The Prequels can Still Be Saved - Chefelf.com Night Life

Its often been repeated here that even if ROTS turns out to be a great movie –not very likely if the spoilers are anything to go by- the Prequels are already a failure because of the damage done by the first two movies. This got me thinking about whether there was any way of doing the third movie in the Prequels so that these movies are worthwhile editions t o the SW universe, instead of a waste of moviegoers’ time that is better left ignored.

This is sort of like the “what would you have done if you had made the prequels” thread, except in this one only the third movie is remade.

The way to do this is very simple –kill Anakin Skywalker. Probably the best way to do this is to have the movie unfold as initially as it does in the spoilers, with the great Trade Federation attack on Coruscant, Palpatine kidnapped, you can even leave General Grievous in, right down to the lightsaber duel between Anakin and Dooku. Except Dooku kills Anakin at the critical moment, instead of the other way around. The movie then unfolds from there.

Doesn’t this create a rather big continuity problem with the OT? Well it wouldn’t be the first or the worst, but its also nothing that couldn’t be explained. In ANH, Obi Wan after all tells Luke that Anakin Skywalker was a “good man”, and was killed by Darth Vader. If Anakin is actually killed in ROTS while fighting for the Republic, not only is there no continuity error with ANH, this actually accords better with what Obi Wan said. In ESB, Vader tells Luke that he is Luke’s father. Not necessarily a problem, Vader could either be lying, or he could be Luke’s father instead of Anakin Skywalker. Its only in ROTJ that there is a problem, Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke’s father, then the force ghost of Obi Wan appears, sits on a rock, and explains that Anakin = Vader.

Except that Obi Wan doesn’t say this, his force ghost does. The only person in the OT to see or hear any force ghost is Luke, they haven’t appeared so far in the PT, and this phenomenon is never explained. Luke could just be hallucinating. We are just left with Obi Wan’s claim in ANH that Anakin Skywalker is Luke’s father, and Yoda’s claim in ROTS that Vader is. There are other ways to resolve this than Anakin turning into Vader, meaning Vader has “killed” Anakin “from a certain point of view”.

For example, Dooku could kill Skywalker, the Trade Federation could win their battle, and take over Coruscant. The new government surprises everyone by including a big role for Palpatine. Padme has already had the two children by Anakin. She is able to get Leia to safety, but for some reason can’t get Luke to safety and so has to marry Dooku to get his protection. Alterately, Padme flees Coruscant with Leia but gets separated from Luke, and Dooku finds the toddler and raises him himself. Padme spends the rest of the movie trying to get Luke back. Either way, Dooku bonds with Luke and it humanizes him. Almost unwittingly, he starts to turn back to the light side. He reaches out to the incipient rebellion and Obi Wan, but unsuccessfully and because of the misunderstanding winds up fighting Obi Wan. As a result of the battle Obi Wan gets Luke and Dooku gets badly injured, only to be “resuciated” as Vader. Or Dooku confronts Palpatine, is defeated by him, but meanwhile Obi Wan is able to secure Luke.

If you want, you could have Dooku killed, the Trade Federation defeated, and its Mace Windu who kills Anakin. He does so during his confrontation with Palpatine. Mace “wins” the confrontation, but as a result Palpatine starts turning him towards the Dark Side. Mace marries Padme and raises Luke and Leia as his own. The movie is about how Palpatine seduces Mace Windu and how Mace winds up as Vader. The only real drawback to this version is that we are stuck with the Anakin character for almost half the movie, whereas if Dooku is Vader than Anakin can be killed off right at the start.

That is the point of the exercise. There are lots of problems with both TPM and AOTC, but one of the main ones is that the character of Anakin Skywalker, mainly as presented in AOTC (the little kid in TPM is not as bad), is not believable as either Vader or Anakin. The character is more or less presented as evil right from the start, he is disloyal to his mentor, seduces Padme in violation of the rules of the order, lies about it, massacres a village, etc. This could have been an interesting approach if Lucas has intended it and let the audience in the secret, but the signs are that he hasn’t and has badly botched what is intended to be a good but flawed Anakin. Even worse, the character is not believable as Vader, he is far too weak and whiny.

Kill Anakin and the problem is solved. Anakin doesn’t become Vader, and we also get an annoying character out of the trilogy. Not only that, the plot is now freed and the possibilities are wide open. Any character that doesn’t also appear in the OT can now become Vader. Dooku can, Mace can, so can Jar Jar Binks if you want. You just need to have him seduced to the dark side (or partially unseduced in Dooku’s case) and to find a way for him to raise Luke. Not only that, in the process of doing so the story virtually writes itself.

This has all sorts of ripple benefits. Padme no longer is a sort of Eva Braun with bad fashion sense. First, she has fallen for a hero of sorts instead of a Sith lord in training. Second, there is a real conflict for the character to handle, depending on how the rest of the plot is handled she either has to protect Luke and Leia or recover Luke. Natalie Portman is a good enough actress that she could shine if given stronger material than what she has had to work with so far in these movies.

And yes, we would see the previous two movies differently. Don’t get me wrong, they still would have major problems and would always be the weakest of the Star Wars movies, especially AOTC. However we would no longer focus on Anakin Skywalker who becomes a minor character in the Star Wars universe. We would be paying much more attention to the development of Padme, Obi Wan, Palpatine to some extent, and either Dooku or Mace in their few scenes. We would also be looking at the first two movies for background on what Coruscant looked like, how the Clone Wars started, and so on. The movies would no longer have to explain how the Anakin character developed into Vader, they could either be ignored completely or watched with much less pain.

I’m writing this at the end of March, before the release, so I guess its not too late. Otherwise, by showing how to fix the prequels I hope its shed some light on how they got so f***ed ** in the first place.

QUOTE

"We would be paying much more attention to the development of Padme, Obi Wan, Palpatine to some extent, and either Dooku or Mace in their few scenes."

Yeah, I really like Padme's development. The desert scene where she falls off the transport in AOTC really reveals a lot of her character and some skin too! Unfortunately that's the best bit of character development out of all of those you mentioned.

Dooku is the only character in the entire series who could possibly be cool enough to become Vader. He alone is fairly untainted by the crap dialogue and story inaccuracies, except for them saying that he was Yoda's apprentice and Qui Gon's master, which would create in accuracy in ANH when Vader says "when I left you I was but the student, now I am the master" so in fact whoever it is would have to have been Obi Wan's apprentice. I'm sorry but this plot would just be a cop-out, though it would be funny.

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 26 March 2005 - 01:51 AM