Sunday, May 22, 2005

Could I Have Done It Better?

There have been a lot of people who were surprised at my complete and utter disdain for Episode III. I've heard very few people actually say that they loved it though - most reactions are more like eh, it was okay. I've been thinking a lot about what I would have done differently. Here it is -

Episode One (Search For The Chosen) begins with a teenaged Anakin Skywalker winning a pod race for his employer, his brother-in-law Owen, on Tattooine. This would be a great high-energy sequence to start the series off with - the pod race is really the one bright spot in Lucas' Episode I. Shortly after this race Obi-Wan and Mace Windu show up and begin stealthing their way around the planet, looking for Anakin. At this time Darth Maul also shows up, doing the same thing. You see, there's this prophecy about a Jedi coming to bring balance to the force. Same prophecy from the Lucas trilogy, but the difference here is that the Jedi Council, and assumedly all the Jedi, believe it with all their being. The problem with the Jedi being divided over the legitimacy of this prophecy is that there's no emotional resonance when it turns out that their interpretation of it is wrong. Lucas barely touched on this in Episode III, and it might as well have not been there. In my Episode One, everyone believes it, but no one knows who it is. There are dozens of two-Jedi teams combing the galaxy looking for potential candidates. Also replacing Qui-Gon with Mace Windu is very important - I didn't care for the Qui-Gon character at all, and Sam Jackson didn't have nearly enough to do in the three movies put together. Make him Obi-Wan's trainer and give him as much screen time as possible, because he's the man. This inevitably leads to the first fight between Darth Maul and Mace Windu, where Windu is happy to get away from the Sith master with his life. Lucas, in my opinion, made a huge mistake with Darth Maul. He was one of the coolest characters in the prequels and he was completely wasted. People love Darth Vader because he was a badass. Maul was also a badass, and him dying in Episode I was ridiculous. He should have been carried over to the end of Episode Two, as I shall explain.

So, despite Owen's objections, Anakin goes off with the Jedi, hoping against hope to be the chosen one. Their small craft meets up with a larger ship, captained by one Bail Orgaana, where Anakin meets some of the other candidates. One of these candidates is a young girl named Padme, to whom Anakin finds immediate attraction. There's tons of potential for really cool stuff on this ship. This would be a great place to bring in Yoda, who could be one of the masters out looking for chosen ones. By the end of the movie there should be about a half dozen candidates, and they would have to make their way to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to begin their training. You would also introduce Palpatine, and find a way to get across that he is keenly interested in the results of the search. Throughout the movie you also plant seeds that this a difficult time for the Republic, with a certain group of terrorists causing problems in one area of the galaxy. They don't have the numbers to be a real power, but they cause major headaches in their part of the sky. The movie would show some Jedi training, some Chosen One testing, and the beginnings of the Anakin/Padme relationship. The movie would end with the couple sharing their first kiss then being called to an emergency meeting of all Jedi at the temple. They would be told that the terrorists have launched a large scale attack on several systems at the same time. It would be revealed that they have begun to use a technology that has been strictly forbidden in the past - cloning. "It is a dark day for the Republic, and the start of dark times. We have a great mission ahead of us." Fade to black.

Episode Two (The Clone Wars) would be about, no shock here, the war itself. For twenty-plus years geeks such as myself have been wanting to see some serious badass galactic scale warfare, and I was personally disappointed with Lucas' vision of such. This movie needs to be about the effects that a highly trained special forces unit can have on a war. The unit focused on would, of course, contain both Anakin and Padme, and probably be commanded by Obi-Wan. Mainly because he is the logical choice but also because Ewen McGregor is awesome, and really channelled the spirit of Alec Guiness in the prequels. Throughout this movie you begin to plant and sow the seeds of Anakin's transformtion. He's an incredible pilot, but he is also brutal and vicious, far more so than necessary. He and Padme continue to have a relationship, but he's way more into her than she is to him. He thinks that they have a perfect love that could last forever, and she's more interested in finding a way to get out of the relationship without him snapping. Toward the end of the movie (after much kick-ass fighting, including an incredible bout between Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul that ends with Maul getting killed and Anakin losing a hand) Padme tells Anakin that she wants out and he flips, goes on a rampage, tearing shit up, breaking shit and stopping himself just short of attempting to inflict physical pain on her as well (she's also a Jedi in training, remember). He storms off and she breaks down. During this movie you would continue building up Palpatine as the major badass, and there would have to be a scene where he finds out that Maul is dead and he's almost happy about it. He would see it as better than having to take him out by himself, as he's discovered who the Chosen One is and wants him for his second instead of Maul anyway. You would also feature the now General Orgaana leading some decisive battles in the First Clone War. You would throw in C3PO and R2D2 somewhere, already a team - those two are always together. Maybe throw in a young Chewbacca, who knows. Yoda and Mace would also discover that it's Palpatine behind the Clone Wars and that he is planning to use the conflict as an excuse to continue to increase his power to the end of becoming Emperor. Episode Two ends with a decisive Republic win and the end of the First Clone War. The last shot is Padme sitting alone in a medical examination area, with a med-droid hovering next to her. "Congratulations, madam, it appears to be twins." Fade to black.

