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Rebooting the prequels and what to change

RoosTah

Juniors
Messages
2,257
With the upcoming release of what is looking like a return to form for Star Wars now that its out of the incompetent hands of creator George Lucas, I thought it was worth exploring the question of when and how the prequels will be remade.

I say "when" and not "if" because in my view this is inevitable after this current trilogy is complete. Disney bought the rights for the films for a reported US$4 Billion, and so they're going to squeeze every penny out of it they can. But when this current trilogy is done, will they move forward, or will they go back to the beginning?

My view is they'll go back. They can't touch the original series, as they're rightly considered a master-piece of a trilogy (with the exception of all the Ewok shit in Jedi), but the prequels?? They're the most hated thing in cinema of the past 30 years, and so they're ripe for a bit of retelling.

In my view, whilst this would be a bit cynical of Disney, the fans would all universally welcome it. So how would you go about doing it?

The central pieces obviously would need to stay the same in terms of characters, but the details would all change fairly significantly.

One of my big gripes in films that feature a "hero's turn" to evil, is that the scene just isn't set well enough for it; it's often handled poorly, with the impetus for the character's fall being rushed or not given enough emotional trauma for it to be believable.

A good example of this is the turn of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. An otherwise perfect film, this turn was never terribly convincing to me. He got betrayed and lost his "sorta" girlfriend of two weeks and had has face badly burned. For a character that is posed as a man with principles that read like a modern day Jesus, this just feels insufficient... In my view for that to have made sense Dent and Rachel should have sealed the deal and she should have been carrying his kid, and the knock out blow to it all should be him realising that someone in his own family gave Rachel up.

Anyway, I'm getting side tracked, but you get my point: if a character is going to fall from a mighty height of integrity, the suffering the experience to get there has got to be some pretty f**ked up shit. I won't go into all the other detail about the stupid shit with the trade federation etc etc, and only focus on Anakin, but broadly, Anakin's problem was a lot like Harvey's only a crap load worse.

In the prequels he's a whiny brat, and whilst the revenge he exacts in retribution for his mother's death IS a good brick in the wall of his fall, it's just not enough. For it to be relatable and believable that he'd murder a bunch of kids (I mean seriously, that was some messed up shit) then he really needs to have suffered a heck of a lot more and been manipulated a heck of a lot more.

To achieve this, to start with in the prequel remakes they need to have him found by Qui Gon Jinn as a teen at least, and given his poverty he should already have developed some street smarts and had a poorly developed moral compass due to the cut throat nature of his environment.

In short, Qui Gon should find him as a misguided youth with incredible potential a readily apparent basic command of the Force that comes alive when he's in trouble/danger.

Then you could have Qui Gon bring him under his wing and to the council etc etc. They should reject him outright because of his upbringing and violent tendencies, but Qui Gon should show faith in him and help him develop as both a Jedi and as a more moral man.

This should all go fairly well for the first episode until when encounter Darth Maul, who will still kill Qui Gon, and will then cut off one of Anakin's arms as he tries to fight back. Obi Wan will then come in to save Anakin as Maul is closing in on him to finish him off. The difference will be that they both realise they're just no match and so bolt, leaving Maul to be the big bad for the series whilst the Emperor rises in the shadows.

In the following two episodes, we'll see the younger and less capable Obi Wan struggle to provide quite the direction of Qui Gon, and Anakin experience more losses along the way. During Episode two is when his mother should be killed, and nothing about that needs to change, but it should be revealed that Palpatine had a hand it in later (unbeknownst to Anakin of course).

Then of course, he should still get himself involved with Amidala, but it needs to be handled more subtly and they ought to do it all in more secrecy. Then in episode III as she's heavily pregnant with the twins she'll be murdered by Darth Maul in an attack on the Capital in which several other senators and other planetary leaders are also killed in an attack designed by Palpatine to appear like as though it's orchestrated from the federations enemies. Amidalas two babies being saved by doctors whilst they can't save her, and the federation will descend into chaos.

