• Nicely done man! You should keep going, fix the rest of these crappy prequel "films". By which I mean money sucking lightsaber filled eyesores.

• This is brilliant--love it!

• It's not really that astounding.

• Amen. Even if there were no changes made to two and three, the movies would have been set up in a less trite fashion, and would probably be a lot more bearable.  Maybe. If George would pay for Hayden Christensen's acting lessons. And actually make him use them.

• Very, Very, Very good job.  Ten times the movie that we all got.  Good work.  

• Absolutely brilliant, food for thought - except your point about Toydarians. Don't the Empire HATE Aliens? With Vader pretty much in charge, he (and therefore the Empire) would find the Toydarians to be a threat, and just wipe the little buggers out (which is why we don't see them in the original Trilogy).  

•  I wish that scene was in the movie haha!

• You are... a %100 right, and the world is a darker place because we do not have a Delorean with a flux capacitor to go back in time and take your ideas and give them to George Lucas.

• I am glad to see I am not the only one who has respect for George and his right to make the prequels he sees fit. 

• Ooh, burn *eyeroll*

• I think I wrote a version of this as a reply to the blog Alt85, before its author went and became a bigtime screenwriter. I oughtta find that since he had some good suggestions and, like, maybe if we've got a guy in the industry working on it maybe one day...

• The most disappointing thing about the prequels is not just Lucas going for his cheap parlor tricks (which are all over the original series if you're looking for them) but that he went from telling one of the greatest emotional stories of his generation to one utterly devoid of emotions. Contrast the lightsaber duel at the end of Jedi, when Luke is about to lose himself to the Dark Side because he is bent on avenging THREE fathers (Owen, Obi-Wan, Anakin), that he has turned his back on the master manipulator who created this entire dark universe. Then at the crucial moment Luke stops, THROWS AWAY his lightsaber, the symbol of the fighting Jedi, because he realizes that standing against evil, not his tool for fighting it, is what being a Jedi is about. I'd put up with 1,000 Ewoks and a million Jar Jars so long as the series crescendo'ed at such a pregnant, meaningful moment. I've been touting around a rewrite of Eps I-III for years now and you hit right on some of the big points (like keeping Darth Maul alive, Anakin being much older, Obi Wan being the main character who lusts for the old days of Jedi Action versus Sith, and the Obi Wan/Padme/Anakin love triangle). I was going to further depart from the original storyline and go more for the Roman epic that Lucas used as backstory in A New Hope, where the Republic before the Empire was ruled by the Senate and policed by mystical warrior monks until a huge war against faceless barbarians. Major Thematic Changes:-Obi Wan and Amidalah have obvious chemistry in the 1st movie. The second movie's big subplot is the maturation of their love story, when by the end Obi Wan finally has to choose being a Jedi over loving her. Your moment of him abandoning Qui-Gon is a perfect foreshadowing of that, and I especially like the idea of Obi-Wan being so haunted by Qui-Gon's death that he abandons his love for Amidalah because of it. You can see where this is going: Amidalah instead takes up with Anakin because he's the perfect Obi-Wan rebound: a younger, hotter, more powerful Jedi who doesn't care about the celibacy rules. -Screw the Galactic Trade Federation. The best you could do with this is make it into the East India Company but we're not telling the story of how Britain became an empire; we're talking about Rome. The shadow enemy they're fighting against is a barbarian uprising in the outer systems of species who lived on the planets (e.g. Naboo) that were colonized generations ago. Somehow the barbarians (of whom Darth Maul is a type species and a leader) have been modernized enough to go on murderous rampages in the outer systems. Naboo=Israel, a centuries-old peaceful and productive colony under siege from terrorists with a legitimate historical beef. And this is a perfect enemy for a jingoist, corrupt, disassociated "Rome" i.e. Coruscant. -The Jedi are split into parties and also corrupt. Their obviously analogous to the Catholic Church of Late Antiquity, though this is not an exact comparison. We meet them when they are questioning their old stoic, samurai ways and considering how they might be the ones to step into the power vacuum of the crumbling secularist Republic and restore order. I agree that Yoda needs to be sidelined, but not as a myth as you suggested. Rather he's the history professor of the Jedi Academy who has been politically ostracized from Jedi power centers because he's so damn monkish. Yoda has a few dedicated followers among the Jedi, but most are behind Jedi leader Mace Windu. Windu is the polar opposite of Yoda -- he is deeply engaged in secular politics and sees himself as a demigod. He is against Anakin being trained because he senses Anakin's power. Windu is not overt about his designs to take over the Republic (even if it's just temporary) but any time Mace Windu and his ilk make a power grab (e.g. by getting Jedi appointed as high-ranking officers in the new model army, or when he tries to arrest Palpatine in Ep3) it helps Palpatine convince Anakin that the Jedi are just as corrupt and power hungry, and Light Side/Dark Side is just as B.S. as celibacy. -Amidalah isn't democratically elected or any of that. Her father was assassinated by Palpatine (she doesn't know who obviously) because the future emperor was banking on the little teenage queen being easy to manipulate into the perfect outer planet sob story and build support for a war against the barbarians. Her thing is she's actually a spark plug, and once she has seen some of what goes on in the empire she goes over Palpatine's head, walks out into the woods herself and Yizhak Rabin's a lasting peace with the once downtrodden original inhabitants of Naboo. In Ep 2 Obi Wan is hiding her from now very serious attempts to assassinate her as she tours the outer systems as a peace ambassador. Obi Wan at one point offers to give up being a Jedi if she'll give up being queen of a small colony who's sticking herself between very ambitious warmongerers (Windu, Maul) on both sides, but she refuses. Since the Sith can't get her, they get the barbarians to attack her homeworld again, plus three more planets, and this time they kill the Naboo, the Nabooian Aborigines she made peace with, and though Anakin leads a commendable X-Wing/Y-Wing defense from the Republic, their crummy old naval power is not enough to save anybody. Ep 2 ends with Anakin raised to Jedi for his heroism, Amidalah just a figurehead survivor of an extinct people who blames Obi Wan for her not being there to stop the genocide. Obi Wan says fine and chooses to be a Jedi for good, and we leave off with the Republic mobilizing for total war.-Anakin's mother isn't just a slave, but it's strongly hinted she's a...certain kind of slave, kidnapped as a young girl by human traffickers who are paying off someone in the Republic to ply their trade (mostly from defeated, underdeveloped aboriginal populations, e.g. Wookies, and the sexy tube-head girls, of outer colonies). The father isn't God--he's an offworlder and all Shmi remembers about him is that he said he was a Jedi (evidence that celibacy isn't working as well as the order pretends), which nobody has ever believed. 14-year-old Anakin goes out on night escapades where he hunts human traffickers and kills them (it's more about revenge than saving girls). This is how he meets Qui Gon and Obi Wan, when the traffickers kidnap Amidalah and Anakin saves her before the Jedi can. Also saved at that moment is a young Beru, whom Amidalah was comforting during their short captivity. While Qui Gon does that whole podracing thing you mentioned with Anakin, Obi Wan and Amidalah sneak off and Amidalah uses her unlimited funds to get Beru set up where she's safe. In one of the subsequent movies we'll mention that Amidalah keeps in touch with Beru of Tatooine--she never talks about it with anyone but Obi Wan. When Amidalah dies in Episode 3 (not of a "broken heart" but in complications from being strangled by Anakin in his jealous rage) the last letter from Beru arrives and Obi Wan receives it in his grief -- we never have to go back to Tatooine.Minor Character Changes:-Qui Gon is an acolyte of Yoda, and stays away from Coruscant on purpose because he's so old school. He's got a rebel streak, like a Han Solo Jedi, who picked and chose what parts of Jediism he believed in. -Obi Wan you've got down. His arc is the main crux of the story but his adult progress is also blocked by the choices he makes to remain "just a Jedi" and stay true to its codes. Obi Wan admires the hermetical Yoda a bit too much, interfaces with the world as a consummate samurai soldier, and therefore won't ever seize the political opportunities that come up. -No Jar Jar, Han shoots first, all the other obvious crap, etc. etc. etc.

