Constantinople
Banned
AHC: Star Wars Episode I is Good
- Thread starter John Fredrick Parker
- Start date
I still see this as running counter to the spirit of Star Wars. Lynch is an excellent director, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he's right right for this kind of movie. These are films that every generation should be able to enjoy. Not super complicated or deep, just fun, interesting, and compelling stories and characters that the audience can relate to. I think that Spielberg fits the bill here much better.
That's exactly what I'm saying. I don't see the Star Wars prequels being better films unless Lucas hires Spielberg. I'm not saying it's likely, I'm just saying it would be preferable.
-Jar Jar dies a heroic death to save Anakin at the end of the movie, make him a terribly tragic character. Maybe weave that into how peace is made between the Gungans and Naboo people
-Have the Trade Federation be more martial and relaxed instead of coming off as a bad Japanese stereotype. Make them more like Mafiosi perhaps
-Let Anakin go nuts against another kid at the Pod Racer circuit for insulting his mother, maybe only *percieved* on Anakin's part. For extra points have his rage fuel his Jedi reflexes. Make sure the audience knows Darth Vader is already within him.
-Make Obi-Wan less whiny/elitist and more somber/disciplined. Maybe a by-the-book paladin who follows the rules too closely for his own good.
-Increase Anakin to age 10-12 and make him exceptionally talented with machines to the point of limiting his social skills and making him picked on by the other kids. All they do is add fuel to the fire...maybe in part III flash back to this when the younglings scene occurs...
-Have the Trade Federation be more martial and relaxed instead of coming off as a bad Japanese stereotype. Make them more like Mafiosi perhaps
-Let Anakin go nuts against another kid at the Pod Racer circuit for insulting his mother, maybe only *percieved* on Anakin's part. For extra points have his rage fuel his Jedi reflexes. Make sure the audience knows Darth Vader is already within him.
-Make Obi-Wan less whiny/elitist and more somber/disciplined. Maybe a by-the-book paladin who follows the rules too closely for his own good.
-Increase Anakin to age 10-12 and make him exceptionally talented with machines to the point of limiting his social skills and making him picked on by the other kids. All they do is add fuel to the fire...maybe in part III flash back to this when the younglings scene occurs...
Rubicon
Banned
Trainwreck is the word that pops into my head, interesting to watch, once, from far, far away and then best forgotten.How...how could it have been bad!?! It would have been brilliant!
I am reading this and I am reminded of an idea that I once have for an EU-inclusive trilogy of trilogies. I am going from memory, so I may have unintentionally added a book or two, but it would have worked something like this:
Ep.I: Cloak of Deception. Introduces Obi-wan, Qui-gon, Yoda, the Council, the Trade Federation and Palpatine. Also shows Palpatine manipulating the Senate and creating a manufactured scandal around Chancellor Valorum. Shows Obi-wan hunting Darth Maul.
Ep. II: The Phantom Menace. Introduces Anakin and shows Palpatine manipulating his way into becoming the Chancellor of the Republic. Palpatine engineers the Blockade Crisis. Qui-gon and Obi-wan encounter Anakin. Darth Maul kills Qui-gon.Obi-wan kills Darth Maul. The Jedi Council instructs Obi-wan to begin Anakin's training.
Ep. III: Rouge Planet. Obi-wan training Anakin. The first hints of tension between Anakin and Obi-wan.
Ep. IV: The Approaching Storm. Introduces Count Dooku. Hints at dissatisfaction among the member worlds of the Republic. Shadowy forces are engineering a civil war.
Ep. V: Attack of the Clones. The Trade Federation engineers an attempt on Padme's life. Anakin is assigned to escort Padme back to Naboo. Obi-wan investigates alterations to records in the Temple archives. The start of the Clone Wars.
Ep. VI: Labyrinth of Evil. The Jedi Council attempts to track down the mysterious Sith Lord.
Ep. VII: Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine is taken "hostage." Anakin kills Dooku. Obi-wan kills General Grevious Palpatine is revealed to be Darth Sidious. The Republic falls, the Jedi are destroyed and Anakin turns to the Dark Side. Luke and Leia are born on Polis Massa
Ep. VIII: The Rise of Darth Vader. The survivors of Order 66 gather together in an attempt to combat the Empire. Darth Vader stops their uprising before it can gather steam. Foreshadows the emergence of the Rebel Alliance.