All through the background Palpatine will have been becoming chummy with Anakin, but it wouldn't be about the nightmares and Padme's death, but rather Anakin just trying to manage his pain and suffering and struggling to contain his anger. He'll set him up against Maul, and back Anakin in a battle that will see Anakin consumed by the weight of his loss and suffering.

He'll lose another arm in the process but will ultimately kill maul with his immense power over the force brought forth by his emotions. In short, he'll lose the bout, but his suffering and stronger potential with the force will see him let loose a power that will see Maul destroyed and a brutally vengeful and hate filled manner.

In effect, what I want in it is the level of hate, suffering and anger communicated so well in that line in Moby Dick about Ahab about how he "piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down."

Thoughts?
 
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LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
Too much text to read but in short; no.

I would rather see them make episodes 10, 11 and 12 (depending on what bullshit you believe Lucas tells you there's 12 episodes in all) and keep up the Anthology films (except the Han Solo one. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that one).

I don't mind the prequels but they are part of Star Wars history that most people would rather forget. There's no point in rebooting them. Onwards and upwards with what looks like a f**king amazing episode 7 next week!
 

RoosTah

Juniors
Messages
2,257
Too much text to read but in short; no.

I would rather see them make episodes 10, 11 and 12 (depending on what bullshit you believe Lucas tells you there's 12 episodes in all) and keep up the Anthology films (except the Han Solo one. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that one).

I don't mind the prequels but they are part of Star Wars history that most people would rather forget. There's no point in rebooting them. Onwards and upwards with what looks like a f**king amazing episode 7 next week!

I reckon that there'll almost certainly be a rebooting of the prequels, as they're just so hated that people will relish the chance to see them become a respectable part of the cannon.
 

strong_latte

Juniors
Messages
1,665
You like your essays don't you Roostah?

I agree it's almost a dead cert they'll do this in this age of remakes and reboots, but we're talking at least 10 years here with the current trilogy.

That said, I hear you on the motivation issues for Anakin, and whilst your structure would definitely raise the stakes and make his turn believable, it's pretty bloody brutal... Not sure how they'd keep their family audience if they went down that path.
 

LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
They should leave well enough alone... also you'd think there'd be some clause in the sale of LFL to Disney that prohibits them from messing with the two existing trilogies.
 

strong_latte

Juniors
Messages
1,665
They should leave well enough alone... also you'd think there'd be some clause in the sale of LFL to Disney that prohibits them from messing with the two existing trilogies.

Why would there be a clause protecting something everyone thinks were so bad that they almost ruined the original trilogy? If that $4bn figure above is right, then I seriously doubt it.
 

GC_Gladiator

Juniors
Messages
1,508
In isolation those 3 prequels weren't great. But watched with the clone wars animated series, it makes the events in 2 and 3 clearer and creates a lot of relevant history that make the premise of the prequels more bearable. Ultimately the execution let it down, but it could have been a good story as is.
 

LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
Why would there be a clause protecting something everyone thinks were so bad that they almost ruined the original trilogy? If that $4bn figure above is right, then I seriously doubt it.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe if you were selling away something that is 4 decades of your life maybe you want certain elements of that "preserved" and not tampered with regardless of how bad the outside world thinks they were? And besides, rebooting the prequels just seems counterproductive to the whole exercise of Disney purchasing the property to me.

Certain people want the prequels rebooted? Yeah, and I want to have a moresome with Jessica Chastain, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams and Bryce Dallas Howard. The only difference is that I might actually have a chance!

I'd rather they do flicks like Rogue One to bridge that gap between the prequel trilogy and the Holy Trilogy and I suppose the sequel trilogy and create a whole new mythology the same way that the EU novels did.
 
Messages
4,370
You like your red heads it seems.

Also if they were to do this then Jar Jar must be gone, but not completely.

Darth Jar Jar will become the ultimate villain.
 