• Yeah Maaaaaannnnnn!  Occupy Hollywood maaaaaannnnnn!

• Hmmm...I must have missed your entertaining video...

• You are totally right in that Lucas should have assembled a team of people passionate to make the prequel something thing Star Wars couldn't even imagine.  You know why he didn't use ardent Star Wars fans?  Because he is possessive about the franchise, and he doesn't give a flip about what Star Wars fans think.  He made the prequel for himself.  And in 5-10 years he will tinker with it again probably ruining the only things i liked about it.  If I only had 2 changes to make in the prequel, it would be to eliminate any character that is distracting to the plot (Jar-Jar), and keep Darth Maul alive as a bad ass killing machine!!!  He should have lasted until the second movie at least!  He and Anakin should have been competing throughout the 2nd and 3rd movies for Palpatine's tutelage and doing horrible things in the process (there can be only one apprentice).  Eventually Kenobi should have bested both Maul and Anakin.

• If Padme and Kenobi go after each other, then how does darth vader come to be?  Where do Luke and Leia come from?  Maybe if Padme has a romance with both Anakin and Kenobi, and they fight over her, it would add even more space soap opera drama?

• Watch the video again, because clearly you're missing the point where he TOLD you that he is aiming for familiarity in themes. And besides, repackaging a released work is what Lucas does best anyway, judging from recent events, so why not actually make it GOOD while he's at it?

• LOVE IT Why Couldn't this guy be Lucas? 

