[SmellyTerror]

So, I’ve decided to write scripts of Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. I realise this is horribly nerdy and ultimately futile, but I enjoy writing and I enjoy Star Wars, so this is a good use of some spare time. I guess there’s always the chance of some nerd-girl groupies, too, the hope of which may get me through the inevitable self-doubt. Has any (male) human achieved anything without the hope of sex at the end of it?

Oh ok, Newton. Good point.

Anyway, some of the initial, pretty incoherent discussion is over here in my WoW guild’s forum: http://www.pa-guilds...opic.php?t=1322

...with some parallel discussion happening with the real fanbois (they will not be sad to be called such) at: http://www.chefelf.c...?showtopic=5247

People have been kind enough to lie and say they liked what I wrote, so I'm moving forward.

So! I want to shoot some shit here. I’ve put out some of the main concepts in the original posts, but there are some ideas I’d like to get feedback on. Please be as harsh as you gotta be.

1. Padme as a Jedi?

First, I want her more awesome than the simpering weakling she ends up being in Episode 3. That goes without saying. Pregnancy is no excuse. My wife is pregnant and she’d kick Anakin’s whiny ass.

But Padme the Jedi? Think about it: Luke is not just the son of Anakin, but also Padme – a Jedi on both sides. Padme could be a fellow Jedi student, more advanced in a lot of ways than Anakin, but basically an equal. That’d give them plenty of time together and let her be pretty damn cool in her own right.

I’m not sure how it’d work with the whole dark-taint thing going on, though. Something to think about.

1b. A scene.

I mean, she can be awesome without being a Jedi too. There’s a scene I’m toying with where the badguys burst in, and Padme, surprised, does the whole, weak-woman “please don’t hurt me”. The badguys dismiss her, “where are the others?” When their attention turns, she whips out a pair of blasters and mows the bastards down. Grim smile. “Idiots”. Exit scene to kick some more ass.

A scene like this could help establish her as a funky strong female, it mocks the weakness of so many passive female characters in other movies, and has the virtue of correcting the sad lack of dual-pistol use in Star Wars, which is a bloody TRAVESTY!

2. Threepio being awesome

At some stage, Threepio is put into a situation where he has to kill someone to save the good guys. He’s horrified, since it goes against his programming. He’s so horrified, he eventually asks for a memory wipe. That’s why he’s so vague about his past in New Hope, and it’s why R2 is so loyal to this un-likable guy who is always so mean to him. There could even be a bit of a personality change, from a more forceful Threepio in the prequels, to the wussy professor in the original series.

Personality development in droids – it could be worth doing.

Not that we necessarily *need* for his memory to be wiped (as it is so clumsily done in ep3), since we can happily keep him off Tatooine, but it might be worthwhile to actually explore the character. I never really liked him, but the movies seem to expect me to.

…but then, there are goo arguments against this. I dunno – what do people think?

3. Owen

Anakin’s brother needs to be part of things.

(Step-brother my ass! Needing to go back and change stuff in the original movie to cover up for the fact you’ve made him a step-brother is just silly. And it can be so much cooler if he really *is* the brother).

Obi-Wan says stuff in New Hope that shows Anakin and Owen discussed getting involved in the Clone Wars, and that Owen wanted Anakin to stay on Tatooine. I also really liked his character in New Hope, so I want to see more of him. Then we have Own taking on the massive danger of looking after Darth Vader’s son! You can see he’s scared about what might happen, but he’s doing his best for his nephew. Brave guy.

So Owen can be the flip-side of Anakin. He can let us explore the virtue of simplicity, how his non-involvement is not cowardice, but real, practiced peace. He is more Jedi than many of the Jedi! I’d love to see a scene where Anakin takes Obi-Wan to meet his brother, and Obi-Wan can see the power that Owen has, too, but realises that Owen doesn’t want it. Owen instinctively senses the danger he and Anakin face, and when Obi-Wan offers to help him develop his power, Owen can explain that. He’s not a “simple farmer” out of ignorance or fear, but because he sees his kind of life as a real basis for contentment, and a way to hold his own demons at bay.

