Wall incoming!
Personally, I preferred when the story of Anakin's fall was nothing more than a few conversations between Obi-Wan and Luke. The original trilogy did an excellent job giving us the right amount of information about Vader at the right time, and as a kid, I was never really curious about how he specifically fell to the darkside. That said, it's still fun to imagine how the story could have gone down had Lucas retained the creative integrity of his youth.
I'm going to vomit out some of my ideas of how I would have changed/improved the prequels and I encourage everyone to share their ideas as well. Note that some of these ideas are probably not entirely my own. I won't list any small detail nitpicks, only things that have a detailed alternative.
- Anakin should not have been a child in Episode 1. Ignoring the fact that good child actors are hard to come by, introducing Anakin at such a young age ultimately serves no purpose. Yeah, you get that he's a good pilot (for some reason) and a mechanical genius, but what about his personality? He's 10, he's going to be either annoying or endearing... 10 year olds don't have much else going on in the personality department. The Anakin we meet in Episode 1 has no resemblance to the man he ultimately becomes outside of his piloting skill - and since when was Vader a mechanical genius?
It would have made more sense to make him a teenager or a young adult, maybe close to Luke's age in A New Hope. Give us a likable character whose brash actions and unchecked passion foreshadow his eventual fall. This should be done right off the bat! We shouldn't wait until the next movie to see these signs! Yoda alluding to some cryptic nonsense is telling, not showing!
- Qui-Gon Jinn should not have been Obi-Wan's teacher but his best friend instead, and he should have died either before Episode 1 or at the very start. I'll start with the teacher aspect: As we learn in Empire, Yoda was Obi-Wan's teacher. Why did this suddenly change in the prequels? If we consider Obi-Wan to be one of the most powerful Jedi masters of his era, it makes sense that Yoda would be one of the few Jedi truly capable of helping him wield the power inside him. Considering Yoda's importance throughout the series, it also reinforces their implied bond from the original movies rather than them having a rather boring 'professional' relationship. What purpose does Qui-Gon Jinn honestly serve in this role? He finds Anakin and basically guilts Obi-Wan into training him after his death. Not all that compelling.
So where does that leave Jinn in the story? He could still serve the story as a martyr of sorts. Perhaps he took a pupil before Obi-Wan did - a young zabrak with a lot of potential. Jinn sees the darkness within him and tries to save him from it. Ultimately he fails and is killed by his pupil (due to Palpatine's manipulations). Obi-Wan vows to avenge his fallen friend and tells himself he won't make the same mistake. Enter Anakin, who he is hesitant to take under his wing at first, but ultimately folds as he grows to admire the young man.
Obi-Wan hoping to fill the vacant space in his heart left by Jinn and Anakin seeking a father figure, become teacher and student (which appears to be the arc that Lucas attempted to convey).
- Obi-Wan needs to fail Anakin. In the original trilogy Kenobi implies that he failed Luke's father - that his tutelage wasn't enough to prevent Anakin's fall. Obi-Wan certainly makes some questionable decisions in the prequels, but he never really tangibly fails Anakin. Anakin is manipulated into thinking he his master failed him, sure, but that's not something Obi-Wan would take credit for. So how does he fail him exactly?
Obi-Wan fights against and ultimately expels the darkness inside him throughout the films, but Anakin doesn't see the eventual resolution within Obi-Wan's heart. No, instead he's lead astray by Obi-Wan's actions just as much as he is Palpatine's. In other words, he repeats the mistakes of his father and Palpatine is the X factor that changes the outcome. Obi-Wan's dark side can be explored in several ways (some of which fundamentally change the plot):
A. As mentioned above, Obi-Wan has a vendetta against Jinn's killer (Darth Maul probably), which impairs his judgement and invokes the darkness within him. This can culminate in a final confrontation with Maul where, after a long battle, Obi-Wan finds it within himself to show Maul mercy after his defeat. Maul takes this opportunity to sucker punch Obi-Wan while his guard is down, but before he can kill him Anakin intervenes and defeats him. Though there is an opportunity to, Anakin's anger does not allow Maul mercy. He almost killed his best friend, after all. When he comes to Obi-Wan's side and says, "I did it, Master! I destroyed him! I avenged your friend!" Kenobi suddenly realizes what he'd allowed to happen.
B. (Ties into a below point) Obi-Wan should actively rebel against his master (Yoda's) wishes. Obi-Wan openly defying his master's whim and forging his own misguided path, sows the seeds for Anakin's eventual betrayal.
