Worst Lucas idea in the prequels? I vote Rule of Two

[Havok]

Jar Jar: Not in the opening scenes.
Luke: Not in the opening scenes.

Jar Jar: Meets a Jedi, then begins life changing journey with him.
Luke: Meets a Jedi, then begins life changing journey with him.

Jar Jar: Leaves his planet with the Jedi after his life is put in danger.
Luke: Leaves his planet with the Jedi after his life is put in danger.

Jar Jar: Meets the Queen in the midst of her mission and gives her hope.
Luke: Meets the Princess in the midst of mission and gives her hope.

Jar Jar: Helps save the Queen and accomplish her mission.
Luke: Helps save the Princess and accomplish her mission.

Jar Jar: Becomes a hero and gets a celebration.
Luke: Becomes a hero and gets a celebration.

Now it is vague, but the parallels are certainly there. If anything, Jar Jar and Anakin together would need to combine to fill the roll of Luke. I certainly wouldn't call Jar Jar THE protagonist, but he is certainly a protagonist and moves the story along far more than Anakin does. I wouldn't call Anakin THE protagonist either though.

[Bakustra]

Yeah, I overstated Jar-Jar's prominence vis-a-vis Anakin, mainly because the points where his character would have developed are more obvious than those for Anakin. Actually, casting Anakin as young as Lucas did really hurt about as much as Jar-Jar's portrayal did, since they would have needed a relative genius to portray what needed to be portrayed for Anakin's key development in this hypothesized TPM/prequels- (I'm guessing) internalized rage and anguish from the death of Qui-Gon, to set up a major parallel/divergence with Luke.

[Havok]

Jar Jar plays the role of the wise fool. I noticed the similarities recently in Ran, 13 Assassins and The Seven Samurai.

The problem is that Lucas LISTENED to the people that hated Jar Jar instead of continuing on with the path I think he had originally laid out for him which was to continue on as the wise fool and be the trusted confidant that Anakin relies on to facilitate communication and meetings with Padme.

His character should have grown either to be the eyewitness of Anakin's fall or be the victim that put him over the edge to the Dark Side.

Instead we got no Jar Jar and more Boba Fett... way better.

[Stark]

The idea of Jar Jar being in the later movies as anakin's conscience is a pretty cool one. A scene where Anakin killed him or turned from his path would have been powerful stuff.

[Havok]

The way Lucas set up TPM, it was pretty clear to me, via reading and listening to Joseph Campbell back in the day, that that was supposed to happen.
I think that if Lucas had stuck to his hypothetical guns, Ep 2 & 3 would have put Ep 1 in a very different and more positive light and would have turned Jar Jar into not only a more liked character, but would have made Anakin a far more sympathetic one, killing his best friend/conscience in his struggle with the Dark Side instead of just murdering children on command.

[Broken]

George Lucas has already explained the Rule of Two. I believe it was in a Time magazine interview around the time of TPM where he basically explained that the Rule of Two came about because every time you had three Sith Lords in the same room, each of them ended up with two knives in their back. Even when it was in their interest to cooperate, to work together for a greater goal, no Sith Lord could put aside his urge to dominate his fellows, to raise above the others and rule as the sole Master. Even when it cost them the war (or even wars) against the Republic and the Jedi, this was the fatal flaw of the Sith Order. The Dark Side of the Force is so disruptive to the mental and physical balance of the Sith, that it twisted "We should work together against our enemies the Jedi then sort out rulership of the Sith" into "I hate my archenemy, the Jedi, but I also hate Sith Lord #2 (and #3, and #4, and #5, etc), who is also my enemy (along with #3, #4, #5, etc), and I can get at him easier". To the Dark Side addled Sith Lords, this was perfectly logical and the only way to precede. So the Rule of Two is the only way the Banite Sith Order could operate as Lucas envisioned the Sith and the Dark Side.

The Dark Side of the Force is not simply an alternate fuel source (regardless of what EU absurdity is being pushed this week), it is a supernatural corrupting agent with apparently extreme corrosive effects on mental stability, which is why there is no safe or harmless way to touch it.

[Havok]

To elaborate on what I felt were the big mistakes/worst ideas of the PT:

Not continuing with the Jar-Jar/Anakin friendship.

As I have been saying, Jar Jar should have continued to play a prominent role in the PT. He should have served as Anakin's best friend and been the last link severed to Anakin Skywalker in his turn to the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader. Listening to the fans and dumping his character was a very bad idea and the whole PT suffered thematically because of it IMO.

