How would you do the Star Wars prequels/sequels?

[Queequeg]

So this now seems like a p common geek discussion: how would you have done the Star Wars prequels to make them not terrible, and what made them terrible?  Where do the sequels go from here?

[Josephus]

A lot more nudity

[Barrister]

The idea of the prequels is fine.  Conceptually there's little wrong with them.  And they generally hired some pretty good actors, so they're well acted IMO.  I know Christiansen has not exactly gone on to fame and fortune since, but it's hard to say whether it's because he's not a very good actor, or he became type-cast as Anakin.

What they are though is badly written!  The dialogue is so wooden you could use it to build a house out of.  The romance between Anakin and Padme felt forced, and Anakin's turn to the dark side seemed nonsensical.

So, I hire a writer not named George Lucas to assist in telling the story of how Anakin Skywalker fell from grace and turned evil...

[The Brain]

I probably wouldn't include the tired racist stereotypes in the prequels.

[Razgovory]

The idea of the prequels is fine.  Conceptually there's little wrong with them.  And they generally hired some pretty good actors, so they're well acted IMO.  I know Christiansen has not exactly gone on to fame and fortune since, but it's hard to say whether it's because he's not a very good actor, or he became type-cast as Anakin.

What they are though is badly written!  The dialogue is so wooden you could use it to build a house out of.  The romance between Anakin and Padme felt forced, and Anakin's turn to the dark side seemed nonsensical.

So, I hire a writer not named George Lucas to assist in telling the story of how Anakin Skywalker fell from grace and turned evil...

The writing sucked, but so did a lot of the acting.  Not because they were poor actors but they had a poor director.  There was also poor dull camera work as well.  I honestly got bored during many of the fight scenes because there was so much crap flying around it was hard to tell what was going on or why I should care.

[celedhring]

Barrister has the gist of it pretty right imho. The idea was fine, the execution was awful. Lucas was wise enough to surround himself with very talented writers/advisers back when he did the first trilogy; while he probably had yes men all around when he did the prequels.

As for the details, I usually get paid for that 

[Jaron]

I disagree the dialogue was wooden.

Here is a pretty good example of great dialogue in the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi5jjXTPtyY

It draws on the characters experiences and he uses it to forge a bond with another character.

If I was to do the prequels though --

I think I wouldn't have started with Anakin is a lost child. Its a good backstory but its really hard to take someone from a child to an adult in 3 movies and gracefully show his downfall. His transition from being a Jedi to a Sith was too abrupt in my opinion. You have the opening battle on the spaceship where Anakin refuses to leave Obi Wan behind but by the end of the movie he decides he has to kill him. There really is no transition inbetween. Just an impulse decision and then "Okay. I'll go along with this path then."

There were too many attempts to tie the prequels to the original trilogy. R2D2 and C3PO didn't need to be there. It would be okay to have different droids. 

They didn't need to have the Fetts there. Anakin didn't have to be from Tatooine. Lucas could have used new settings, expanded the known SW universe a bit more, and introduced new characters.

I don't mind Jar Jar Binks so much but I think it lowers the tension of the movie if you have this character who is acting comical in tense situations. That wasn't a first in Star Wars - the Ewoks did silly stuff in ROTJ but it'd be like having Luke fumble a thermal detonator on Hoth and after nearly dropping it 6 times it bounces off his fingertip and ends up flying through a view port on a AT-AT. "Oops. Did I do that?"

[Barrister]

Anakin kind of did have to come from Tatooine.  Remember Luke lived there with his aunt and uncle - so they're relatives of Anakin.

[Jaron]

Anakin kind of did have to come from Tatooine.  Remember Luke lived there with his aunt and uncle - so they're relatives of Anakin.

Are you seriously suggesting that families have to live on the same planet?

That was another stupid thing. Why on Earth would they put the kids into the witness protection program and drop one with Anakin's relatives? If Anakin ever figured out he had kids that would be an obvious place to look. Unless they thought it was so obvious Anakin wouldn't bother checking. They should have just Death Star'd Tatooine. Could have taken out Luke and Obi Wan in one beautiful blow. And they'd have destroyed the Death Star plans in the process.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Padme should have been another Jedi. She and Anakin should have had a strong mutual attraction that they both struggled against. They could both have struggled with the dark side, and fighting against their passions would be part of it.
Dooku should have had a better name and should have been a dark Jedi with his own agenda independent of Palpatine's. Maybe he could have created an army of force-sensitive clones, and their atrocities could play into public support for the suppression of force-wielders later on.

[Razgovory]

The writing in the first movies was exactly stellar, but they made do.

[Jaron]

Movie 1: They could have done a movie with Kid Han Solo, Young Chewbacca, Kid Anakin and Padme as a crew of space faring kid pirates who scour the galaxy for treasure. On some planet Anakin can find a lightsaber and teach himself to be a Jedi.

Movie 2: After a nearly successful attempt to steal the Statue of Liberty from Coruscant, the kids are captured and the Jedi Order refuse to train Anakin. Instead, Palpinitus trains him in secret.

Movie 3: Palpatino is found out. The Jedi Order moves against him but just before they can wipe out the future emperor, the kid heroes rescue him and accidentally press the wrong button on their ship and blow up the Jedi temple with a proton torpedo.

Roll credits.

[mongers]

So this now seems like a p common geek discussion: how would you have done the Star Wars prequels to make them not terrible, and what made them terrible?  Where do the sequels go from here?

Sounds too much like flogging a dead horse, so wouldn't bother.

[Barrister]

Anakin kind of did have to come from Tatooine.  Remember Luke lived there with his aunt and uncle - so they're relatives of Anakin.

Are you seriously suggesting that families have to live on the same planet?

That was another stupid thing. Why on Earth would they put the kids into the witness protection program and drop one with Anakin's relatives? If Anakin ever figured out he had kids that would be an obvious place to look. Unless they thought it was so obvious Anakin wouldn't bother checking. They should have just Death Star'd Tatooine. Could have taken out Luke and Obi Wan in one beautiful blow. And they'd have destroyed the Death Star plans in the process.

It's a story about a long lost father ripped straight out of a soap opera.  You have to just roll with some of these kinds of issues.

[celedhring]

To be frank up until the prequels I always assumed that Owen and Beru weren't Luke's actual uncles, just some friends of Kenobi who had taken care of the kid at his bequest.