- The clones should have been the bad guys throughout the whole trilogy. The whole concept of pitching two disposable armies against each other is so asinine I don't even know where to start. How can you expect to invoke any kind of emotional response from your audience if every single person on screen exchanging blaster fire is essentially a living weapon with no unique thoughts, feelings, histories or families? There's no tension.
And that's not even taking into account how utterly stupid it is that Palpatine had not only one but TWO fake-out armies. How about this: the villains (being manipulated by Palpatine) use a clone army to wage war against the Republic. In the first movie we see the peaceful Republic overwhelmed by this terrible force and learn that, "hey, we need an army of our own". Palpy gets executive power and starts a galaxy-wide draft. Now in the next two films we have an army of real people trying to protect their civilization against these godless, faceless and unnatural usurpers. We could have real tension and real non-Jedi characters!
This could also give us a much better set up for the fall of the Jedi. Palpy tricks the senate and general populous into thinking, "gasp, the Jedi were behind the clone army all along", and instead of a mindless clone army marching into the temple to slaughter the jedi you have real people who have suffered from this war taking out all their rage and anxiety on those they believed to be their guardians.
This also makes more sense for the original trilogy. Few if any of the clone troopers are still around for the original movies, and considering how many officers and engineers they have around they must have drafted them at some point. Why not show the Republic truly die and rise again as a fanatical Empire by showing these poor people fight for their freedom, only to have their allegiance betrayed and their ideals twisted. Lucas tried and failed to get this point across. In the end we only really saw Anakin fall. Everyone else just died or was apparently tricked into loving Palpy off-screen.
- Divide the Jedi. I admit, I drew this idea from Kotor (specifically Revan's backstory), but I think it could really work here. The Jedi serve as guardians of the Republic and saviors of the people. They can't stop reminding us that they aren't soldiers, and yet they all end up fighting in the war anyway. So why did they all do it anyway? Why not have them divided on the issue? Truly divided, not just argue about for a second. Yoda, being the leader of the Jedi (and who was implied to be a very peaceful Jedi in the original movies), could have ordered the Jedi not to fight on the front lines and instead focus on doing what he interpreted as protecting the Republic: helping the people through the force (and weeding out the darkness that is shrouding the truth of the matter). Obi-Wan, seeing the carnage first hand, cannot stand for it and condemns his master - leaving with other like minded Jedi to fight in the Clone Wars. Eager to help, Anakin joins his master's side, and takes note of his defiance.
So long as Obi-Wan and Yoda can make amends in a logical way by the end, it could serve to support their relationship in the original trilogy. Obi-Wan's line "Was I so different when you trained me?" would mean even more.
I have a million other ideas, but this post is already long enough. I'll list a few more individual points here and may elaborate on them later:
- Padame should not have been a politician/royalty, but rather a rogue that Anakin grows to admire (serve as a Han of the story - Natalie Portman has Harrison Ford level charisma when she is directed well).
- Bail Organa should have been at least a Lando-level main character (serve as a Leia of the story).
- Scrap Naboo and replace it with Aldaraan for added weight in Episode IV.
- Scrap the stupid emotional aspect of the lightside/darkside dichotomy and keep true to its superior portrayal in the original trilogy.
- Scrap the whole forbidden love subplot and make Anakin's fall purely focused on his paranoia over losing his loved ones and feeling powerless. Obi-Wan's poor example and Palpatine's machinations facilitate his fall from there.
- Scrap Dooku, have Maul survive until Episode 2 at least for the reasons mentioned above and, most importantly, give Palpatine's a mole on the Jedi council. Best candidate for this would be Mace Windu. Other Jedi could comment how he draws his power by teasing the darkside (which is actually canon) not knowing that at some point he did actually go to far and was consumed by the darkside (probably with good intentions originally).
- Anakin's fall shouldn't have been so sudden. Yeah, he snapped a few times before killing the "younglings", but the way his fall to the darkside is portrayed his comically stupid. Have him do more subtle things across all three films (his execution of Dooku was a good example) and the ultimate crime he commits once he's gone full darkside is betraying his former friend and master, Obi-Wan.
- Let Padame die a hero. The who "died from grief" thing is horrendously stupid. She had two babies to take care of. No mother would be so grief stricken by their lovers fall to evil that they would allow themselves to die and abandon her children. She should die ensuring their survival, not on an operating table.