Killing Maul and the resulting cardboard characters that themselves only got one movie and no time for development.

Maul was a very promising character. The small commercials and the previews served to make him one of the most anticipated characters, probably in movie history.
Even just the small change of Obi-Wan taking an arm instead of slicing him in half would have still served the movie the way it was, yet allowed him to survive to the next films and get some character development and serve as constant antagonist for Obi-Wan and Anakin.

I imagine instead of Obi-Wan taking up the mantle of training the Chosen One in respect for his fallen master, he would take it up in order to get revenge with Maul still being alive.
This does two things... it serves to give Anakin a better reason for his fall and it backs up Obi-Wan's obvious guilt and lines in the OT about failing as a teacher for Anakin.

Killing Maul gave us Dooku and Greivous, and while they are interesting in their own rights, they also suffered from only having one movie each. Maul serving through all three movies would have been the far better choice.

The way the Clone Wars were presented and handled.

I've done this one before.

My Cone Wars/clone idea has been that the human genome has been mapped. It is understood, so cloning isn't exactly what we think of it. Clones do not have to be and are not identical copies anymore and haven't been for a long time, although the term is still commonly used.
Basically a computer uses material from several sources and randomizes the clones so there are none that are identical. It is just "growing" people. More like accelerated test tube babies than clones.

By law, clones, if they are created, are required to be given individual personalities and free will. Cloning for labor and military service is outlawed. Control programing is outlawed as well too. Cloning itself is not outlawed, but the laws in place make it a useless venture. Historically, it was used on exploration vessels and to help terraform and colonize planets.

Direct Cloning, where you are specifically cloned for medical reasons is frowned upon but it also is not outlawed. It is tolerated as long as it is done far from galactic core, and is a lucrative business. It is also an alternative to cybernetics, however there is a higher chance of your body rejecting the cloned parts over the cybernetics, but not everyone wants mechanical body parts so it remains a viable option.

The Clone Wars were just that. Big giant fucking wars fought on a galactic scale by clones. They came about from what would be the separatists groups, and initially The Trade Federation, ignoring the law and creating and using clones for labor, and to keep a lid on that, using them to expand their security and military forces. The other groups that would eventually form the Separatist Movement got wind of what the TF was doing and wanted their own clones. They followed the same plan. Cheap and easily renewable labor source with a cheap and easily renewable military force to keep it a secret.

Obviously TRILLIONS of clones couldn't be kept a secret that long and when the Senate and Republic found out, they attempted to force them to halt the growing of anymore clones and enact legislation against the "Separatists" to free the clones they already had.

When that didn't work, the Republic attempted military force to persuade them. However they quickly found that they were outnumbered and outclassed as the clone's programing was far in advance of the training of the Republic's soldiers.

After several victories, the "Separatists" began to realize that they no longer needed nor wanted the Republic and seceded from it.
The Republic, in no shape to argue the point had to accept the move, but when the SM began annexing systems that did not want to secede, it forced the Republic into further action.

Having only one true recourse, The Republic commissioned it own clones. Their clones differed in the fact that they had absolute free will, where the SM clones did not. However, the Republic clones were required to serve in the military throughout the duration of the conflict and were only otherwise released from conscription after sustaining two injuries.

Of course learning that the Republic was now growing it's own clones, the Separatists escalated their own growing programs. The Republic in order to survive had to match that and so on and so forth. An escalation war was on.

The clones were UNCOUNTABLE and an exact number was never known for either side. The wars themselves were horrific and devastated entire sectors of the galaxy.

The wars took place over about 75 years. After the first 40 or so years, the two sides reached an agreement to cease production of clones as both sides realized that the wars were getting out of control and they could at least agree that neither side, if victorious, would have anything left to control the way things were going. Hostilities continued though.

In the midst of all this were the Jedi and the Sith.

In my version, the Sith still orchestrated the war on both fronts, but in truly evil fashion, each Sith Lord had autonomous control over each group and were playing it out on both sides like a giant intergalactic chess match. Palpatine controlling the Republic and Maul controlling the Separatists. The Jedi fought on the side of the Republic and knew that the Sith were involved, but couldn't figure out quite how. That they were controlling both sides, like in the movies, eluded them. They knew the Sith had heavy influence, if not outright control, of the Separatists due to the fact that Maul confronted and killed many of them directly in open combat. They believed him however to be just an apprentice and not in the position he was.

Palpatine had risen to Chancellor just at the start of the Clone Wars, so his old decrepit look in TESB is just that. He would be about 150 years old in ROTJ. Maul began controlling the TF at about the age he was shown to be in TPM. He is eventually killed by Anakin in a most wanktastic fanboy wet dream battle.