• Sounds too much like the original film (um... 'Star Wars', for those who are unsure what I mean). If Lucas had done that, people would have cirticized him for repackaging the original. He wouldn't have gotten off easy. But most of us would have loved the film mroe and felt a heck of a lot better about it in the end :)

• Yeah. I find it a little odd that, based on a YouTube video that consists of a static shot of a dude's head and shoulders with footage composited in behind him in which he talks about some ideas he has to improve another person's movie,--some of which are flawed themselves--people want to entrust him with millions of dollars to make a feature film.

• I see what you did there. :P

• This man should be made Emperor.  He just make a steaming piece of crap the most epic movie ever.

• Really?  I don't think so.  I think if Lucas said, "I'm redoing the prequels," most people would say, "Thanks.  And no Jar-Jar."

• I don't like the idea of Kenobi and Padme going gaga for each other...and you could still do it the same way, Kenobi just goes to the side of Padme when she's hit because she's the queen.  No romance needed.  I think a romance between them would make things more complicated than they need to be later. Like it matters...

•  C-3PO? R2-D2? Obi-wan? Yoda? There's a lot of OT characters in the PT.

•  But then Lucas would have to make three versions of the same guy to sell as figures, and there's only so many 'Water attack Darth Maul's and 'Night Striker Darth Maul's kids are going to want to buy.

•  He shouldn't even have to fight, that's how badass he is. He never should have used a lightsaber, tiny or otherwise. Just like how the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back never used a saber, at most Yoda should have sent someone flying with the force. He just doesn't look as awesome and legendary physically fighting as we can imagine him, so it's best left only spoken of, not seen.

•  But even Lucas said that TPM wasn't good. If you watch some of the 'making of' footage, they show him and the others screening one of the cuts of the movie, and saying how it's just too much, there's too much going on, but because of how they made it, they aren't able to cut back or else it would mess up the continuity. I agree it's his films so he can do whatever he wants, but as others have said, he really needs the people around him to bring him back down to Earth, to tell him 'uh sir, this part is garbage' etc. Those movies were going to make money no matter what because of the hype and marketing, that had next to nothing to do with the quality of the film.

•  I agree the best ones are when the people involved with making it love it, for sure, but they could have been good films too, it just would have taken more work, instead of what Lucas did and just slap together crazy shit.

• Woah, that's brilliant!

• Just do what i'm doing. Waiting for the old bastard to die so real film makers can "re-imagine" the star wars series, by totally remaking the prequels and removing all crappy edits from the old movies.

• So awesome! Please do episode 2!

• George Lucas: "Yeah? Well...er...nice shitty green screen keying, ass!"

• Lucas plagiarized himself in the prequels to the point it was moan inducing. what makes the prequels awful for me is that i felt he wasn't trying to make a film in as much as he was doing R&D for ILM. that's his thing, now. Just look at Red Tails: the high points are the ILM handled fight scenes. Low points are everything else. and it was the same with the Prequels. if Lucas had bothered to go to writers who were passionate about SW, and then let people who were passionate about SW direct, and just sat back and tackled the techie aspect, i think it would have come out better.

• See my post about his unstable mentality and unintentional shame about being the only former slave turn Padawan in the Jedi Academy having a great deal in his fall from grace below (or above, if you set the comments to "Newest First")

• Indeed, my Dark Lord. It just goes to show: even the common filth of the Internet have something worthwhile to spit out from time to time.

• Of all the weird, stupid crap Lucas barfed up for the prequels, the direction taken with Padme was most unfortunate. I couldn't begin to tell you what she did in "Sith" except have babies and die. I am still convinced she was originally meant to survive (possibly a faked death) and re-appear under the name Mon Mothma. Read Mon Mothmas bio in "Behind the Magic" sometime, its Padmes story all the way, up until around the events of "Sith". Also, before it's release Rick McCallum admitted an OT character appears in Episode 1, but we wouldnt know until the final film. Well, if not Padme/Mothma, then who was it?? Ah. Feels good to get that rant over with. Thank you for reading my insanity.

• along with Indiana Jone's wad of ejaculate - er - I mean Shia the Beef

•  it really brought out what he was trying to say. phew. for a moment i thought he was simply the latest scrap of shit TR stepped on.

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• But then Lucas can't milk the fandom for all of our coins worth in the form of the "Clone Wars" animated series. And we KNOW just how much Lucas LVOE milking his fandom.

• <b>How</b> Pathetic <b>am I for posting this</b>. Another <b>justified, well deserving</b> critic of TPM - a film that was released in 1999 <b>when my balls haven't dropped yet</b>. You people <b>rightly</b> complain about re-releases and subtle changes to the saga and yet all I see day in day out is the same regurgitated story of woe <b>that is actually filled with great ideas that Hollywood sadly won't ever listen to</b>. <b>I should</b> Get a fucking life<b>, but first I have to suck everybody's cock in here so that you would forgive me for posting a really pathetic post like this</b>. There, I fixed it for you. No no, no need to thank me. I'm just a handy helper that way.