Ep. IX: A New Hope. Introduces Luke, Han, Chewy and Leia. Luke's home on Tattooine is destroyed by stormtroopers. Luke discovers that he is descended from Anakin Skywalker, who was murdered by Darth Vader. Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star. The Rebels win the Battle of Yavin.
Ep. X: The Empire Strikes Back. The Imperials win the Battle of Hoth. The Rebels flee Hoth. Luke travels to Dagobagh to train with Master Yoda. Han, Leia, Chewy and the droids have a series of misadventures while trying to evade the Imperial fleet. They eventually make it to Bespin, where they are betrayed by Han's old friend, Lando Calrissian. Han is frozen in carbonite and sent to Jabba the Hutt. Luke duels Vader and discovers that Vader is his father. There are hints that Leia may be Force sensitive.
Ep. XI: Return of the Jedi. The Imperials are building a second Death Star in orbit around Endor. Luke, Lando, Leia, Chewy and the droids rescue Han from Jabba's palace. Leia strangles Jabba. Luke returns to Dagabagh to finish his training. Luke discovers that Leia is his sister. Han, Luke and Leia lead a Rebel strikeforce on the surface of Endor to destroy the sheild generator protecting the Death Star. Luke allows himself be captured. He is taken aboard the Death Star where he is brought before Vader and the Emperor. The Rebel fleet begins its attack on the Death Star, which is the lynch pin of an Imperial trap. Han and the Rebel commandos eventually force their way into the bunker and destroy the sheild generator, allowing the Rebel fleet to attack the Death Star. Luke is goaded into attacking Vader, who is eventually subdued. Vader throws the Emperor down the core shaft. Lando and Wedge fly into the Death Star and destroy the reactor. Vader dies as a result of his injures. Luke escapes the Death Star. The Rebels win the Battle of Endor. The Empire is toppled and the New Republic is founded.
Ep.I: Cloak of Deception. Introduces Obi-wan, Qui-gon, Yoda, the Council, the Trade Federation and Palpatine. Also shows Palpatine manipulating the Senate and creating a manufactured scandal around Chancellor Valorum. Shows Obi-wan hunting Darth Maul.
Ep. II: The Phantom Menace. Introduces Anakin and shows Palpatine manipulating his way into becoming the Chancellor of the Republic. Palpatine engineers the Blockade Crisis. Qui-gon and Obi-wan encounter Anakin. Darth Maul kills Qui-gon.Obi-wan kills Darth Maul. The Jedi Council instructs Obi-wan to begin Anakin's training.
Ep. III: Rouge Planet. Obi-wan training Anakin. The first hints of tension between Anakin and Obi-wan.
Ep. IV: The Approaching Storm. Introduces Count Dooku. Hints at dissatisfaction among the member worlds of the Republic. Shadowy forces are engineering a civil war.
Ep. V: Attack of the Clones. The Trade Federation engineers an attempt on Padme's life. Anakin is assigned to escort Padme back to Naboo. Obi-wan investigates alterations to records in the Temple archives. The start of the Clone Wars.
Ep. VI: Labyrinth of Evil. The Jedi Council attempts to track down the mysterious Sith Lord.
Ep. VII: Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine is taken "hostage." Anakin kills Dooku. Obi-wan kills General Grevious Palpatine is revealed to be Darth Sidious. The Republic falls, the Jedi are destroyed and Anakin turns to the Dark Side. Luke and Leia are born on Polis Massa
Ep. VIII: The Rise of Darth Vader. The survivors of Order 66 gather together in an attempt to combat the Empire. Darth Vader stops their uprising before it can gather steam. Foreshadows the emergence of the Rebel Alliance.
Ep. IX: A New Hope. Introduces Luke, Han, Chewy and Leia. Luke's home on Tattooine is destroyed by stormtroopers. Luke discovers that he is descended from Anakin Skywalker, who was murdered by Darth Vader. Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star. The Rebels win the Battle of Yavin.
Ep. X: The Empire Strikes Back. The Imperials win the Battle of Hoth. The Rebels flee Hoth. Luke travels to Dagobagh to train with Master Yoda. Han, Leia, Chewy and the droids have a series of misadventures while trying to evade the Imperial fleet. They eventually make it to Bespin, where they are betrayed by Han's old friend, Lando Calrissian. Han is frozen in carbonite and sent to Jabba the Hutt. Luke duels Vader and discovers that Vader is his father. There are hints that Leia may be Force sensitive.
