Lengthy post to follow!
Faqa wrote: Naboo = Alderan, less Tatooine, only a little space combat. This is a time for scene setting, not badassery.
I'd even take that further, if you didn't mean literally. I'd have Naboo actually be Alderaan, making Palpatine's destruction of it and the heritage of Leia more symbolic. It also stands to reason that Palpatine might have wanted to nuke the place just to erase any evidence of his past life--rewriting himself, within a generation or so, as the leader of an Empire that had stretched back since the beginning of time. Erasing the past and replacing it with your own, but maybe that's just a 1984 vibe I like. I like Palpatine as a shrewd politican more than a cackling evil sorceror.
Plus it wipes out the Gungans.
Get rid of the Mitochondria, I mean midichlorians. Qui-Gon could just sense great power, not draw blood and prove it. This also makes Anakin's source of power somewhat more nebulous, since it's obvious to the Jedi Master but we don't need to know it's the result of some sort of bacterial infection.
The OT's pretty good as it stands in terms of story, but the Prequels really need to be gutted and redone. The feeling of organizational deadlock in the Senate was okay, I'd prefer it to be pushed further, make it look like the Senators are as bored as most Senators are. Have 80 percent of the seats empty during Padme's address, and so on.
Padme isn't such an awful character, really, but she is kinda... I dunno, goofy. Personally I'd start Anakin off older, since it isn't hard to reveal someone's past through their character in subtle, less ham-handed ways than making us suffer through his "Are you an angel?" oh-so-cuteness. This also lets him mature more over the movies so he's less of an angsting teenager at the point he becomes Darth Vader, and develop a wider range of complex, adult emotions as he grips with problems in a real way. The sort of way that makes his descent less a crime of whiny hormonal tantrum-flinging and incredible stupidity and more of a real failing of personal character.
And please, can we clean up the Darth names? Vader, okay. Sounds like Vater, I get it, it was classy. But Sidious? Maul? Plagueis? I don't mind if the names have a reference, but let's make up some sort of fake Sith language out of jumbled up languages so we don't sound like we're just taking mean and violent sounding words and putting Darth in front of them, occasionally adding or removing some letters. It's like if Vader wasn't supposed to be based off Vater, ie Father, and was just a cut-down version of InVader. InSidious, InVader? :p
Alright, so Padme's older. Let's give her parents too--notice how nobody has a mom or a dad except Luke, and his Dad's a jackass? I think it'd be more interesting if she had a more stable, grounded life, and was less of a warrior supermodel. Hell, we could pull a not-too-unusual contrivance and even have Anakin at one point assigned to Padme as a personal protector during some of the madness to follow. Gives them more time to talk and relate, and lets him get too personally involved.
Let's also deal a bit with the Leia issue.
BEN:
When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep
you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible...
...and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan...
...The Organa household was high-born and politically quite powerful in that system. Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage... no one knew she'd been adopted, of course.
Luke: Leia... do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
In this version of the account here, it sounds like the mother of Leia knew the Organas more than Ben did and it was her choice to live there. Frankly, I'd even have her marry Bail Organa. It makes little sense that Bacta and cyborging are the only medical inventions in the Star Wars universe, and for Bail and Mrs. Bail to have to resort to adoption. Wouldn't they have ultrasounds? Pregnancy aids? If they can
clone people, couldn't Bail and his wife make a kid of their own?
Also, this allows us to complete that arc nicely, and makes the 'Your real mother' statement make more sense. Since Padme apparently died when Leia was young, but old enough for her to remember something--and for her to personally take Leia to Bail--this would open the door to Bail remarrying and making the statement and Leia's reaction go from "The Force made her feel it!" to completely understandable.
The Amidala folks coulda' been the actual Royals, and intermarrying with the Organas might have seemed completely reasonable. It gives Padme the potential to still be involved and even speak to the Senate (if her parents had been seized by the Trade Fed or something) but and makes sense. Bail having a kid with a real princess WOULD be politically useful, just as Ben says in his speech. To everyone on the outside, it may have appeared to be business as usual, and this way it makes more sense for Vader not to know. Afterall...
PADME: Come away with me. Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind while we still can.
lol wut? That conflicts directly with the "When yo' mom left yo' dad he didn't know she was teh pregnants" statement by Ben and I'd rather not make Mr. Mentor Man into a compulsive liar. I like his gray-area truth muddling about Vader killing Anakin, but this is just idiotic fabrication on Ben's part otherwise.
So the tryst between Padme and Anakin is one of forbidden love and passion, not of teen pregnancy and continuity disruption. Make her the sad, conflicted character Leia made her out to be, knowing what she had to do and knowing what Anakin was becoming long before she was even close to being obviously pregnant (even to a life-sensing Jedi). That kind of Arthurian flavor wouldn't hurt the series. These were supposed to be more 'civilized' times afterall.