The clones on both sides were secretly implanted with absolute obedience to both Palpatine and Maul and when the time was right and when Palpatine had "beaten" Maul, and Palpatine established his new order, the clones on the Republic side filled out the officer corp of the new Empire, having more free will, while the Separatists clones formed the Stormtrooper corp, as they were programed to be far more obedient.

There are a few things that would need reconciling in this setup, but I feel it would have served as a better back drop, while still allowing for the story Lucas was telling.

One other thing I would have changed, and the above allows it, is to have The Empire already established under Palpatine so that it has longer than a 30 year lifespan and so the changeover was more gradual and makes more sense. The impetus for the change would be the secession of the Separatists, not a victory over them that wouldn't necessitate it anymore.

[JME2]

Havoc,

Your ideas surrounding Jar Jar are interesting. I wonder if that's what Lucas was planning to do before the fans rioted.

[jollyreaper]

Jar Jar plays the role of the wise fool. I noticed the similarities recently in Ran, 13 Assassins and The Seven Samurai.

The problem is that Lucas LISTENED to the people that hated Jar Jar instead of continuing on with the path I think he had originally laid out for him which was to continue on as the wise fool and be the trusted confidant that Anakin relies on to facilitate communication and meetings with Padme.

His character should have grown either to be the eyewitness of Anakin's fall or be the victim that put him over the edge to the Dark Side.

Instead we got no Jar Jar and more Boba Fett... way better.

Hey, a wise fool character isn't a bad idea but Jar-Jar is a terrible attempt at it. "Lovable rogue? Oh, you mean a Han Solo. Great, let's put one in the prequel. And we'll cast Rob Schneider! No? How about Larry the Cable Guy? Only we won't have him actually be the character he's playing, he needs to do is redneck shtick. So he'll be Larry the Cable Guy: Space Rogue. And he has to say gitrdun!"

[jollyreaper]

The other thing that seems weird is how they have clones all over the place in proto-stormtrooper armor and later the clones are gone and the stormtroopers are back to being freeborn mooks in faceless armor.

It was ages and ages ago but I think one of the original Star Wars spin-off stories (Han Solo books?) mentioned that combat droids were banned by a galactic convention. That would make them akin to poison gas. Can it be done? Sure. Was it done in the past? Yes. Could they be on the battlefield again? Yes. But they were so horrific nobody wants to cross that line again.

Havok's point with the clones above could yield some pretty significant moral quandaries. Take away freedom of thought, you've turned humans into machines. Preserve freedom of thought, the clones know they are pretty much enslaved.

I agree that the Empire seems far too young. I think Lucas set himself an impossible collection of preconditions. Clone Wars precede the formation of the Empire, Anakin meets Obi and trains in the war, Palpy does his whole rise to power thing via the crisis, Anakin goes Darth and slaughters the Jedi and then the whole empire has to form in the time it takes for Luke to grow from a baby to a young man.

Germany went from being recognizably German to Reichy in short order but a lot of things still looked pre-reich. A few of Speer's concrete monstrosities were built but he never got to rebuild Berlin as Hitler envisioned. And we're talking on a galactic scale. There's an entire aesthetic with Imperial designs.

You might get away with it if Palpy was more clearly building upon trends set in motion in the Clone War. This is the war that makes the Republic ready to give way to Empire. It's gone on for a decade or two, then the Empire phase follows.

I still hate what they did with the Death Star in the prequels. It's set out like a goal unto itself. The Death Star struck me as more of a desperation move. It's the sort of thing that only became justifiable to high command after the start of a rebellion and the realization that there simply weren't enough ships and troops to keep planets in the Empire against their will. That's usually the case with empires, the carrying cost becomes impossible to maintain. A Death Star doesn't seem like a Plan A, it seems like a Plan B.

[Grumman]

I agree that the Empire seems far too young. I think Lucas set himself an impossible collection of preconditions. Clone Wars precede the formation of the Empire, Anakin meets Obi and trains in the war, Palpy does his whole rise to power thing via the crisis, Anakin goes Darth and slaughters the Jedi and then the whole empire has to form in the time it takes for Luke to grow from a baby to a young man.

Couldn't you switch the order of the last two points? Is there anything in the original trilogy that would prevent Anakin from falling to the Dark Side during the new timeline's Great Jedi Purge instead of before Order 66?

[jollyreaper]

Obi-Wan: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

The prequel bs breaks this in several ways, aside from creative lying.