EDIT: My grammar failed me halfway through the post. Fuck it, there's too much to proof XD
Personally, I preferred when the story of Anakin's fall was nothing more than a few conversations between Obi-Wan and Luke. The original trilogy did an excellent job giving us the right amount of information about Vader at the right time, and as a kid, I was never really curious about how he specifically fell to the darkside. That said, it's still fun to imagine how the story could have gone down had Lucas retained the creative integrity of his youth.
I'm going to vomit out some of my ideas of how I would have changed/improved the prequels and I encourage everyone to share their ideas as well. Note that some of these ideas are probably not entirely my own. I won't list any small detail nitpicks, only things that have a detailed alternative.
- Anakin should not have been a child in Episode 1. Ignoring the fact that good child actors are hard to come by, introducing Anakin at such a young age ultimately serves no purpose. Yeah, you get that he's a good pilot (for some reason) and a mechanical genius, but what about his personality? He's 10, he's going to be either annoying or endearing... 10 year olds don't have much else going on in the personality department. The Anakin we meet in Episode 1 has no resemblance to the man he ultimately becomes outside of his piloting skill - and since when was Vader a mechanical genius?
It would have made more sense to make him a teenager or a young adult, maybe close to Luke's age in A New Hope. Give us a likable character whose brash actions and unchecked passion foreshadow his eventual fall. This should be done right off the bat! We shouldn't wait until the next movie to see these signs! Yoda alluding to some cryptic nonsense is telling, not showing!
- Qui-Gon Jinn should not have been Obi-Wan's teacher but his best friend instead, and he should have died either before Episode 1 or at the very start. I'll start with the teacher aspect: As we learn in Empire, Yoda was Obi-Wan's teacher. Why did this suddenly change in the prequels? If we consider Obi-Wan to be one of the most powerful Jedi masters of his era, it makes sense that Yoda would be one of the few Jedi truly capable of helping him wield the power inside him. Considering Yoda's importance throughout the series, it also reinforces their implied bond from the original movies rather than them having a rather boring 'professional' relationship. What purpose does Qui-Gon Jinn honestly serve in this role? He finds Anakin and basically guilts Obi-Wan into training him after his death. Not all that compelling.
So where does that leave Jinn in the story? He could still serve the story as a martyr of sorts. Perhaps he took a pupil before Obi-Wan did - a young zabrak with a lot of potential. Jinn sees the darkness within him and tries to save him from it. Ultimately he fails and is killed by his pupil (due to Palpatine's manipulations). Obi-Wan vows to avenge his fallen friend and tells himself he won't make the same mistake. Enter Anakin, who he is hesitant to take under his wing at first, but ultimately folds as he grows to admire the young man.
Obi-Wan hoping to fill the vacant space in his heart left by Jinn and Anakin seeking a father figure, become teacher and student (which appears to be the arc that Lucas attempted to convey).
- Obi-Wan needs to fail Anakin. In the original trilogy Kenobi implies that he failed Luke's father - that his tutelage wasn't enough to prevent Anakin's fall. Obi-Wan certainly makes some questionable decisions in the prequels, but he never really tangibly fails Anakin. Anakin is manipulated into thinking he his master failed him, sure, but that's not something Obi-Wan would take credit for. So how does he fail him exactly?
Obi-Wan fights against and ultimately expels the darkness inside him throughout the films, but Anakin doesn't see the eventual resolution within Obi-Wan's heart. No, instead he's lead astray by Obi-Wan's actions just as much as he is Palpatine's. In other words, he repeats the mistakes of his father and Palpatine is the X factor that changes the outcome. Obi-Wan's dark side can be explored in several ways (some of which fundamentally change the plot):
A. As mentioned above, Obi-Wan has a vendetta against Jinn's killer (Darth Maul probably), which impairs his judgement and invokes the darkness within him. This can culminate in a final confrontation with Maul where, after a long battle, Obi-Wan finds it within himself to show Maul mercy after his defeat. Maul takes this opportunity to sucker punch Obi-Wan while his guard is down, but before he can kill him Anakin intervenes and defeats him. Though there is an opportunity to, Anakin's anger does not allow Maul mercy. He almost killed his best friend, after all. When he comes to Obi-Wan's side and says, "I did it, Master! I destroyed him! I avenged your friend!" Kenobi suddenly realizes what he'd allowed to happen.
B. (Ties into a below point) Obi-Wan should actively rebel against his master (Yoda's) wishes. Obi-Wan openly defying his master's whim and forging his own misguided path, sows the seeds for Anakin's eventual betrayal.