• EXACTLY! Plus, I think it would give him the right push into his tragic fate. Now this is just conjecture, but keep in mind that his former slave status would no doubt bring him unintentional shame, since I am under the impression that he's the only former-slave-turn-Padawan in the entire Jedi Academy. This is also a good way to dig into the universe of Star Wars as well, by posing the question if there is discrimination in Coruscant. Is there such a thing as social gap in the Capital Planet? I mean, considering the seedy back alley with the Deathstick salesman, I should think there is! And besides, kids can be mean fuckers if they want to, and whose to say Anakin wasn't unstable already due to his separation to his dear mama? Maybe one "Ha ha, your mama's a slave! You suck!" could be one of the reasons he readily embrace the Dark Side.

• Why? Because of the lead fridge thing? It's no better than jumping out of a plane in a fucking rubber raft and skidding down a snowy mountain, a ravine AND a fucking waterfall into safety! Though I admit, the King of Monkeys scene needs to go.

• No, no, and no. He made absolutely clear what should've been done and how to do them. There are only several rants that I find here: the Toydarians, the Midichlorian and no Jar-Jar. Everything else is a well-suited how-to for the betterment of the stink that is The Phantom Menace. Also, really? I have a headache trying to follow that needlessly split battle when ONE streamlined battle could've included all of those things. First, the combined forces push the federation army into the palace, then the pilots take the secured capital hangar to take off to do battle in space, and finally the rest of the task force lead by Amidala, Obi Wan and Qui-Gonn take out the remnants of the Trade Federation in the palace. And the rest can take place as the guy in the video described. One continuous, streamlined, EPIC battle sequence is so much more entertaining than three lesser ones, and that is what George Lucas fail to grasp.

• Ever since Red Letter Media did their mega review of TPM, every nerd on the internet has started dreaming of how things could have been better.  It's getting damn old.

• Yes, you need a space battle, but no, it does not need to be Anakin behind the wheel (rudder?). I think this is the reason why Lucas made the stupid, stupid decision of allowing Anakin to tag along back to Naboo: because he has not established a Han Solo expy. Otherwise, this problem could be solved in seconds: send out that space badass in the So-Not-Millenium-Falcon and let him (or her) lead the charge.

• The way I see it, Lucas unleashed the stupidity that is Jar Jar, we get a free pass to beat this dead horse down into fine glue. Simple as that.

• I was about to berate you on how that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but then I saw your name.

• Er, rewrites? Re-releases? An actual good script? I dunno. XD

• I just love that he describes an alternate version of the first film, with his interpretations of the characters, and then riffs on fanfiction at the end. God, if only someone could <i>write</i> this thing he is describing... oh, wait. What would that be called...?

• Yeah, I think with the changes outlined in the video, you could have Anakin at 12, and it would still work. He's not getting involved in advanced robotics or space battles, and they leave him behind for the climax. I would argue that one of the big problems is that he doesn't act like any kid of that age I've ever seen. What does Anakin care about? Nothing. What makes him angry? Nothing. Smart kids are often rebellious; at the very least, they should be able to think for themselves. You could have the dynamic he describes and keep Anakin quite young. Although, casting him as a teenager? Saves hiring another actor for the sequel. Pragmatism, ftw.

• Any awesome in that scene was invalidated by: "I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!" (Although it does directly explain Vader's behaviour at the end of Episode IV.)

• Dude, you really hit the nail on the head. Excellent analysis.

• Actaully Obi-Wan went to Mustufar in hopes of stopping Anakin from continuing down the dark path its he just realized he was wrong towards the end of their duel.

• I'm going to make the unpopular comment and say the simple truth. The prequel trilogy wasn't so much "bad" as the original wasn't as critically amazing as it gets credit for. It was a cultural phenomenon, and a film friendly revision of The Children of Dune... and then the prequels for the most part play out Dune and Dune Messiah in Hollywood fashion. Honestly- this guy's vision is definitely an improvement.

• Genius. Please do vids saying how you'd remake eps 2 and 3, ASSUMING that your ep 1 got made.

• Yeah, there's a deleted scene in ROTS where he's all "Obi Wan has been here, hasn't he?" and Padme is all "yeah we were just talking".

• I've always thought the same thing! He should've made Naboo into Alderaan. That way we get to actually see what Alderaan looks like, how nice the people are, etc etc. So when we finally see it destroyed in ANH it will have more impact.

• This dude looks like a cross between Dustin Diamond and that dude who fucked a pie.

• I want to live in the universe where this is reality.