Episode Three (Fall of the Jedi) would be absolutely jam-packed with action. It would cover approximately six months (from the moment Padme finds out she's pregnant with twins to shortly after when she gives birth) and would feature Palpatine turning Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force in the beginning of the movie. He would use much of the same argument regarding Jedi plotting and whatnot that is in Lucas' Episode III. He would play up Anakin's loss of Padme in Episode Two and use that as well. He would get Anakin believing that everything is due to the ridiculous imbalance in the Force because there are so many more Jedi than Sith. You see, Palpatine know what the prophecy really means - Anakin's going to kill all but two Jedi. There aren't a whole lot of them left anyway, maybe a couple hundred. The First Clone War was horrific for the Jedi - the clones simply overwhelmed them with numbers. Palpatine even gets the hurt and confused Anakin to believe that he could use the powers of the Dark Side to make Padme love him again.

Shortly after this, a new Sith Master appears, Darth Vader. No one knows where he came from, but he is an incredibly powerful force. He begins systematically killing Jedi at every opportunity. The suit is the same, but in the beginning it's not a necessity. Remember, Obi-Wan tells us that at first Darth Vader was mostly human, but over time he replaced body parts and became more man than machine. Also causing problems for the Jedi is another Clone War, this one not as large as the previous but still requiring massive efforts on the part of the Republic to deal with. By now General Orgaana has gotten into the Galactic Senate and is actively trying to keep Palpatine in check using his war-hero political credit. Meanwhile, when he's not in the Darth Vader gear, Anakin keeps showing up when Padme least expects it, telling her that soon they can be together and be happy, etc. Padme gets a feeling of evil, Dark Sided badness coming off him and goes to the Jedi Council with her suspicions. Several of them go hunting Anakin and he uses his Dark Side powers and his general bad-assedness to kill Mace Windu and lots of others. Everyone knows that Anakin is Vader now, and the remaining Jedi are on the lookout for him. Palpatine chooses this moment to go on the all-out offensive, bringing forth evidence that the Jedi were responsible for both Clone Wars and making all Jedi outlaws. He also completes his engineering and uses his moment of political triumph to get coronated as the first Emperor. Anakin and Padme have a very strong bond, Forcewise. Just as she knew that something was wrong with him, he knew that something was wrong with her. After a chance encounter with her he realizes that she is pregnant, and tells her that she will have to stay with him, he's going to protect their babies, etc. etc. They end up having a fight, lightsabers and all. He holds back, not wanting to hurt her or, now more important to him the babies. She's unable to really hurt him, being nearly full-term pregnant with twins. In the end Obi-Wan breaks in and he and Anakin go at it, with Obi-Wan nearly killing Anakin and leaving him for dead, making it necessary for Anakin to remain in the Vader suit permanently from then on.

Obi-Wan, Yoda and Senator Orgaana take Padme away to have the children, but she knows that the children will never be safe now that Anakin knows about them. She also knows that due to their unusually strong bond he knows when things are happening to her. She decides, unbeknownst to the others on the ship, to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep her children safe. Immediately following their birth she reaches out with the Force and "touches" Anakin, then kills herself. Anakin is paralyzed with grief, overwhelmed with emotion, and never manages to make any kind of Force contact with the infants, believing them to have died with Padme. The movie ends with first Yoda installing Leia with the Orgaanas on Alderaan, then Obi-Wan taking Luke to the Lars on Tattooine. The last shot is of a stoic Obi-Wan, as he raises the cowl over his head and walks off into the binary sunset.

I personally think that this trilogy would have kicked ass. The main difference for me is that it tells a coherent story of a limited number of people, just like the original trilogy did. It eliminates the main problem with Lucas' prequels, which is huge chunks of exposition about things we don't care about, like the Trade Federation. It removes some of the more ridiculous parts of those movies while keeping true to the spirit of the originals. That's the real crime - that these prequel movies don't "feel" like Star Wars to me.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Unable To Meet My Meager Expectations

Just returned from seeing Lucas' latest attempt to destroy my childhood. Revenge of the Sith is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I sat through the entire movie waiting for it to get good. I found the acting to be simply awful. Christopher Lee was wasted entirely. Natalie Portman appeared to be in physical pain from speaking the dialogue. Jimmy Smits phoned it in. Hayden Christianson delivered his same three facial expressions. Chewbacca is on the screen for maybe a minute total, and contributes nothing to the film. General Grievous is the worst CGI character yet - totally ridiculous, obviously written in for the express purpose of being killed.

It was as though Lucas felt a desire from the fan base for this movie to be dark, and simply did everything he could to make it so. There are scenes in this movie that I felt were reprehensible.

There is no dramatic tension in this movie. How could there be? The main plot points were given away more than 25 years ago. Padme gets pregnant and dies in childbirth. No surprise there. Obi-Wan fucks up Anakin in the worst lightsaber duel of all six movies. Yup, saw it coming. Actually, when I was 5 I heard Obi-Wan tell Darth Vader that he had been no match for him in the past. Their duel is terrible - so poorly lit and with the film cutting so quickly you can barely tell what's happening.

George Lucas should have done the wise thing years ago - stuck to his word and never made any more Star Wars movies. He's destroyed his own legacy - these new movies combined with his revisionist, soul-leeching edits of the original films have ensured that his work will be loved by my generation alone, and quickly forgotten by my children.