I do like the Force-Balancing element, though I wish they made it more clear at some point that wiping out the Jedi
was balancing the Force. Not to be an evil apologist or anything, but that the Force itself was inherently a grey thing, not black and white, and so dividing it into light and dark was itself inherently damaging. That makes Luke's descent into a more emotional form of idealist less of an antihero's fall from grace and more of the final act of Vader's prophetic mission. Luke would then go on and teach force use for good but not without emotion or passion.
This also allows you to make the Jedi themselves seem too rigidly bound by tradition, and the people like Qui-Gon (and later Ben) who believe in actually restoring balance more pragmatic in their use of emotion. This also accounts why Qui-Gon had been pushed out, allows both Ben and eventually Yoda to come to grips with the fact that the age of Light was over, and that it probably wasn't even good to do anyway. Make the Jedi's hold over the Force seem less natural, and more through force of imposition. Rigid rules, constraints, and things that make no logical sense--simply to keep the Dark side disenfranchised.
This also allows Anakin's power to come from an innate, natural understanding of the force. His appearence divides the Jedi into those seeking to unique and balance the two halves of the force, but the stodgy council denies this and he eventually feels all those negative emotions of rejection, suspicion, hate and such that the Emperor could easily channel and exploit. Anakin's honest, emotional gray-side of the force (similar to Luke's final portrayl) is just too terrifying to the Jedi, and because of their repression of his natural way of being, he rebels eventually.
I'd also make the Clone War actually fought by Clones against humans, not between Clones and droids. It could be Clones backed up by droids of course, but mostly clones. This makes the hardships of the war really hit the people, and
that would make Palpatine's "I can save you from this evil!" gospel of power more palatable. It also adds other problems, such as the "Invisible Enemy Among Us" worry about clones in our midst, driving vast social reforms to improve security Plus, I'd love a scene where they need to fight several cloned Darth Mauls, and it removes any hopes of Karen being able to wank Fett and his progency.
This also presents ethical problems for the Jedi, something Palpatine will have been expecting. Slashing up droids is okay. Slashing up people? People who cry? Maybe even clones of people you know? That becomes more and more difficult to swallow, especially as you're getting hurt and anger is welling up. Someone with an unshakable inner calm may be able to detach from the carnage, but this only makes the Jedi look like machines. This could make Anakin question their morality, seeing how easily they justify the slaughter. It could also make his fall to evil easier, as he begins to doubt the Jedi while also using his emotions in combat, eventually becoming well accustomed to lashing out in anger at human forms. The blurring of enemy and ally could reach a dramatic climax where he needs to butcher several clones of people he knows, or of Obi-Wan, or even in an amazing metaphorical arc twist, of himself.
Maybe we don't know which Anakin wins. Maybe it doesn't matter by that point--after that fight, a mirror in some ways of Luke's battle with Vader, and Luke's encounter at the cave, Anakin is dead. Whatever Anakin was left going into that fight died, killed by Vader, the only one who leaves.
That brings us up to the end, where things continue along. Anakin is mature, hardened, cold, willing to end the madness by whatever means necessary, and willing to trust in Palpatine's efficency to do it, rather than the Jedi's tightassed preaching. He appears more like he did in the ROTJ originally, a man, not a kid. His decision to leap off into the abyss was a
choice. One can only balance on the blade of a knife for so long! Ben battles Vader, defeats him because of sheer perfection of technique, but the emotional scars are great for both parties. And then we get the OT.
I'd change some of the in-flight dynamics of the space fighters just because I don't share Lucas' desire for WWI bipline dogfights in space. I'd like more graphic demonstrations of ISD's and such doing things, like accelerating to maximum G's, firing full spreads of TL's at maximum range, and actually fighting in mixed formations. This would help reign in the EU, while also giving Sci-Fi battle lovers like me more meat to go on. I have to admit, I'd love to see a nBSG styled combat replace the battle of Endor.
I'd also like to play down the vibe of Imperial Incompetance when it comes to Stormtroopers, TIE Fighters, and fleet strategy. We can make our own justifications for this, but I think the action would have been stronger if the Falcon had suffered more obvious damage from TIE attacks, if Troopers didn't just spray red shots and die. If that's too hard, then okay, we can justify that easily. Backwater worlds can be the main source of Stormie recruits. Such as...
BEN: They didn't. But we are meant to think they did. These tracks are side by side. Sandpeople always ride single file to hide there numbers.
LUKE: These are the same Jawas that sold us Artoo and Threepio.
BEN: And these blast marks, too powerful for the weapons Sandpeople, and too random. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so eager.
LUKE: Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?
Luke looks back at the speeder where Artoo and Threepio are
inspecting the dead Jawas, and put two and two together.
BEN: They are the Empire's thuggish shock troops, but they do not act without orders. If their masters traced the robots here, they may have learned who they sold them to.
LUKE: And that would lead them... home!
So, that about sums that up, I think. Mostly.
Besides, I was making the point that living thing vs living thing (that at least look and sound different from the unit next to them) on a galaxy-wide scale is much more dramatic than a bunch of robots and clone troopers that look and sound exactly alike.