- The clones should have been the bad guys throughout the whole trilogy. The whole concept of pitching two disposable armies against each other is so asinine I don't even know where to start. How can you expect to invoke any kind of emotional response from your audience if every single person on screen exchanging blaster fire is essentially a living weapon with no unique thoughts, feelings, histories or families? There's no tension.
And that's not even taking into account how utterly stupid it is that Palpatine had not only one but TWO fake-out armies. How about this: the villains (being manipulated by Palpatine) use a clone army to wage war against the Republic. In the first movie we see the peaceful Republic overwhelmed by this terrible force and learn that, "hey, we need an army of our own". Palpy gets executive power and starts a galaxy-wide draft. Now in the next two films we have an army of real people trying to protect their civilization against these godless, faceless and unnatural usurpers. We could have real tension and real non-Jedi characters!
This could also give us a much better set up for the fall of the Jedi. Palpy tricks the senate and general populous into thinking, "gasp, the Jedi were behind the clone army all along", and instead of a mindless clone army marching into the temple to slaughter the jedi you have real people who have suffered from this war taking out all their rage and anxiety on those they believed to be their guardians.
This also makes more sense for the original trilogy. Few if any of the clone troopers are still around for the original movies, and considering how many officers and engineers they have around they must have drafted them at some point. Why not show the Republic truly die and rise again as a fanatical Empire by showing these poor people fight for their freedom, only to have their allegiance betrayed and their ideals twisted. Lucas tried and failed to get this point across. In the end we only really saw Anakin fall. Everyone else just died or was apparently tricked into loving Palpy off-screen.
- Divide the Jedi. I admit, I drew this idea from Kotor (specifically Revan's backstory), but I think it could really work here. The Jedi serve as guardians of the Republic and saviors of the people. They can't stop reminding us that they aren't soldiers, and yet they all end up fighting in the war anyway. So why did they all do it anyway? Why not have them divided on the issue? Truly divided, not just argue about for a second. Yoda, being the leader of the Jedi (and who was implied to be a very peaceful Jedi in the original movies), could have ordered the Jedi not to fight on the front lines and instead focus on doing what he interpreted as protecting the Republic: helping the people through the force (and weeding out the darkness that is shrouding the truth of the matter). Obi-Wan, seeing the carnage first hand, cannot stand for it and condemns his master - leaving with other like minded Jedi to fight in the Clone Wars. Eager to help, Anakin joins his master's side, and takes note of his defiance.
So long as Obi-Wan and Yoda can make amends in a logical way by the end, it could serve to support their relationship in the original trilogy. Obi-Wan's line "Was I so different when you trained me?" would mean even more.
I have a million other ideas, but this post is already long enough. I'll list a few more individual points here and may elaborate on them later:
- Padame should not have been a politician/royalty, but rather a rogue that Anakin grows to admire (serve as a Han of the story - Natalie Portman has Harrison Ford level charisma when she is directed well).
- Bail Organa should have been at least a Lando-level main character (serve as a Leia of the story).
- Scrap Naboo and replace it with Aldaraan for added weight in Episode IV.
- Scrap the stupid emotional aspect of the lightside/darkside dichotomy and keep true to its superior portrayal in the original trilogy.
- Scrap the whole forbidden love subplot and make Anakin's fall purely focused on his paranoia over losing his loved ones and feeling powerless. Obi-Wan's poor example and Palpatine's machinations facilitate his fall from there.
- Scrap Dooku, have Maul survive until Episode 2 at least for the reasons mentioned above and, most importantly, give Palpatine's a mole on the Jedi council. Best candidate for this would be Mace Windu. Other Jedi could comment how he draws his power by teasing the darkside (which is actually canon) not knowing that at some point he did actually go to far and was consumed by the darkside (probably with good intentions originally).
- Anakin's fall shouldn't have been so sudden. Yeah, he snapped a few times before killing the "younglings", but the way his fall to the darkside is portrayed his comically stupid. Have him do more subtle things across all three films (his execution of Dooku was a good example) and the ultimate crime he commits once he's gone full darkside is betraying his former friend and master, Obi-Wan.
- Let Padame die a hero. The who "died from grief" thing is horrendously stupid. She had two babies to take care of. No mother would be so grief stricken by their lovers fall to evil that they would allow themselves to die and abandon her children. She should die ensuring their survival, not on an operating table.
EDIT: My grammar failed me halfway through the post. Fuck it, there's too much to proof XD