Ep. XI: Return of the Jedi. The Imperials are building a second Death Star in orbit around Endor. Luke, Lando, Leia, Chewy and the droids rescue Han from Jabba's palace. Leia strangles Jabba. Luke returns to Dagabagh to finish his training. Luke discovers that Leia is his sister. Han, Luke and Leia lead a Rebel strikeforce on the surface of Endor to destroy the sheild generator protecting the Death Star. Luke allows himself be captured. He is taken aboard the Death Star where he is brought before Vader and the Emperor. The Rebel fleet begins its attack on the Death Star, which is the lynch pin of an Imperial trap. Han and the Rebel commandos eventually force their way into the bunker and destroy the sheild generator, allowing the Rebel fleet to attack the Death Star. Luke is goaded into attacking Vader, who is eventually subdued. Vader throws the Emperor down the core shaft. Lando and Wedge fly into the Death Star and destroy the reactor. Vader dies as a result of his injures. Luke escapes the Death Star. The Rebels win the Battle of Endor. The Empire is toppled and the New Republic is founded.
Snake Featherston
Banned
To some extent it really can't be all *that* much better. Lucas's plots and characters were wooden, the dialogue relatively terrible, and Fandom Amnesia will make this stand out in the new trilogy overshadowing the issues with the old one.
Just hire better writers who keep Lucas in check. The only real problem with the prequels is the writing, the originals had concepts just as silly, but they were written well, and that's what matters.
Also, that ten year plot gap between Episodes I and II....that needs to go. Episode I is in fact rendered almost completely unnecessary; Anakin and Obi-Wan are pretty much totally different characters, the Anakin-Padme thing just starts over from scratch and then they get rushed into marrying each other by the end, and the whole Naboo blockade has little to do with the greater plot of the fall of the Republic and the fall of Anakin Skywalker.
The original trilogy tells a tight, cohesive story; Episode I needs to be tied in more properly to Episodes II and III. Count Dooku, I think, could be introduced in this new Episode I - not as a main villain or anything, just making enough of an appearance so that when his name keeps getting thrown around for the first half of Episode II, it will actually mean something to the viewer.
As the excellent Plinkett reviews pointed out, the amount of lightsaber bullshit going on needs to get cut WAY down. Count the number of times its used in the original trilogy:
- Obi-Wan shows the lightsaber to Luke for the first time
- The arm slicing in the cantina
- Luke is practicing with it on the ship
- The duel with Darth Vader and Obi-Wan
- The Hoth scenes (Luke cutting himself down from the ceiling, Han cutting open the tauntaun, Luke cutting into the AT-AT)
- The imaginary encounter with Vader in the cave
- Luke and Darth Vader's duel
- The battle on Jabba's sail barge
- The speeder bike chases on Endor
- Luke's final duel with Vader
Now contrast that with the prequels:
- More than a dozen different scenes cutting battle droids apart throughout the movie
- Cutting through the door on the ship
- Lighting them up when the gas gets pumped in
- Getting chased by the STAPs in the woods on Naboo
- Duel with Darth Maul on Tatooine
- More battle droid slicing
- The longer duel with Maul
And it just increases exponentially in the other two. Lucas should have taken some advice from fucking Yoda and realized he does not need the weapons being pulled out every other scene to make a Star Wars movie.
If he was going back and filming the originals this way, Episode IV would have started with Darth Vader cutting down all the rebels on Tantive IV with his lightsaber, then Obi-Wan Kenobi saves Luke from the Sand People by slicing them all to bits, then Obi-Wan goes on a rampage slashing his way through every single stormtrooper on the Death Star to get to the core, while Luke cuts the garbage squid to bits and slices an escape route through the compactor walls, and then Obi-Wan has a ten minute, five location duel scene with Darth Vader. Which in summary, would make the movie terrible.
You know that sequence on the Death Star where Luke and Han are disguised as the stormtroopers and there's the very memorable scene with Han trying to bullshit away the firefight over the radio?
Do you realize there is literally not one sequence like that in the prequels at all? Every action scene with the main characters involves lighstabers and a fuckload of choreography and stuntwork that makes it unbelievable. The gladiator arena scene with the beasts is the one exception and definitely one of the better ones from the prequels, yet it still feels too choreographed to feel real compared to the Pit of Carkoon fight, which was so great because it felt like the cluster fuck of an actual battle.