•  Actually, on that point- Merge the characters of Darth Maul and Jar Jar. Yes, really. On Naboo, the Jedi meet a native warrior; he offers his knowledge of the planet to them to help in getting to the palace. They accept, and the warrior proves his worth by using his culture's weapon, a double-edged glaive, to cleave through the palace guard and open a path for the Jedi. After this, he's a useful ally throughout the film. He doesn't do the heroics, but he's clever, perceptive, and can pull his own in a fight. Qui Gon mentions that he may even have some latent force-sensitivity. Darth Maul is a more appealing design than the Gungans, so probably that race would be replaced by Maul's. Hints of Sith influence are perceived throughout the film, but they're never substantial enough to say anything. Then, when Obi Wan briefly leaves Qui Gon behind in the final fight, with the Naboo native warrior who's been a steady ally through the film- he stabs Qui Gon in the back. Darth Maul, Sith apprentice- he's been acting as Sidious's hand the whole movie. Guiding the Jedi to the places he wants them; destroying any dangerous evidence of Sith activity. He fights Obi Wan with his double-sided lightsaber, and manages to defend himself until escaping the palace with the help of his allies- establish right here that the Trade Federation is only part of a larger picture, and that the Sith are connected to this. Obi Wan manages to make a disfiguring gash somewhere on Maul's body- perhaps the chest? Or, being Lucas, Maul loses a hand. At any rate, both now have something personal against the other, and the conflict between Obi Wan and the traitor Jar Jar/Darth Maul will be an important part of the sequels.

• Well, you can call it what  you want, but I think the extended section of the movie where a good chunk of the cast flew around in space in the Millennium Falcon while being shot at by Star Destroyers and TIE fighters counts as a space battle.

• Ignoring editors is what Anne Rice is doing these days, and we all know how well that went.

•  Also, why can't he be both a Senator (official rank and position in the Republic), and an intermediary (what he actually does in the Republic)?

• An alternative...when he defeats Anakin, he uses Force lightning, and it takes a huge toll on his body. He's shocked himself he used it, and it's the last straw that pushes Anakin over all the way. As part of his own penance, Obi Wan goes into exile after making sure Leia and Luke will be safe. He lives a life without the Force and this helps him remain hidden all those years.

• I think he meant hold Yoda til Attack of the Clones (especially since Lucas has said they didn't have the tech quite yet to make him the way they did in Attack of the Clones).  Palpatine as a Jedi liaison so he could have some influence on their side and a better way of bringing them down/more knowledge of them and be trusted by them. Instead, they're all fools who never seem him coming and for no reason. The Anakin space battle was some BS as it was. "Woo hoo! I blew up the bad guys even though I'm like 8 and acting like 5, but a magically awesome mechanic." At least if he was older, it would have fit a little better.

• Not to mention Ewan Mcgregor is a far more compelling actor and hero than Jake Lloyd/Hayden Christensen.

