Star Wars Rewatch
My whole family has been into Star Wars for longer than any other franchise, including Harry Potter. I remember watching the original trilogy on VHS before the prequels hit theaters. I was nine when The Phantom Menace came out. My youngest brother dressed up as Anakin for Halloween that year. My other brother got tons of Star Wars Lego sets and a collapsible green lightsaber for his birthday. In my teens, I played the pod-racer game on N64 and the utterly fantastic Knights of the Old Republic games on X-Box. Ever since I found out that George Lucas was only going to be involved in Episode VII in an advisory capacity, I've been super excited about it. The day the tickets went on sale and broke ALL the ticket sites, I fought through that madness to procure us five opening weekend tickets.
Now, for some insane reason, the brother with the lightsaber and the Legos, who is a year and a half younger than me, prefers the prequels to the original trilogy (largely because he feels that whatever has the most modern special effects wins by default). I heartily disagree (largely because I feel that whatever has the best writing, acting, directing, practical effects, and creative oversight wins by default). This summer, we agreed that for the sake of Episode VII, we should call a truce and, together, marathon all six movies. Naturally, our younger brother and our parents wanted in too. So yesterday, after we got home from Thanksgiving dinner at my uncle's house, all of us got settled in to begin the marathon. We watched Episodes I and II.
And I have some thoughts. I know several thousand other nerds have already torn these movies apart, but the last time I watched the prequels and actually paid attention was before I even started college. I'm two English degrees later now, and I want to take my shot at them. So I present my suggestions for what could have made these movies good. I'm not talking about minor nit-picks. That list would take hours to write. These are just my ideas for how to eliminate some of the most serious problems.
The Phantom Menace
Now, for some insane reason, the brother with the lightsaber and the Legos, who is a year and a half younger than me, prefers the prequels to the original trilogy (largely because he feels that whatever has the most modern special effects wins by default). I heartily disagree (largely because I feel that whatever has the best writing, acting, directing, practical effects, and creative oversight wins by default). This summer, we agreed that for the sake of Episode VII, we should call a truce and, together, marathon all six movies. Naturally, our younger brother and our parents wanted in too. So yesterday, after we got home from Thanksgiving dinner at my uncle's house, all of us got settled in to begin the marathon. We watched Episodes I and II.
And I have some thoughts. I know several thousand other nerds have already torn these movies apart, but the last time I watched the prequels and actually paid attention was before I even started college. I'm two English degrees later now, and I want to take my shot at them. So I present my suggestions for what could have made these movies good. I'm not talking about minor nit-picks. That list would take hours to write. These are just my ideas for how to eliminate some of the most serious problems.
The Phantom Menace
- This movie needs a protagonist, stat. As it stands, the story follows Qui-Gon the most, but he has no character arc at all, so he doesn't actually qualify as a protagonist. Anakin has a lot of things happen to him, but he also doesn't have an actual character arc AND he shows up a little too late in the game. Padmé isn't the protagonist because not only does she have no character arc, she doesn't even have a personality! Her face might as well be carved out of wood, because she changes her facial expression maybe twice in the entire movie. Obi-Wan spends the entire second act chilling on the Naboo ship, not participating in the story, so he's also disqualified. Of these four almost-but-not-quite protagonists, my top candidates would be Obi-Wan or Padmé. Obi-Wan is the one who already has the closest thing to a character arc even though he didn't get a lot to do, so if more of the story was from his perspective and the arc was developed more, he'd be a fine protagonist. Padmé is a teenage queen struggling to save her people from an organization threatening to crush them unless they enslave themselves to it. That's an enormous burden and therefore a great start for a lead character. For bonus points, it's also an excellent parallel to Leia.
- There is no reason at all for Anakin to be nine years old when we first meet him. He should be sixteen. This would make the "he is too old!" complaint from the Jedi Council actually make sense. It would enable him and Padmé to immediately spark off a strong, hormone-driven attraction (which she, as the queen of an oppressed people, SO does not have time for right now, making it even more interesting). It would make him more believable as a genius mechanic and pilot. Even prodigies need time to hone their skills. By age sixteen, Anakin would be a cocky, extremely frustrated young man, full of anger about his situation as a slave and dreams about seeing the stars. Maybe he's tried to get free a few times and failed. Any sane Jedi Council member would be right to hesitate about letting such a volatile kid train as a Jedi, but they'd agree in the end because it's probably better that he learn the Jedi ways while under the careful watch of many experienced masters than to let him go off the rails on his own. Sixteen-year-old Anakin would also be much more interesting to watch in the space battle against the droid control ship.
