small idication towards Yuuzhan Vong spying,
More of the extreme elements of the dark side

I absolutely hated EP I and thought EP II could have been done better, I am currently condidtioning myself to them so that EP III will not be letting me down,

Sad but true

-m0r

If you shine it long enough it might turn into coal, or a diamond!

Ah, you're all fools. Jar Jar's mint.

I would not have removed Jar-Jar completely... I would have reworked him and given him FAR LESS SCREEN TIME...

I do like the idea of Qui-Gon being a bit darker. Especially with Dooku being his former master and a Sith Apprentice to boot!

Whats the deal with there always being two, no nore no less, how many sith masters are there?? Who turned Dooku and when? The Emporer? Between Mauls Death and the events of film two?
EDIT: And i've played the games, there are tons of sith in there, one for each level. In fact I have to say I PREFER the storyline around Kyle Katarn than the pants amidala/anakin/obi-wan stories.

The 2, no more or less, is at least in the novelisation of TPM. It explains that there were once hundreds of Sith, but they were all so power hungry that they ended up destroying themselves, which makes sense.

And we may find that Ep III answers the Dooku question...

The only 2 part I actually really liked!

It'd been better if Yoda had said

"Hunners' no less, maybe more, always a master and loads of bad assed bastards" -EP I

"Won you think, begin the clone wars have, scuppered we are!" - EP II

Also would add/remove/change EP V

"Never his mind on what he was doin'" - Yoda, sounds to Texan

-m0r

Kyle Katarn was an elite Rebel agent entrusted with some of the most crucial missions of the Rebel Alliance. It was Katarn that single-handedly infiltrated an Imperial installation on Danuta, securing the technical plans of the Empire's Death Star battle station.
A former Imperial, Katarn was born on the Sullustan colony moon of Sulon, living a simple existence as a farmer with his father Morgan. Unaware of his father's Rebel sympathies, Kyle joined the Imperial Academy at Carida. He was indoctrinated and became a decorated Imperial trooper.

While in the Academy, Kyle's father was killed. Official records indicated that the elder Katarn had been murdered by Rebel dissidents. Kyle learned the truth, however, from a Rebel agent named Jan Ors. His father was killed by the Empire for treason. Disgusted with the institution he had joined, Kyle discarded his badges and merits, and cast away his Imperial trappings. He resolved to join the Rebellion.

Kyle became a highly capable and recommended Rebel agent, vouched for by the respected Jan Ors. Kyle drew the attention of no less than Mon Mothma, leader of the Alliance. She entrusted Katarn with that fateful mission to Danuta, and after the Battle of Yavin, Katarn was instrumental in quelling the threat of the Imperial dark trooper project.

Returning to Sulon, Kyle learned that his father had been aiding a refugee effort on the barren world of Ruusan. Morgan had discovered ancient ruins on Ruusan pointing the way to the Valley of the Jedi, the fabled battleground between the ancient Jedi and Sith. The Valley represented a great focal point of energy that if exploited could turn the tide in the perpetual battle between light and dark. Kyle knew that the location of the Valley should never fall into Imperial hands.

Others were already on the path to discovering the Valley, however. The Dark Jedi Jerec and his six henchmen, Gorc, Pic, Maw, Sariss, Boc and Yun, were determined to seize the nexus of power. One by one, Katarn defeated them, though in his aggressive strikes, he came dangerously close to succumbing to the dark side of the Force.

Deep in the Valley of the Jedi, Kyle confronted Jerec, the very man who had killed Morgan Katarn. The two did battle, and when Kyle slew Jerec, he fulfilled an ancient prophecy. The spirits of long-dead Jedi, trapped in the Valley for a thousand years, were finally freed. With this energy unleashed, the Valley of the Jedi's worth as a weapon was effectively eliminated.

Long used to operating independently, Katarn at first refused Luke Skywalker's offer to become a Jedi apprentice. Instead, he continued to serve the Alliance, now the New Republic, on many important missions. After a troubling run-in with the dark side on the forgotten Sith world of Dromund Kaas, Katarn conceded that he would benefit from Skywalker's tutelage, and joined the Jedi Master's fledgling Jedi academy.

Kyle is human male with rugged good looks and an athletic build. He brandishes a green-bladed lightsaber, though he has been known to have access to a veritable arsenal of personal weaponry. He often travels with Jan Ors aboard the battered starship, the Moldy Crow.

Thats an idea, they should have given us some new characters - other than jar jar! Darth Maul, dead, Dooku, dead, qui-gon, dead, mace windu, any ideas...? . Palpatine, old character, anakin, obi-wan, yoda, old charatcers, amidala is a new character, but she is really the only main character of any substance that i can think of who isn't from the later/earlier films.

EDIT: Look, i was reading about a character called Durge and all this backstory is there:

The charismatic Count Dooku lured Durge into his ranks, and the ancient bounty hunter relished an ironic twist in his quest for retribution.

In becoming Dooku's henchman, the bounty hunter was teamed up with Asajj Ventress, a Dark Jedi and commander within the Separatist military.

Durge's army inflicted great damage to the armored vehicles of the Republic army, but Durge was ultimately bested in one-on-one combat with General Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The story is all there, even if Lucas didn't write most of it anymore. How did he make the films so... average.

I have an alternative set of prequel storys all worked out in my head - they don’t include Midichlorians, a pre-pubescent, or a sulky teenage, Anakin, or Jar-Jar Fucking Binks - it's just a story of power and tragedy.

One day I may get around to committing it to paper. You never know, it may be worth reading . . .

Somehow I doubt it . . .