• Another long addition to that long diatribe.  Palpatine has somehow walked among all the Jedi with Force powers without anyone sensing it. Somehow this has to be explained. Perhaps he was once a paduwan, a would-be Jedi, but he lacked control, and he was rejected from the Jedi Academy. Because he couldn't learn to be a Jedi, he threw himself into politics, but in secret, he sought out other avenues and became Sith. His failing to become a Jedi can be mentioned in passing, a warning to Anakin or about Anakin to Obiwan when Anakin is sent into exile. "Without control over his emotions, he can never master the Force. He will be cast out as others have been before him."  Anyway, for the main plot, if we play up the aspect of Anakin's character as a slave a bit more, maybe even orphaned (or a slave like his brother Owen, who lacks Force potential and is left to his plight by Qui Gon), then maybe in the second movie, Attack of the Clones, we see the cracks start to form in the would-be Jedi Anakin. He's being taught to be this arbiter of justice, this noble warrior, yet now this same Republic agrees to enslave a race of clones because it's convenient. Anakin perhaps even abandons a duty and goes home to rescue his family/brother, freeing him, killing his former owner (not a flying cartoon), and in so doing, takes the first step toward giving in to anger and other selfish feelings. (And the still alive Darth Maul perhaps watches it all and reports back to his master, or is instead battling Obiwan elsewhere, who will resent that his apprentice Anakin left him alone, and Kenobi will also be hurt that Padme went with Anakin. Maybe Obiwan loves Padme but does nothing because his Jedi training tells him he cannot share himself with a lover, but must be devoted to his duty, including training Anakin).  This sets up the 3rd movie where various things happen, specifically the war escalates, and Anakin is censured by the Jedi council, or some such, and sent to live in solitude for a year or whatever to divorce himself from his negative emotions. Maybe Padme is being sent back to Naboo or to the Senate, and Anakin is demanding to be her personal bodyguard. Instead, the Jedi Council assigns Obiwan.  So now, the turning point for Anakin will not be slaughtering a bunch of little kids. Instead, he is exiled, sent away while the Jedi try to help hold together the Republic. (Perhaps, and here's a set-up for later, Master Yoda takes Anakin to Dagobah, a place long used by Jedi to train their minds. Yoda can either still be there, or just leave Anakin.) Anyway, Anakin is hunted down by Darth Maul, who is either there at Sidious' order, or through his subtle manipulation to pit them against each other. Maul believes he is going to be replaced by Obiwan or Anakin, whatever, and goes to kill Anakin. Maybe Yoda and Anakin kill Maul, or Yoda isn't there and Anakin escapes his exile with Maul's ship.  This time on Dagobah first sets it up as the birthplace of Vader, a part of him always being there until that Force echo is faced down by Luke. Second, Anakin faces Maul, Obiwan's enemy, but actually a real obstacle to Anakin. Maul is both standing in the way of his escape, and also stands in the way of him becoming Vader (in the grand scheme of the series), being Sidious' apprentice. Anakin returns to the Jedi Council, wanting to find out where Padme and Obiwan are (maybe the Jedi were hiding key members of the Senate, including Bail Organa, after a series of assassinations by Maul and other Sith agents.) Back at the Council, Anakin is treated as a criminal. He faces Mace Windu, the moral compass of the Council. Mace always has a strong feel for when someone has turned to the Dark side, but manipulations by Sidious have had him confused lately, and he is convinced Anakin is the threat that will end the Jedi. Consequently, he is ensuring just that. Anakin ends up fighting his way out of the council, the distraction allowing Sidious to move through and find where all of the Jedi are currently stationed. Perhaps Palpatine, who has previously befriended Anakin, helps him locate Obiwan and Padme (also locating all the other Jedi so his agents can begin killing them, along with the order for the Clones to turn.) Thus Anakin has unwittingly begun Sidious's Order 66 or whatever where all the Jedi are killed. Anakin has turned on the Jedi, but still considers himself a good guy, right up until he discovers Obiwan was the one assigned to Padme. He believes Obiwan is trying to steal her from him, turn her on him with lies about Anakin murdering Jedi (it was self-defense, to Anakin). He pursues their ship to the volcanic planet/place, shoots them down, and Padme sustains injuries that will eventually kill her. She has a choice to be saved or deliver her babies, as compared to dying from a broken heart. Obiwan pleads with her to choose her own life, but she insists the lives of her children matter more, and she makes him promise to keep them safe. Anakin's ship flies by overhead, having had some difficulty tracking their ship's signature among the volcanic heat on the surface. Obiwan draws away and battles Anakin, trying to protect Padme while she delivers on the crashed ship. They have a meaningful argument as they fight, and it in no way includes "You were the chosen one!" Overconfident after beating Maul and Mace Windu (or Maul and Yoda were left fighting when he escaped and he only beat Windu), Anakin makes a huge mistake more than just flipping toward a guy with a laser sword, and Obiwan reluctantly takes advantage. He tries to save Anakin, pulling him out of the lava, but Anakin strikes out and promises to kill him. After defeating Anakin, Obiwan goes to find that Padme has delivered (droids or something helped - maybe Bail Organa), but she is dead. He takes the infants to Anakin's ship and escapes with them, rendevouzing with Bail Organa, who takes Leia while Obiwan takes Luke to Owen, believing the boy to be safe there. Obiwan believes Anakin is dead, but if he isn't, Tatooine would be the last place he'd look, as Obiwan knows what he did there, killing his master. Also, Luke and Leia are named by Obiwan after his parents or something, because he still cares about Anakin, but more symbolizing the love he had for Padme, who had chosen Anakin (or maybe even just had a one night stand and forgot to take her Republic Pill).  Meanwhile, back on the planet, Anakin crawls through superheated rock and lava back to the crashed ship where he finds Padme dead. He can even scream "Nooooooooo!" here if Lucas really wants. Anakin never knew she was pregnant. Perhaps Obiwan slashed up any of the pregnancy-indicating equipment with his lightsaber. Burned and broken, Anakin clutches at Padme with his one, burned hand. It's then that Palpatine/Sidious arrives, telling him he tracked him from the Council. Palpatine tells him he can have vengeance against Obiwan, and all the Jedi like him. Thus it's not Order 66 or the fall of the Republic that is the title inspiration, but rather it is Sidious turning Anakin, and the promise of vengeance to the young Jedi, for Revenge of the Sith.

