Chefelf.com Night Life: ernesttomlinson - Viewing Profile

So why do the Gungans have an army?

There's some implication that the Gungans have fought with the Nubians. For example, when Boss Nass holds up the big glowing ball at the end of the movie he shouts, "PEACE!", which I took to be an announcement of reconciliation between the Gungans and the Nubians. But the Nubians don't have any Army, although they do seem to have an Air Force (for whatever reason.) So how did they fight?

We see the Gungan army in action against the droids. We must admit that it's fairly well equipped, even to the point of having weapons (the "boomers") that seem to be designed especially to take down electronic equipment. Why would they have those?

OK, now the point of this isn't merely to come up with some creative way for Jar-Jar to die. However much you might lie to say you'd tie Jar-Jar to a post and shoot him full of arrows like St. Sebastian that's not the point of this exercise. The point is to imagine how events could have gone only slightly differently from how they went in the movie to result in Jar-Jar's death.

Nothing too obvious. Saving for example that Sebulba pounds Jar-Jar to death in that confrontation is a little easy. I'm looking for more imaginative ways and they must be based on something that actually happens in the movie.

For example: imagine that, during the pod-race sequence, Jar-Jar is so excited that he runs out to see Annie zoom by into the third lap. Unfortunately he trips and stumbles and falls right into the path of Sebulba's pod. No more Jar-Jar.

Or what if Jar-Jar, after getting partly paralysed by putting his head into the power coupling or whatever it was of Annie's pod, fumbled a little too long for that wrench he drops. Annie starts up his pod and, Isadora Duncan like, Jar-Jar gets his arm caught in the turbine...

Or when Jar-Jar is reeling about in Watto's workshop, playing with that little droid that's jumping around, Jar-Jar accidentally backs into a convenient sharp metal part.

Any others that you can think of?

Obi-Wan fights Anakin on some volcanic planet or other, Anakin falls in, is horribly burnt, and gets to wear the first Darth Vader Hallowe'en outfit ever made. Everyone knows this; this is how Darth Vader came to be. I've known it for years.

Why?

The more I think about it, the more ludicrous the idea seems to me. It's way, way over the top, especially in the prequels where we're asked to believe that, while in all other scenes Anakin's Force ability doesn't seem to be anything special, in this one particular scene his strength with the Force is so extraordinary that it can defy physics and chemistry and prevent him from instant carbonisation in molten rock.

Whose goofy idea was this in the first place? There are so many better and credible ways that Anakin could have been disfigured.

Now one could argue that with his ultra sooper special editions Lucas is essentially already remaking Episode IV, but I wonder...if he made the whole movie again from scratch, following Episode III, what would it look like?

A few suggestions.

1. Han Solo is played by Temuera Morrison with the explanation that he's Jango Fett's long-lost twin brother, separated before Fett went to get himself cloned. Rick McCallum tells us that this explains Boba Fett's lifelong desire to destroy Solo along with the whole Skywalker family.

2. Tatooine now has more droids and animals on it than people. They clutter every shot. (Wait, that already happens.)

3. The cantina is now a fully computer generated holodeck and Lucas shows off his animation by changing the scenery gratuitously with a single command during the film sequence. Obi-Wan gives a bartender a Force lesson in rethinking whether to put so much vermouth in the martinis.

4. Luke is played by Hayden Christensen with the exactly the same bad hair that Anakin had in Episode III. Leia is played by Natalie Portman. After all, why spoil a bad movie by getting some better actors? Besides, we need constant reminder of who there parents are.

5. We have touching reunions with Watto, Sebulba, and the two-headed pod race announcer. Of course there is another pod-race sequence, twice as long, and now it's legal to have thermal detonator launchers and automatic blasters on the pods.

6. The final Death Star sequence is intercut with four other action sequences, including one where Obi-Wan fights both Vader and also a cyborg with four arms and equipped with a crossbow that shoots lightsabres.

7. The little duel between Han and Greedo is now a five-minute chase and firefight. Greedo at first tries to take out Han by hiring Boba Fett who then pays someone to slip a cylinder of deadly gas into the Millennium Falcon (which is now shiny.)

8. Continuing in the tradition of humiliating famous British actors by casting them in nothing roles, Tarkin is played by Derek Jacobi, Motti is played by David Thewlis, and the old guy who does the Death Star briefing is played by James Fox.

9. Boba Fett is in every other scene, by the way.

10. Jar Jar is still alive.