- Where the crap are the suffering people of Naboo? We literally never see a single citizen in that gorgeous city the entire time it's under siege. In order to make Padmé's plight convincing, it is an absolute must for us to actually see the consequences of the Trade Federation's influence. Maybe in the beginning of the movie, the people seem healthy but afraid. Then, over the course of the movie, the situation grows far more dire. What off-world exports do they rely on for their survival? Have they just come off an environmental catastrophe that wiped out their resources and made them vulnerable? If we knew what resources the blockade was cutting them off from, maybe it would be believable that they're already dying en masse after a few days. However, it would be more plausible if they were actually being attacked and bullied by the droid army. Droids are invading their homes. Droids are holding their food and medical supplies hostage. Droids are disrupting every aspect of their daily lives.
- Get rid of Jar-Jar. Either entirely scrap the character or make him 8000% less annoying. We don't even really need the Gungans at all, since all they amount to in the end is cannon fodder. The final battle against the droid army would have felt much more meaningful if it had been fought by the very same oppressed citizens who've been living under the Federation's thumb for the whole movie. They'll fight for their queen, their freedom, and their world, but they've lived in peace for so long that they aren't exactly the most skilled warriors. The Federation's twiggy little military droids might actually look like a credible threat against citizens with no combat experience, rather than a bunch of Gungan warriors.
- How about using some of that special effects budget to build actual sets or go to actual locations or build interesting-looking aliens out of rubber instead of using it all for the CGI? Puppets, miniatures, and real locations give the actors much more to work with and they don't age nearly as badly as computer effects.
- The ending shouldn't wrap up in a neat little bow. There's too much still to do to build the bridge to A New Hope. The end of the movie should be the beginning of the Clone Wars. As it is, Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning, and Revenge of the Sith begins with the Clone Wars ending. That's kind of stupid. How about letting us actually see this war? If the Trade Federation is presented as a superpower to rival the Republic itself (rather than just one seat at the Galactic Senate), then Naboo wouldn't be the only system in danger from them, and saving Naboo would be a declaration of war.
- I'd kind of like for there to be something personal about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's fight against Darth Maul. Fights need more than just exciting choreography to be compelling in a story. Maybe there has been a mysterious string of Jedi murders, including several of Obi-Wan's and Qui-Gon's closest friends, and they discover that Darth Maul was behind them.
- No C-3PO. It's just stupid that Anakin would be the one who built him. And even though R2D2 is awesome, I'm not sure he needs to be there either.
- Still no C-3PO. He contributes nothing at all to the story. The obnoxious one-liners are not worth it. Maybe still no R2D2 either.
- Instead of the Jedi having a code of celibacy, how about they do arranged marriages? It doesn't make any sense at all for people with rare gifts to not reproduce. Are the Jedi trying to go extinct? If it's important to the story for the Jedi to have some kind of restrictive policy that will get in the way of Anakin/Padmé, then marriages that are arranged to encourage maximum Force sensitivity in the offspring would take care of the logic problem while still providing that obstacle. If Padmé has minimal Force sensitivity, then the Council wouldn't want Anakin to marry her when he could marry a powerful Jedi lady instead. This would be a major source of tension between Anakin and the Council. Them trying to control who he marries would feel far more personal than a blanket code of celibacy.
- Also, what do the Jedi have against emotions? This either needs to be explained better or done away with. It's obvious why hatred isn't an emotion they'd endorse, but love? And fear and anger have their place as well. The goal should be to be master of one's emotions, not to purge them. Anakin's inability to master his own emotions would be part of what contributes to his break with the Jedi.
- Just get rid of all of the excruciating Anakin/Padmé dialogue and start over. Also get rid of Anakin's extreme creeper behavior. In my version, they already would've started liking each other in Episode I. As a powerful young Jedi with years of experience fighting in the war, Anakin would be pretty hot stuff. Padmé, as someone who's been seeing her people through the same war, would have grown to respect and admire Anakin for his bravery and brilliant strategies.
- Anakin's mom shouldn't have been abandoned on Tatooine for ten years. Either she gets killed off in Episode I or Anakin goes back for her at his first possibile opportunity, and she opts to stay because she's built a better life for herself. If it's still necessary for her to die, fine, but Anakin has to at least have been keeping in touch. It's ridiculous that, in canon, he's so disconnected that he doesn't even know Watto sold her to Lars.