• No, actually, if Lucas came out and said, "I'm going to reboot the prequels," it would be him admitting he made mistakes (instead of his constant changes based the idea that the new changes are what he always wanted to do). Many would praise him if Lucas came out and said, "I realize now that I tried to make too big a spectacle with the prequels, bowing to the immense pressure I felt, when I should I focused on the characters I wanted to develop, namely Anakin, Obiwan, and Luke and Leia's mother Padme. These are the 3 heroes of my prequels, my Luke, Leia and Han for the new generation of Star Wars fans. Their primary adversaries are Darth Maul, Darth Sidious/Palpatine, and assorted other lesser villains. I could've still had my lightsabre acrobatics, my droids, my clones, my comic relief, but I shouldn't have made those things a bigger part of my movies than characters you could care about. I just expected everyone to love Anakin and then be bummed when he turned. I forgot that while I made Luke special, he struggled and grew in ways that my Gary Stu Anakin didn't. And the contentious and passionate love between Han and Leia, restrained as it was, felt much more genuine than the love I told you was there between Padme and Anakin." If Lucas rebooted the prequels using this video as his guide, people would love it. Unfortunately, he'd have to recast Obiwan due to age. That casting was one of the best things about the prequels, but as the video notes, he was just pushed to the side so Anakin's story could be told. But he'd also have to recast Anakin, which would be a good thing. Christensen was good in Life as a House, but nobody wanted a whiny, angsty Anakin. A teenage slave who grows in confidence, a man who grew up with pain and shame and still holds it deep in his heart, would develop alongside Obiwan until he gives way to anger and turns on his best friend, a friendship we'd watched grow in Episode 2. It would've been much better, a satisfying lead-in to the 3 following movies, showing us why Obiwan would condemn himself to a lifetime as a hermit, watching over Anakin's child as a personal penance for failing to save the father.  And the mismanagement of Darth Maul remains a sticking point. As the apprentice to Sidious, he could have been a foil to Obiwan throughout the prequels, and also served as a comparison to what Vader would become. Instead we had Maul, Dooku and Greivous, a series of excellent lightsaber warriors, we're told, who never really generate any lasting trepidation or concern in the audience. Even if we knew Anakin and Obiwan would ultimately face each other, and the emperor would take control, it would've helped to have had a steady, physical threat to complement the machinations of Sidious.

•  Has anyone ever watched the prequel trilogy before watching the original trilogy? Ever? Also, you'd have about as good a chance these days of going into episode V blind as you would watching the 6th Sense or Planet of the Apes.

•  The point is the kid should have BEEN the studio exec, not whoever it was that let Lucas have full reign.

• Oh lord.  You know, Lucas lost it precisely because everyone was so busy licking his balls that nobody ever told him that some of his ideas were bad.  He lost contact with reality precisely because everyone didn't dare tell him when he was being stupid.  How connected with reality would you be if you'd been hearing you shit perfume for 30 years?

• Ah, no.  Not really.  People really wanted to like the damn things.  They really did.  If the movies had been reasonably competent Plinkett wouldn't have made his career making fun of the movie 10 years later.  I mean that's how bad it was, and how much people wanted it to be good.  It's been like 13 or 14 years, PEOPLE ARE STILL WILLING TO TALK ABOUT HOW PISSED THEY ARE. You know, I thought Cowboys and Aliens was a crappy movie, but I've gotten over it.  I just don't' care.Somebody brings up the reboot rage re: the New Star Trek.  Now, I'm not saying there wouldn't be someone on the internet bitching about the prequels if they were good movies.  It's the internet.  Someone be bitching, no matter what.  The reboot rage was pretty much a small minority and they appear to have mostly gotten over it.  Certainly no one will be make a career off of mocking it in 2018.  

• Yeah, if you watched the six films unaware of how they were made you'd end up thinking that life on Tatooine must be crazy hard on you

• Unless, of course, you're making "Empire". Which turned out to be the best of the Star Wars movies. And, no, fleeing a blockade is not a space battle...

• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

• I miss the treatment that used to be at betterstarwars.com

• http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/ also awesome

• I disagree with the idea of Palpatine being a "Jedi liaison", it keeps intact another big problem with TPM: the whole conspiracy thing. The prequels would have benefited greatly from it, if the rise of the Empire was due to the failure of the Republic to deal with a fascist-like movement, headed by Palpatine openly (instead of Palpatine advancing a secret plot to overthrow the government). If the Republic was presented more like the Weimar Republic, a failing government that, by the end was more of a bureaucracy than an actual democracy (where people actually became attracted to a philosophy of violence, or in Star Wars terms, a philosophy of the Dark Side), the conscious references to Nazi Germany in the original trilogy would have also rung more true, at least to my ears.

• They are hated by nerds who are just angry that the movies don't reflect <i>their</i> ideas for what the prequels should have been.  Well, it's not their story. It's Lucas' story. Those nerds should go write their own original thing instead of trying to "fix" someone else's work. Let's see this dude in the video CREATE something as lasting and loved as Star Wars instead of just playing in someone else's sandbox. For TPM being so hated, it sure sells a lot of tickets, DVDs, and merchandise. I think the rage we see on the Internet is a tiny sampling of gathered, like-minded people who just need to rage about something in order to feel involved in it somehow.  For the record, I didn't love TPM, but I wouldn't deign to tell George Lucas how to write his own story, just as I wouldn't want some twerp telling me how to write my own books.

• So stop watching Star Wars. Problem solved.

• "a film that was released in 1999" ... Which is currently in theatres in 3D.  Seems as good a time as any.

• Most of it has been done in the many fan-edits that have existed for years, so it's pretty unoriginal.  Honestly, if you don't like TPM, then don't watch it. Just stop beating the dead horse already. You're well past the bones.

