[Michel Orla]

Sorry, I should've been more specific. I like Garth's idea for Episode 3 better than what I've read from the real Episode 3 script.

no youre post was clear enough the "huh?!" was because i dont know how you`ve got youre hands on the real script! or were you just talking about the spoliers youve read? (and if you know some please dont tell me!!)

Sorry, I responded before my first cup of coffee. My brain was working ten minutes behind my hands typing

Yes, there have been copies of the final scripts online. And many spoilers. I won't say anything else

[Garth Vader]

do you think the prequels would've been almost as good as the originals had lucas not directed or written them? If the new trilogy just had to start with the phantom menace, there's just so many ways it could've been improved it's unreal, i reckon it comes down to lucas.

[Just your average movie goer]

It doesn't look any of you would-be prequel writers have done your essential reading.

Read this, guys. It's a piece by yours truly, titled "Unearthing the Fossil", which gives you all the information that the original trilogy provided about the back story.

If you want to write something that is consistent with the original films, then take it from a guy who's watched each of those movies in excess of a thousand viewings -

there is A LOT of information about the back story in the original films. Lucas largely ignored it and often contradicted it. Don't make the same mistake.

Good luck with your writing endeavours.

- Movie Goer

[Garth Vader]

JYAMG - I think the most important back story lucas missed out is brazenly obvious - the damn clone wars. It takes place largely between episode II and III according to lucas - bypassing the best part of the SW backstory. what's the point in that? That's immediately what i thought of when I heard they were making the prequels - the clone wars and anakin skywalker being this kickass warrior/pilot (not pod races and "i'll try spinning that's a good trick" or "aim right above the fuel cells - man what a tactical masterstroke that was.)

I know I mentioned this before, but lucas tried to make TPM like ANH in terms of adventure and so on, but doing something different and starting the prequels with an episode that would provide a real building block for the further two installments would've been better. The way Lucas has created his present prequels he's left far too much plot points to be tied up convincingly enough for epiode III. By starting with AOTC's plot or something vaguely similar they could've explored anakin and his relationships with obi wan and others around him like padme and palpatine more clearly and have the clone wars there as well (most of this is supposed to happen in Episode III for gods sake).

This post has been edited by Garth Vader: 03 October 2004 - 04:16 PM

[Just your average movie goer]

Agreed. However, the point of my previous post was that you should also be aware that some aspects of the back story are already set in concrete by the original movies...

eg. Anakin following Obi Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.
Owen thought Anakin should have stayed on Tatooine and not gotten involved.
Obi Wan was a general who served Leia's father during the Clone Wars.

That's all.

[Garth Vader]

eg. Anakin following Obi Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.

Do you think that lucas meant for Obi Wan to be lying in that whole scene to luke to make him enthusiastic about leaving tatooine? Seems a very blatant thing for lucas to have left out of the prequels?

[Just your average movie goer]

A very blatant piece of negligence. In the prequels, Owen barely knows Anakin... they met each other for about two minutes and then Anakin left Tatooine (after stealing his Threepio unit).

As for Obi Wan, Owen has never met him at all. Considering the grudge that he clearly holds towards him in Star Wars, you'd think there must be some reason for it.

Maybe Lucas will have to change more of the original trilogy dialogue...

Luke - "You know, I think that R2 unit we bought might have been stolen."

Owen - "What makes you think that?"

Luke - "I stumbled across a recording while I was cleaning him... he said he belonged to somebody called Obi Wan Kenobi. I thought he might have meant old Ben. Do you know what he's talking about?"

Owen - "Not a freakin' clue."

[barend]

episode 1.
first twenty minutes: Natalie portman and Kiera knightly make out
next twenty minutes: Natalie portman and Kiera knightly make love...
next twenty minutes: darth maul fights obi wan and qui gon
next twenty minutes: Natalie portman and Kiera knightly wrestle in oil
next twenty minutes: Natalie portman and Kiera knightly wrestle in mud
last twenty minutes: Natalie portman and Kiera knightly wrestle in maple syrup

episode 2: clones made from jedis, and top troops... fight in a war... obi won meats anikan for the first time, he could be played by... christian bale... and a bunch of cool stuff happens including the return of kiera knightly who restles in mud with bastlla from KOTOR played by kate beckinsale...

[Give Me The Originals Dammit]

I don't know if I should encourage barend, but his ideas for the prequeals are not unappealing... LOL!

Anyway...

[ernesttomlinson]

Er...I'm just going to pretend that that Photoshop paste-up job never happened. (I should be more excited but...well...all I can say is, yuck.)

I'm going to suggest something here that nobody else will like: showing Anakin as a child isn't, ipso facto, a bad idea. I know that there's a general perception, especially among sci-fi fans, that children shouldn't be let within a mile of an SF movie or TV show (witness, for example, the delight with which "Babylon 5" fans greeted J. Michael Straczynski's equation of children with robots and talking animals. A class act, that J. Michael Straczynski.) But good, even great movies, have centered about characters in childhood. Take Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows, for example; Jean-Pierre Leaud was incredible in that but he was only fifteen years old. Spielberg's Empire of the Sun is fairly well regarded and Christian Bale was only fourteen when he starred in that.

I'm not saying that Episode I should have been about Anakin Skywalker's childhood. As JYAMG has pointed out in his "essential reading", the first appearance of Anakin in the Star Wars backstory is when Obi-Wan meets him, already a "great pilot"--in other words, probably already grown up. (Perhaps Owen knew Anakin when Anakin was younger but there's nothing to show that for certain.) What I am saying is that Episode I could have been about Anakin as a child without necessarily being a sentimental, puerile mess ("Yippee!!")

What really dooms The Phantom Menace in my eyes is that Lucas tried to do too many things at once and did all of them ineptly. If his movie had been entirely about Anakin on Tatooine and his discovery by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan it might have worked better; instead Lucas has to work in half-assed subplots about this "Trade Federation" we've never heard of and this planet "Naboo" we've no clue about. What the *expletive deleted* was he thinking?

[HK 47]

OMG That's the most horrid photoshop paste job I've seen on this board. You should think about joining the board grunts over at Something Awful GMTOD, their creations run in a similar vein

What really dooms The Phantom Menace in my eyes is that Lucas tried to do too many things at once and did all of them ineptly. If his movie had been entirely about Anakin on Tatooine and his discovery by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan it might have worked better;

Or perhaps not on Tatooine at all? Obi-Wan later hiding Luke on the very same moisture farm where his granny was bought as a slave by farmer Lars? F**king horrible. Just one of the many improbable coincidence flaws of the PT.

[ernesttomlinson]

I agree with you, HK 47, but I was trying to say that even with what Lucas had he could have done better, if he'd picked one idea out of the hodgepodge, polished it up, and jettisoned the rest.