He want’s Anakin to stay, because he can feel bad things happening in his brother, even when Obi-wan can’t.

So Obi-Wan can go away really respecting Owen, even though they have irreconcilable differences of opinion.

Then, much later, when Obi-Wan comes to Owen with Luke, we can see the basis for Owen’s hostility – he wants Luke to live a simple life, and Obi-wan wants Luke to become a Jedi and save the world.

Can also hint that, as Owen has this vast untapped affinity with the Force, Vader will be reluctant to come nab Luke – not prevented from doing so, but feeling a reluctance to deal directly with Owen. Owen makes him uncomfortable. It’ll also cover Obi-Wan’s Force-presence from detection by the Empire – Vader doesn’t sense Obi-Wan when he comes to Tatooine, because he thinks he’s just sensing Owen.

So, would people want some Owen, or do you want him ignored as far as possible?

4. Jedi fu

Would you be ok with an unorthodox Jedi character who fights with a lightsaber in one hand, and a blaster in the other? I mean, other Jedi would be terribly disapproving of the clumsy blaster but our Jedi (maybe…. PADME?), could be a bit of a larrikin, a Han-Solo kind of Jedi.

I *really* don’t want them all to be carbon-copy stiffs.

Hmmm, now I think of it, if Padme was a bit of a nut, for a Jedi, that’d appeal to our irreverent, new-comer Anakin, and vice versa. Hmmm…

Thoughts?

5. Bail Organa

Obi-Wan “served” Organa in the Clone Wars, but at the same time we know that Alderaan, Organa’s home world, is peaceful and has no weapons. So what are they doing in the Clone Wars?

I think it’s still worth having Palpatine cause and/or manipulate the Clone Wars just to consolidate his position with a big fat army. Perhaps Organa gets a hint of this, and recruits some Jedi to help him negotiate peace…? Or are we sick of “negotiations”?

Any ideas? Actually, while we’re there:

6. The Clone Wars

I never could come up with a cool explanation for the Clone Wars.

There was the movie version…. Sorry, but just because one side happened to use clones as its army, I can’t really see that they’d be called “the clone wars”. Surely the wars would have to be *about* clones to be called that? I mean, looking at the conflict in the prequel movies, wouldn’t it be called “the wars of succession”, or something similar? Or hell, since one side is using droids, wouldn’t it make as much sense to call it “the droid wars”?

So, ideas for what the clone wars could be?

There is the general hostility of people in the original series to droids. That works pretty nicely if there was a big war with droids – but how does that relate to clones? Yeah, in the movies we have clones vs droids. So maybe that’s the way to go. But I’m very happy to hear something more compelling.

I’m especially keen for the stormtroopers *not* to be clones, though. I saw the original movies, I heard their voices already. You can’t convince me they’re all New Zealanders – although that does explain why they dress up like sheep…

….maybe. Ok, thinking with my fingertips here, but maybe, next to the Republic is this Droid society. In a contrast to Republic’s use of its own droids, the Droid empire keeps cloned people as servants. The clones rebel, and the Republic goes to help. Many of the Republic’s droids are subverted by the Droid enemy, though a lot (like R2 and Theepio) aren’t because they can’t fight, or maybe just because they’re cool. Hence the hostility to droids later on.

That’s the Clone War. We’re told, and most people in the Republic believe, that the Droid enemy are incapable of surrender, and the good guys are forced to commit genocide. It’ll turn out, though (hey, this is where we can bring in Organa!) that Palpatine hasn’t been letting them surrender –they’ve been trying, but he’s lying to the Senate. What’s more, he’s been recruiting a lot of these clones into his army, and they’re hugely loyal to him. ZOMG, it’s almost like he’s trying to take over!