• Exactly. That correlates directly to Star Wars being better when Lucas steps back from total control of every aspect...

•  Well, I'd like them to keep General Grievous just so they could re-do him as the Jedi-murdering badass from Tartakovsky's Clone Wars.

• Sorry, you misinterpreted that Palatine was pre-established as being a Senator.  We was originally a Janitor, but Lucas dripped some mustard on his imaginary original prequel scripts that he wrote before Episode IV, hence the confusion.

• Liked his ideas a lot.  Myself, I would have made Obi Wan older.  If he's in his early 60s during A New Hope, he should be early 30s in Phantom -- past the age of apprentice.  I never thought he was old enough in the prequels for how old Alec Guiness looked just 20 years after Sith. So Obi Wan, and not Qui Gon, should have been the one to see potential in Anakin.  Obi Wan should have had his own apprentice and lost him to Darth Maul.  That would also put greater depth into his training Luke to kill Vader, who was 100% Obi Wan's fault.

• It's a coping mechanism.  After more than a decade, people are still trying to cope with how disappointed they were.

• Best thing to happen to ST was the death of Roddenberry.  Just saying

• Very funny and clever, but he might have went a little over board.  You kinda need at least one space battle in Star Wars.  Talk about familiarity. 

• Genius. Makes me sad all over again that TPM was so awful, because it didn't have to be that way. If only this guy had been consulted!

• Considering what he had to work with, I strongly disagree, sir!

• Bull. Shit. Yoda was great BECAUSE there were so many myths about him that you don't see firsthand.  Remember how Darth Vader was so great in the original trilogy because you never associate him Hayden Christensen's wood stick acting quality and Jack Llyod's whiny voice? Yeah, it's kinda like that.

• I think that's covered in the video: make Maul as a continuously lasting villain that Obi Wan chases all over the three prequels in order to get vengeance for Qui Gonn Jinn. Better development than him playing Clue for the rest of the two movies.

• I've not watched this vid yet, but I have my own idea about how we could improve the WHOLE PREQUEL TRILOGY.  You know Darth Maul? And Count Dookoo, and General Grevious? They should all be merged together into one character.  Think about it - these are three bad guys, one for each of the movies. They are all defeated in each movie, by which point they've served their purpose and can be killed off etc. The thing is, none of them need to be seperate characters. By having just ONE character who serves the same purpose and lasts throughout the whole trilogy, you have one centralised antagonist who acts as Palpatine's arm. The characters (and by extension, the audience) are able to build up feelings about him, and become emotionally involved in the conflict.  So when it comes to Ep3 and a big conflict, you're genuinely excited to see how it turns out. Think about it, rather than Obi-Wan fighting General Grevious in Ep3, what if he was fighting the same evil guy who killed Obi-Wan's master, and has been eluding/defeating him ever since? Much stronger emotional impact, right there. In short, making one character to do all the stuff these three do, is better than having these three generic goons. 

• "Spoilers" are my major problem with the new trilogy, also. While the "Vader is Luke's father" spoiler is HUGE- it completely, savagely wrecks the shock ending of "The Empire Strikes Back"- the one that bothered me most was the Emperor. Until "Return of the Jedi" I (personally) had always thought of Darth Vader as "the BIG BAD"; Luke must defeat his father for the good of the galaxy. The emperor had been mentioned but I thought of him like an administrator; Leia was a Princess; there were Imperial Senators on Alderaan; there were Generals and Admirals and Toffs on the Death Star- there was only one Darth. When the Emperor was "revealed" to be the true "Master- Of The Dark Side" it was a big deal. He had trapped Luke's father and <i>could</i> ensnare Luke. The "force lightning" shooting from his fingertips was new and scary. The "new trilogy" revealed ALL of that- spoiled everything. It took away all of the fun, mystery and surprise of the originals- and it gave us no new cliffhangers in return. I'm afraid the damage is done. No amount of retooling and/or remodeling can fix the problems.

• I would've also not set the movie on Naboo, but instead Alderaan (forshadowing). And have Anakin use some raw force power against Sebula in the pod race, a bit force push into a canyon wall

• The only good point he raised was about how Obi Wan Kanobi should've had a more central role and that Jar Jar wasn't the best idea (a little childish for me as well), however the rest is just a rant - the split fight during the end scenes was a great idea by Lucas, exciting and filled with detail.

• Being an intermediary would mean that Palpatine was trusted by both sides and would be a probable candidate for solving disputes, were there an argument between the Senate and the Jedi. Being a senator in the movie only granted him eligibility to become the Chancellor and didn't really help him a lot in any other way. As for the Qui-Gon vs Darth Maul fight, it should have been an analogue of the Obi-Wan / Vader fight in "A New Hope". Why didn't Han and the rest attack Vader? Would he have been capable of deflecting so many blasts at the same time?  

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