- "Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force." Seduced. That's what Obi-Wan says in Episode IV. But in these movies, it looks more like he was coerced. He didn't join the dark side because he wanted to; he joined because the light side wasn't capable of protecting Padmé or his mother. So what can we do about that? Well, if his story begins with him as a hot-headed sixteen-year-old, then we're already halfway there. The dark side should seem freeing and more powerful, while the light side feels confining and weak. The Anakin I've been describing would not do well in a system he considers confining. He was a slave! Freedom is his highest objective. Fighting in the war alongside Obi-Wan during his Jedi training is a huge adventure, but the more experienced he gets, the more he'd want to do things his way. The more Obi-Wan tries to pull him back into strict Jedi code territory, the more he'd balk. (Of course, the dark side isn't actually more freeing, which is symbolized by how Vader is trapped inside a suit he can't survive without.)
- I really want to actually see the bond between Anakin and Obi-Wan. They spend most of this movie apart and the rest of it bickering. Also, Anakin whines about how strict he is at pretty much every opportunity. Do they really even like each other? Prove it! How about we actually see them in battle together? A couple of training sequences? Hanging out at a cantina together after a battle?
- Since my version means the Clone Wars begin at the end of Episode I, most of the plot would need to be different, but that's okay. I found the second half of Attack of the Clones to be kind of exhausting. It goes from the stupid assembly line scene (which Lucas stole right out of Minority Report) to the fight against the three monsters in the giant gladiator pit to the battle between the Jedi and the droids to the battle between the clones and the droids to the battle between Dooku (such a stupid name) and Obi-Wan and Anakin to the fight between Dooku and Yoda. *gasps for breath* There is as little breathing space between those action sequences as there is in that sentence, which dramatically lessens the impact of any of them. Maybe all the plot needs is better pacing to fix it, but I think it could've been even stronger if it had been about the Republic's tactics in the war gradually growing more sinister until it becomes hard justify what they're doing. Obi-Wan and the other Jedi would be appalled by the increasing brutality and hastiness of the side they're allied with, but Anakin would feel like Palpatine's new laws mean he's free to fight how he wants. Possibly there would be a difficult decision, where in order to save Padmé's planet from another Trade Federation attack, Anakin has to do a preemptive strike on their fleet, which contains living soldiers rather than droids. He does it without hesitation, even though there's very little evidence that Padmé and/or Naboo were in real jeopardy. He convinces her (for now) that what he did was necessary, but later it'll become clear that it wasn't.
- From the very beginning of this movie, Padmé and Anakin should be having serious disagreements about how to approach the war (which is now almost over, but has transformed the Republic into something unrecognizable in the process). She should realize halfway through the movie that she has to choose between him and her ideals. She chooses her ideals, but it's the hardest thing she's ever had to do. He's her husband, and she still remembers the boisterous, optimistic troublemaker he was when they first met. Also, she's pregnant (but just barely--not enough to be showing yet). He feels like she abandoned him for no good reason, so he withdraws even further into Palpatine's shadow.
- Possibly at the same time, Obi-Wan and the other Jedi reach the point where they can no longer tolerate Anakin's actions, so they expel him from the Jedi order. Anakin is almost as resentful and angry about this as he is about Padmé's desertion, so when Palpatine dissolves the Republic and turns his new Empire against the Jedi, Anakin is on board and ready to become Darth Vader entirely of his own free will. The final fight will still be between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but without any of that "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" or "Only the Sith deal in absolutes" nonsense.
- There is absolutely no reason a woman who was strong enough to be the queen of an entire civilization in her teens and a passionate senator thereafter should die because she "has lost the will to live" after her husband turns to the dark side. She has two babies now! Her planet might have fallen under control of the new Empire, but it still exists! She has plenty to live for. So either she should actually die from complications during childbirth or she should go on the run for a while with the babies. Leia says she remembers her mother. That would mean she'd need to survive at least until Leia is about three. Luke doesn't remember her at all, though, so maybe Obi-Wan took him to Tatooine earlier. A much more interesting, fitting, and tragic death for Padmé would have been if the Emperor had captured her and dragged her before some kind of court to have her executed as a traitor to the Empire. Vader gives her the chance to swear loyalty to the Empire, but she refuses. She can go to her death knowing that her children are safe, Luke with Owen and Beru, Leia with Bail Organa and his wife. What she doesn't know is that the Emperor knew about her pregnancy, even if Anakin didn't.