Oh, and they’re not all clones of one guy! Yuk. They’re cloned in batches by the droids, depending on their function. Cloning one guy, pfff – what if you cloned someone who was a really bad shot? Oh, wait. They did.

Anyway, I rather like that idea.

Comments?

[Fusion Rifle]

Hello Smelly! I'm new here but I couldn't resist a few comments, and since you ask for them, here we go.


1. Padme as a Jedi?

I'm not sure Padme should be in a real set of prequels at all, other than Luke needing some sort of mother of course. Who she is and what she is, is an open question as far as I know. (I really only draw on the original trilogy, I just got here and know nothing about this Expanded Universe stuff, so anyone happily fill me in ).


2. Threepio being awesome

Simply put, neither C3PO nor R2D2 should be in the prequels. C3PO is an interpreter droid, his last assignment being in the service of Captain Antilles, and he obviously has no relation to the prehistory. At least not to Anakin Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi or any of that. Like Ben says, "I can't remember ever having owned a droid".


3. Owen

I agree with a lot of what you say. There is a balancing act involved here. The father of Skywalker the greatest fighter pilot in the galaxy and a terrific Jedi Knight and his brother merely a poor Tatooine farmer? One way is upgrading uncle Owen, and I think you might be on to something in this passage:

I’d love to see a scene where Anakin takes Obi-Wan to meet his brother, and Obi-Wan can see the power that Owen has, too, but realises that Owen doesn’t want it. Owen instinctively senses the danger he and Anakin face, and when Obi-Wan offers to help him develop his power, Owen can explain that. He’s not a “simple farmer” out of ignorance or fear, but because he sees his kind of life as a real basis for contentment, and a way to hold his own demons at bay.

The other way is downgrading Anakin Skywalker. Who was he really before he "left" Obi Wan and got involved with and elevated by the dark side? A great figher ace, no doubt. How much of a Jedi? He was a pupil of Kenobi, which leaves it open to wide interpretation. A narrative where he gets much of his spiritual (and about all of his wordly power!) in the service of the dark side would solve it.
There is really no need in making Anakin the great important figure he is in the present (false) prequels. He could have been a rather run-of-the-mill Jedi knight, albeit of great promise, entering in the third installment of the prequel trilogy rather than figuring as a main character throughout.

5. Bail Organa

Obi-Wan “served” Organa in the Clone Wars, but at the same time we know that Alderaan, Organa’s home world, is peaceful and has no weapons. So what are they doing in the Clone Wars?

Are you sure he served the Organa family? Hm, I don't recall this statement. Anyway, about Alderaan being a peaceful planet without weapons, it could be it was not always the case. To me it would look rather obvious if Alderaan decided on this course as a rather recent policy, say in Leia's childhood. It might serve as a way to avoid potential trouble with the empire ("look, we are harmless"), thereby safely retaining a seat in the Imperial Senate with all the material and political benefits it could offer.

6. The Clone Wars

I’m especially keen for the stormtroopers *not* to be clones, though. I saw the original movies, I heard their voices already. You can’t convince me they’re all New Zealanders – although that does explain why they dress up like sheep…

I'm totally with you on this. All this droid army and clones stuff makes me puke. Where's the heroism in that? "Only imperial Storm Troopers are that precise" is the statement the prequels should have served to reinstate, not continue trashing it beyond redemption.

In fact, I have a theory on the clones. I believe that originally, Lucas just thought it would be a cool name for an alien species that had fallen out with the Republic/the Republic was fighting in several bloody conflicts (and which the Republic more or less fought itself out on). He didn't think about clones in our modern scientific understanding thereof, and only later on incorporated it as a (failed) theme for the prequels.
In fact, I used to think of them as a kind of bluish skinned, pretty tall and lank sort of alien myself.


No matter. Just as long as the Rebublican and Imperial troops no longer are some sort of computer game spawn, but real people of flesh and blood, I'd be happy.

This post has been edited by Fusion Rifle: 11 June 2006 - 09:27 AM