Star Wars Rewrite

[Darth Geoff]

Despite the amazing financial success of the Star Wars prequels, everybody I know thinks that the films were deeply flawed. As far as I'm concerned, I think they were fine for children up to age 12. But I'm not going to go on about how awful they were, I'm going to consider them a work in progress...

In Hollywood, nothing is ever truly "done". Lucas himself demonstrated that with his vicious mangling of A New Hope. I propose to begin repairing what George hath wrought.

I'm going to rewrite the prequel scripts.

I started digging in to Episode I, but after I got about 1/4 of the way into it, I got stuck. I realized that I need to step way back from the actual script and revise the overall story first. And I'd like your help.

Let's start a discussion here, a thoughtful discussion about what worked and what didn't. What was mature storytelling, and what was infantile and insulting. And most importantly, what should stay, what must be cut, and what was missing.

I'll start off with these general statements which are my inspiration for the rewrite:

Jar Jar is out. He'd be a great character on a cheap Saturday morning cartoon, but he had no place in Star Wars.

The most obvious missing character from the prequels: Han Solo. As much as I loved Luke's coming of age story, it was Han that kept the movies moving and interesting. This could be done by a young Obi-Wan, but I think it would be simpler to do a straight substitution of the Jar Jar fiasco with a Han Solo-type character. More discussion on that later.

There is no such thing as a democratically elected Queen. That is easy to fix though. Padme was in her early teens when her parents were assassinated, probably by one of Palpatine's minions. She is about 18 when Ep I begins, and retains full control of Naboo for all three films.

Anakin is the same age as Padme. There needs to be sexual tension between them from the start, just like Han and Leia. 'Nuff said.

Better episode names. The only episode name Lucas ever got right was "The Empire Strikes Back". I think Ep 2 or 3 should be "The Clone Wars". I don't have any better names for the others, but that should come with the rewrite.

The Chosen One. What to do... what to do... Only an idiot could miss the fact that "bringing balance to the Force" might mean wiping out all the good Jedi so that they are "balanced" with the bad. The prophesy needs to be cut or rewritten into something more devious. Maybe even planted by the Sith generations ago.

Midi-chlorians. Out. Gone. Never happened. We need no reason why Jedi can sense the Force. It's mystical.

Enough with the comic relief already! Star Wars is action-drama. Han's dry wit and C-3PO's antics are more than enough to lighten tense moments. We don't need bungling Gungans and goof-ball soldier droids. It's way too obvious George wrote a bunch of this to entertain his kids, but as a child I loved A New Hope. I needed no goofy antics. Star Wars was simply cool. It needs to be that way again.

Anakin's father. Sorry, the immaculate conception story is taken. Think of something else. I'm thinking his dad was a spacer who left Shmi and was never heard from again, adding to Anakin's repressed anger.

Anakin's fall. This will take a lot of thought, but at the very least, we need to see more of his slide. Nobody would go from being a good guy to chopping up kids that quickly. In fact, the whole attack on the Younglings needs to be rethought. It's simply too brutal for where Anakin is at the time. Palpatine could handle that part. I also think that we could see Anakin start training under Palpatine at the end of Ep 2. Palpatine makes it sound like the Jedi are only one school of Force training, and though he is no Jedi, he can teach other skills which could allow Anakin to make full use of his abilities.

These topics and more will be up for discussion, as well as how to integrate the 3 movies into a smooth arc. No detail too small, no super-objective too broad.

Let's get to work.