Compare the speeder bike chase through the woods in ROTJ with the airspeeder chase in Attack of the Clones. The Endor one is far simpler, seemingly far less "intense"...yet it's by miles ahead the better and more entertaining scene. It was believable, because it was essentially a motorcycle chase, a scifi Indiana Jones thing. If it had been filmed by Episode II standards, it would have involved Luke jumping off his bike 30 feet into the air to swing off a vine and land balanced on his feet on those prongs in front of the other bike and then cut off the stormtroooper's head with his lightsaber. And it would be a far worse scene.
Actually, out of all the action sequences in the prequels, the one which feels the most real, at least to me, was the Podracing. The visuals are great and nothing too ridiculous is going on. Yes, I can think of the guy whose Pod doesn't start and blows up and the one who takes his arms off the steering wheel and crashes into the stalactice, but I'll give those a pass. It's like the Wilhelm Scream. These aren't movies that take themselves 100% seriously.
Anyway, the Podracing is awesome because it actually feels dangerous. This is not like the scenes where blaster bolts get batted away effortlessly by the hundreds and two Jedi wave their lightsabers in circles for two minutes doing backflips off the walls. It feels like chariot racing, the classic Roman bloodsport where at any moment you might fall off and crash and be crushed to pulp under the hooves of your competetitors' teams. Its chariot racing with 10,000 hp jet engines instead of horses. This kind of thing where Lucas combines something real that you know with something fantastic and impossible, is what I consider Lucas's greatest talent: he's hit and miss as all hell, but you look at the hits - the pirate barge in the desert, Monstro the Whale in an asteroid, the Venetian gondolas around Cloud City, the hovering motorcycles flying through the woods, the World War dogfighting in space - those are images people don't forget.
So fixing the superficial things like making Jar-Jar cool or gone and making Anakin the right age will not save the movie if larger issues like these are not addressed.
The original trilogy tells a tight, cohesive story; Episode I needs to be tied in more properly to Episodes II and III. Count Dooku, I think, could be introduced in this new Episode I - not as a main villain or anything, just making enough of an appearance so that when his name keeps getting thrown around for the first half of Episode II, it will actually mean something to the viewer.
As the excellent Plinkett reviews pointed out, the amount of lightsaber bullshit going on needs to get cut WAY down. Count the number of times its used in the original trilogy:
- Obi-Wan shows the lightsaber to Luke for the first time
- The arm slicing in the cantina
- Luke is practicing with it on the ship
- The duel with Darth Vader and Obi-Wan
- The Hoth scenes (Luke cutting himself down from the ceiling, Han cutting open the tauntaun, Luke cutting into the AT-AT)
- The imaginary encounter with Vader in the cave
- Luke and Darth Vader's duel
- The battle on Jabba's sail barge
- The speeder bike chases on Endor
- Luke's final duel with Vader
Now contrast that with the prequels:
- More than a dozen different scenes cutting battle droids apart throughout the movie
- Cutting through the door on the ship
- Lighting them up when the gas gets pumped in
- Getting chased by the STAPs in the woods on Naboo
- Duel with Darth Maul on Tatooine
- More battle droid slicing
- The longer duel with Maul
And it just increases exponentially in the other two. Lucas should have taken some advice from fucking Yoda and realized he does not need the weapons being pulled out every other scene to make a Star Wars movie.
If he was going back and filming the originals this way, Episode IV would have started with Darth Vader cutting down all the rebels on Tantive IV with his lightsaber, then Obi-Wan Kenobi saves Luke from the Sand People by slicing them all to bits, then Obi-Wan goes on a rampage slashing his way through every single stormtrooper on the Death Star to get to the core, while Luke cuts the garbage squid to bits and slices an escape route through the compactor walls, and then Obi-Wan has a ten minute, five location duel scene with Darth Vader. Which in summary, would make the movie terrible.
You know that sequence on the Death Star where Luke and Han are disguised as the stormtroopers and there's the very memorable scene with Han trying to bullshit away the firefight over the radio?
Do you realize there is literally not one sequence like that in the prequels at all? Every action scene with the main characters involves lighstabers and a fuckload of choreography and stuntwork that makes it unbelievable. The gladiator arena scene with the beasts is the one exception and definitely one of the better ones from the prequels, yet it still feels too choreographed to feel real compared to the Pit of Carkoon fight, which was so great because it felt like the cluster fuck of an actual battle.