If darth is a sith title, it wouldn't do to call a Jedi by this. You would say he was the Jedi Biff Swellguy before he fell to the dark side and became the sith Darth Fistula.

So the dialogue says turned to evil, hunted down Jedi. To get every Jedi across the galaxy would take years so it would be possible for him to fall after the extermination began but it would make more sense for him to fall gradually while Palpy could still be taken as a good man making hard choices. For redemption to be plausible, Vader shouldn't go from zero to kid-slicer in 60 seconds.

[Abacus]

For redemption to be plausible, Vader shouldn't go from zero to kid-slicer in 60 seconds.

And indeed he doesn't. We see that in the prequels, when he kills the Tusken Raider village, when he kills Dooku, as he continually gets sidelined by the Council and grows more jealous and angry, etc. Palpatine used the initial act of killing the Tusken Raiders as a springboard to further manipulate Anakin, slowly twisting his pride and using the ineptitude of the Jedi Council to foresee anything; until it comes down to Anakin only trusting Palpatine to save his true love and give him the power he desires, both of which the Jedi Council denied him.

[aussiemuscle308]

when i heard they were going to do the prequel trilogy covering the 'clone wars', i expected something more like Star Trek's Eugenics War. ie clones are modified humans that think they are better than 'natural' humans and should lead/win.

The way Obi-wan talks about the Jedi in ANH, I got the impression they hadn't existed for a very long time, 16 years doesn't seem long enough. same as the way Han talks about them/the force.

Maul could have come back as a half-machine?

[Jim Raynor]

I think the actual number is 19 years between ROTS and ANH. It really isn't that long either way, although the Jedi were erased from the public consciousness within a single generation, going just from ANH. I like to think that the Empire engaged in a serious propaganda campaign, portraying the Jedi as a bunch of hokey religious fanatics and forbidding any further public discussion about them. Lots of people may know better (they have to given the Jedi's feats in the Clone Wars), but don't talk about it. Others, especially the younger generations, were suckered by the propaganda regardless of how ridiculous it is. Just like in real life, where a good third of the US population believes in Birther and 9/11 Truther conspiracy theories.

[Panzersharkcat]

That, and the fact that most people have never seen a Jedi knight. It's a big galaxy and there are only ten thousand or so of them. It doesn't take too much to believe that propaganda was churned out saying their feats were exaggerated.

[Havok]

That, and the fact that most people have never seen a Jedi knight. It's a big galaxy and there are only ten thousand or so of them. It doesn't take too much to believe that propaganda was churned out saying their feats were exaggerated.

This number is at the time of TPM. The number could have been MUCH higher before. And in a galactic civilization where it only takes days to get from one side of the galaxy to another, you have a highly functional GWW, they have a base on Coruscant and are intertwined with galactic politics and the length of time the Jedi existed, "over a thousand generations", the idea that people don't know what the fuck a Jedi is and that they actually exist/existed is fucking ridiculous.

Don't confuse the acknowledgement of Jedi as a fact with people believing in the Force. You can have one without the other.

[Panzersharkcat]

That's what I was saying with regards to propaganda saying their abilities and feats are exaggerated.

[Jedi Commisar]

I always though this kind of scene should have appeared in TPM, right after the escape from Tatooine: Qui-Gon voices his supicions to Obi-Wan, only to realize Anakin's overheard them. Qui-Gon then explains to Anakin about the New Sith War, how they had collapsed to infighting. Then have Qui-Gon conclude that if his suspicions are right, then at least one of them survived, passed on his teachings, and that the Sith have been operating under the Jedi's noses for the last ten centuries.

Even with this scene, the council meeting on Coruscant still works. If anything, I'd increase the Council's shock and outrage that Qui-Gon would even suggest that the Sith had survived. The Sith are dead -- end of discussion. We could even have some of the more conservative Masters imply that Qui-Gon may be making up the attacker, but their insinuations get derailed by the debut of the slave boy.

This also gives us an opportunity to bring Dooku into TPM. Dooku knows his former pupil is not a liar, that Maul's appearance is only confirmation of the growing darkness and that the portents of the Chosen One prophecy are coming true. Then, when Qui-Gon is killed, Dooku in grief blasts the council for not taking Qui-Gon seriously. When he realizes that they're not going to be proactive in hunting Sidious, he gives them the finger and leaves the Order, determined to find the Second Sith himself.

