Oh, for the sake
of the Force. It’s not far, far away. It’s not even far away. It’s our own
galaxy, the Milky Way. And it’s not very long ago -- the mere blink of an eye
in geological terms, never mind Galactic terms. It is the unfashionable western
arm of the Milky Way galaxy[1].
I recently
watched Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Jedi again. That and the
recent purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney made me start to think (always
dangerous). This is an opinion piece. In fandom it takes very little to create
controversy or get fankids upset, so please remember this is mere speculation.
Don’t Panic.[2]
It came to me
that if it were possible to re-do the prequel trilogy, not in the minor way
that George Lucas did with the original saga with pointless digital character
and/or just silly inserts (Han shot first. Otherwise is out of character and he
would have been dead as a result. Who in their right mind would think a thug
like Greedo could miss at that range?), but with substantial things. If that were to happen, there are some things I would like to see. These improvements do not include any redone digital effects.
Anyway what
follows is my idea for a quasi-reboot of the Trilogy.
Eliminate The Phantom Menace[3],
after distilling important plot points down to about fifteen minutes or so.
Drop the nonsense about a fourteen year old princess falling in eternal love[4]
with a nine year old slave. Drop Jar-Jar (off a very high cliff, please). His
main plot function was to provide an unmotivated Senate motion (in Episode III)
to shelve the ideas of freedom and democracy. You think Darth Sidious couldn’t
use a Sith mind trick[5] to
get another puppet to make that motion?
Episode II (new
Episode I) could still be called Attack
of the Clones. The opening of the movie would be the distillation of The Phantom Menace as described in the
previous paragraph. The rest of the movie would include a tightened up version
of Attack of the Clones, maybe an
hour and a half. The rest would be the first part of Revenge of the Sith. I would hope that more could be made of the
threat of the clones turning on the good guys (in episode III) at the flick of
a switch/press of a button. I also would like to see and more detailed and better
motivation for Anikin’s descent into the Dark Side. There should be concern
expressed by Obi Wan and Yoda of his beheading of the unarmed/disarmed Count
Dooku. He should resist more instead of just being a whiny nine-year-old (in
behavior) who ultimately says something along the lines of: “OK, boss. If I can
save Padmé, I’ll just nip off and slaughter some sweet little cute Jedi
younglings[6] to
make my descent permanent.” He doesn’t say “Couldn’t I just try the Dark Side
long enough to save Padmé?” He doesn’t think about how Padmé would react. How
do you think a pregnant woman – or any woman, for that matter – would react to
the slaughter of children? I think one ending for Episode two (as
re-envisioned) would be the reveal of Palpatine as Darth Sidious and Anikin
reporting this to Mace Windu. Anyone in the audience that did not know this had
never seen any of the other films, but still would not find it a surprise. This
would provide a good amount of dramatic tension leading to Episode Three and
also give more room (in III) to explore the tragedy of the descent of Anikin to
the Dark Side.
The new version
of Revenge of the Sith would start
with the brutal murder of Mace Windu by Palpatine. Instead of this pushing Anikin
toward the Dark Side, it should increase his anguish over his struggle. If he
trusted Palpatine/Sidious, would he have reported his treachery to Master
Windu? Would he have argued or even fought Windu over the plan to arrest
Palpatine? The whole motivation thing is very muddled here. Apparently you just
can’t force persuade someone to turn to the Dark Side but have to allow them to
make the decision internally or it won’t take. It should end similarly but
perhaps a touch of “What have I done?” and resignation to his fate on the part
of Darth Vader. It is important to link to Return
of the Jedi by showing the “spark of good” still in him.
I know some people like Hayden Christensen’s performance. I am not among
them. I am not alone: Roger Ebert, who had praised all of the other Star
Wars films, gave Attack of the Clones
only two out of four stars, noting, "[As] someone who admired the
freshness and energy of the earlier films, I was amazed, at the end of Episode
II, to realize that I had not heard one line of quotable, memorable
dialogue." About Anakin and Padme's relationship, Ebert stated,
"There is not a romantic word they exchange that has not long since been
reduced to cliché." (My thought – they started out as cliché.) Leonard Maltin, who also liked all of the previous
installments, gave only two stars out of four to Episode II. Maltin gave the
reason for his dissatisfaction as an "overlong story" adding,
"Wooden characterizations and dialogue don't help."
I suggest that
what went wrong is that the story is so plot driven that character fell by the
wayside. Characterization is critical here; a tragic tale of a descent into
evil needs to be character driven to succeed. Episode III was better received
that I or II. I thought it flirted with greatness but was not committed to it
so ended up as still less than any episode of the middle saga. The failure to
make more of Anikin’s internal struggle is what I found lacking in the first
trilogy.
[1]
Oops. Wrong universe.
[3]
What does that title mean, anyway?
[4]
Excuse me. I think I mean "Twue
Wuv"
(another fictional universe heard from.)
(another fictional universe heard from.)
[5]
Kind of like a Jedi mind trick but ee-vil.
[6]
Now there’s a stupid word. Is “children” hard to pronounce?
By
William C. Francis
Claiming
Fair Use for Graphics
11/18/2012.
That said, I would like to add an off-topic afterword. ALERT: Bad pun ahead. Could we call the whole 6 episode saga Farewell to Arms?
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