Compare the speeder bike chase through the woods in ROTJ with the airspeeder chase in Attack of the Clones. The Endor one is far simpler, seemingly far less "intense"...yet it's by miles ahead the better and more entertaining scene. It was believable, because it was essentially a motorcycle chase, a scifi Indiana Jones thing. If it had been filmed by Episode II standards, it would have involved Luke jumping off his bike 30 feet into the air to swing off a vine and land balanced on his feet on those prongs in front of the other bike and then cut off the stormtroooper's head with his lightsaber. And it would be a far worse scene.
Actually, out of all the action sequences in the prequels, the one which feels the most real, at least to me, was the Podracing. The visuals are great and nothing too ridiculous is going on. Yes, I can think of the guy whose Pod doesn't start and blows up and the one who takes his arms off the steering wheel and crashes into the stalactice, but I'll give those a pass. It's like the Wilhelm Scream. These aren't movies that take themselves 100% seriously.
Anyway, the Podracing is awesome because it actually feels dangerous. This is not like the scenes where blaster bolts get batted away effortlessly by the hundreds and two Jedi wave their lightsabers in circles for two minutes doing backflips off the walls. It feels like chariot racing, the classic Roman bloodsport where at any moment you might fall off and crash and be crushed to pulp under the hooves of your competetitors' teams. Its chariot racing with 10,000 hp jet engines instead of horses. This kind of thing where Lucas combines something real that you know with something fantastic and impossible, is what I consider Lucas's greatest talent: he's hit and miss as all hell, but you look at the hits - the pirate barge in the desert, Monstro the Whale in an asteroid, the Venetian gondolas around Cloud City, the hovering motorcycles flying through the woods, the World War dogfighting in space - those are images people don't forget.
So fixing the superficial things like making Jar-Jar cool or gone and making Anakin the right age will not save the movie if larger issues like these are not addressed.
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I'd do this
Episode I: Clone Wars are ongoing, and this is in the frey.
Episode II: Clone wars wrapping up or over (better the latter; let the first movie be the end of the war). Palpatine rises to power.
Episode III: Vader, the Empire, etc consolidate power and eliminate Jedi, and Vader becomes Vader.
Rule of writing: Start as close to the action as possible.
Episode I: Clone Wars are ongoing, and this is in the frey.
Episode II: Clone wars wrapping up or over (better the latter; let the first movie be the end of the war). Palpatine rises to power.
Episode III: Vader, the Empire, etc consolidate power and eliminate Jedi, and Vader becomes Vader.
Rule of writing: Start as close to the action as possible.
I like the idea of Anakin being trained by more than just obi-wan, but maybe still include Obi-wan as the primary teacher.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Just a reminder -- I'm looking for a version of EI and the original trilogy that could emerge the same time as OTL w a PoD in 1996. That means that Episode I has roughly Tge same kind of narrative as OTL, or at least the same start in terms of where to start the larger narrative (Obi-one meeting Anakin for the first time, Naboo crisis, etc)...
Sean Mulligan
Banned
What does everyone have against a 9 year old Anakin? Young Anakin's innocence makes his turn to the Dark side more tragic and makes it easier for people to sympathize with him. I also think Quigon is a great character and I the Podrace announcers were funny and sounded like sports announcers are supposed to sound like. Making Anakin older would also mean throwing out the contrast between the old Jedi Order with Jedi being raised from a very young age and forbidden to form attachments with Luke Skywalker who saved his father from the Darkside and in the EU built a Jedi Order where many of the students started their training as adults and the Jedi including Luke were allowed to have families.
sharlin
Banned
'What does everyone have against a 9 year old Anakin?'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3IJQXwah0E
and 'I've been wondering! What are Midi-clor-ines!?' You might as well have a great big flashing sign behind him going 'PLOT DEVICE PLOT DEVICE' at that point.
Hamstrung by terrible lines it just seemed the kid could not act.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3IJQXwah0E
and 'I've been wondering! What are Midi-clor-ines!?' You might as well have a great big flashing sign behind him going 'PLOT DEVICE PLOT DEVICE' at that point.
Hamstrung by terrible lines it just seemed the kid could not act.
I agree. They could have got Hailey Joel Osment. I wonder if he auditioned for it.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Well, that's more a casting/directing issue than a plot issue -- though speaking of which...
He did. Didn't get a callback. Yes, really.