This sets up a little more depth for AOTC. Dooku approaches Obi-Wan on Geonosis. He reveals what Gunray told him, that the Sith control the Senate, and that he formed the CIS to fight a Sith-controlled Republic. Then we get to the end of AOTC and the twist that Dooku is the second Sith, that he went after Sidious and ended up falling under his sway. Again, there is precedence in this for LOE; Dooku did consider going after Sidious only to have Sidious approach him. And the seed of doubt has been planted in the minds of Obi-Wan and the Council so that tension will arise with the Chancellor and Senate by the time of ROTS.

[/quote]

I like this idea someone send it to Lucas tell him to remake TPM with this sceene

[edaw1982]

Turning the entire series in to 'Skywalker Birthright Legacy', where only the Skywalkers can change things or do anything of any import and the rest of society gets to follow along in their wake.
It is through the Skywalkers that the plot is advanced.

At least the other characters get important roles in the original trilogy. Han and Leia and the rest of the rebels dealing with the shield generator in RotJ, whilst Luke is dealing with his daddy-issues by trying to try and revert the old-man back to the Light Side.
But the majority of the focus was on the non-force-wielding members of the group, which I appreciated.
Even in TEsB, Han, Leia, Chewie and the droids get to get betrayed on Cloud City, whilst Luke learning from Yoda is shared rather than being the sole focus.

[Knife]

Just responding a bit to Havok's ideas on the clone wars.

I would have thought the clones would have stayed 'bad guys' when I originally saw TPM. I would have thought the clones were the next step after the TF tried a droid army and it was crushed by locals and a couple Jedi. A separatist movement with lots of cash but not enough population to take on the Republic, either hiring mercs and cloning them, or the small amount of forces they do have, take the vets and clone them to fill out your ranks with capable people. Sprinkle in some themes of Civil War Slavery for the Republic to grasp onto, or for the former slave Anakin to latch onto, a personal crusade for him to free the slaves of the TF, leading down a dark path.

[CaptHawkeye]

I still hate what they did with the Death Star in the prequels. It's set out like a goal unto itself. The Death Star struck me as more of a desperation move. It's the sort of thing that only became justifiable to high command after the start of a rebellion and the realization that there simply weren't enough ships and troops to keep planets in the Empire against their will. That's usually the case with empires, the carrying cost becomes impossible to maintain. A Death Star doesn't seem like a Plan A, it seems like a Plan B.

It seemed to me the Death Star was a siege engine designed primarily to crack planetary defenses. The energy shield on Hoth seemed to imply that even the Rebels could afford to set up a defense system which nullified a fleet's worth of firepower including a Dreadnought. It goes without saying that rich planets like Alderaan or Corellia can become impregnable fortresses with the flip of a switch. The result? The Emperor has to keep the Senate in operation in order to appease the star systems with even a token voice in the government. If he doesn't, then a planet can throw a little tantrum by turning on its shields and closing its ports to the Empire or anyone else on their shit list. This is never a permanent solution or even a long term one but it gave the Senate even a little bit of weight in a totalitarian state.

Then the Death Star came along and rendered all that useless. The Death Star mounts a beam powerful enough to crack any planetary shield in a second and wipe out the planet beneath it too. So they don't even have to perform a costly invasion if said planet wanted to really push things. It goes without saying assaulting it with a fleet is out of the question because it's so well protected. With a star system's last trump card taken away the Emperor no longer had any use from the Senate for "controlling the bureaucracy" and disbanded them. Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of the battle station which made even passive-aggressive protest a non-option.

[jollyreaper]

Well, we run into the problem of Star Wars and scale. They didn't size the tech appropriately. It should take considerably less energy than the Death Star to break a Hoth shield. That's like saying you can't break through barricades in front of a house so drop an a-bomb.

The basic idea of "we will end your planet" makes a lot of sense. That could be accomplished with a solar shade that puts the planet in total darkness. Megatech? Sure. Less complicated than a Death Star? Absolutely.

Blowing up a planet is kewl but the real theat is ending civilization on a Pam Wyatt body, ending a polity with complete finality.

[Galvatron]

The basic idea of "we will end your planet" makes a lot of sense. That could be accomplished with a solar shade that puts the planet in total darkness. Megatech? Sure. Less complicated than a Death Star? Absolutely.

Don't forget what just one planetary ion cannon did to a star destroyer in only two shots. Weapons like that would make short work of an orbital solar shade.

[jollyreaper]

That's a valid point and thus the question becomes one of range. How far can it shoot?

This is troublesome for star destroyers because we want battles at visually compelling ranges. That means point blank, down the throat. But now we have established that a planetary weapon can reach into orbit. Hundreds if not thousands of miles. So why don't capital ships carry that kind of armament?