El Diablo

Post Whore
Messages
94,107
not hard to understand him killing kids

he had turned to the dark side and was also going to vote for the Evil Greens
 

LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
I also heard that there is also a planned Obi Wan spin off which makes perfect sense to me. Of course, there's nobody but Ewan McGregor who could play him. Jesus, I mean he's getting on a bit now so he's old enough to play him in a designated period before New Hope and they can always make him up to look a bit older (did you see how they aged Rose Byrne in "A place beyond the pines).

So you have an established character who was pivotal in the original trilogy despite only having a glorified cameo in empire and jedi who is then a major player in the prequel trilogy. You then give him his own storyline where he's not saddled with terrible George Lucas dialogue and I think that makes for a good Anthology film.
 

RoosTah

Juniors
Messages
2,257
Oh, I don't know. Maybe if you were selling away something that is 4 decades of your life maybe you want certain elements of that "preserved" and not tampered with regardless of how bad the outside world thinks they were? And besides, rebooting the prequels just seems counterproductive to the whole exercise of Disney purchasing the property to me.

If you wanted the series "preserved" you wouldn't sell it in the first place, and let's face it, Lucas isn't much on preserving shit... every year he was releasing a new "special edition" of the original films with a whole bunch of pointless graphics and shit nobody needed or asked for.

Certain people want the prequels rebooted? Yeah, and I want to have a moresome with Jessica Chastain, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams and Bryce Dallas Howard. The only difference is that I might actually have a chance!

Certain people? No mate, Star Wars fans fall into two categories: those who want the prequels redone, and those that were so scarred by how f**king awful they were that they wish they never existed at all.

Trust me when I tell that this is going to happen.
 

vvvrulz

Coach
Messages
13,298
No way will there be reboots

I second this.

TPM sucked really bad, but AOTC and ROTJ aren't as horrible as it's made out to be. Although extremely flawed, it got the basic plots and characterizations right. Lucas screwed it up with all that green screen and his horrible scripts.

Rebooting it will be like the Spiderman reboots, it will feel too familiar and completely unnecessary. There isn't any interesting way of retelling something we already know.
 

LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
If you wanted the series "preserved" you wouldn't sell it in the first place, and let's face it, Lucas isn't much on preserving shit... every year he was releasing a new "special edition" of the original films with a whole bunch of pointless graphics and shit nobody needed or asked for.



Certain people? No mate, Star Wars fans fall into two categories: those who want the prequels redone, and those that were so scarred by how f**king awful they were that they wish they never existed at all.

Trust me when I tell that this is going to happen.

The bloke is well in to his 70s. He's like every other male on the planet; he doesn't want to keep working for the rest of his life. Also he's the boss of a corporation. Not just the films, but Skywalker Sound, Industrial Light and Magic, Lucasarts (yes I know Disney shut it down but that's beside the point) etc. He sold LUCASFILM and it's subsidiaries as well as their tent pole properties (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) so he could retire.

When he did the Special Editions (which i no longer watch since i managed to find the OT theatrical versions on ebay) it was his to do whatever he wanted with because that was how he always envisioned them but didn't have the means to do it. I'm not saying they were totally necessary to be done (and Empire and Jedi has sweet FA done to them) but you are arguing that he did not "preserve" the films (despite caving and releasing the original theatrical versions on dvd despite saying he never would) when all he was doing was using the technology at his disposal to present them how he originally intended. I'm not saying they were any good but he's always given that as the reason as to why he did the Special editions. I will however submit to you that the changes for the Blu Ray releases were totally unnecessary.

I will give you a thousand dollars if they ever remake the prequel trilogy.

And you can add a 3rd group to your demographic; those who can take them or leave them when it comes to the prequels.
 
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LESStar58

Referee
Messages
25,496
Are you kidding? Do you think Disney spent $4bn on the rights to not hit that jack pot at some point? They'll be what they do after this trilogy, trust me.

There's those two words again; trust me.

:roll:

Chief, they are well on the way to recouping that investment with episode 7 and associated marketing, merchandise etc. By the time epsiode 8 rolls around you can bet Disney would have made a profit on their investment.
 

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