How would you change Star Wars?

[Sigmapolis]

I like both too but they are 2 different movies in many ways. Much more anti nuclear rheoric in the Japanese version

Agreed. Burr gives a strong and eerily charming performance in the U.S. version, and the American version has a plot that is much easier to follow.

The Japanese version is much darker in tone, clear that Godzilla is a man-made problem (not a "blast from the past" existential one in the vein of a U.S. monster, such as King Kong), and a frightful allegory for nuclear weapons, and does much more to develop the love triangle and Dr. Serizawa as a tragic hero. It is an underrated Cold War movie, a solemn mulling of the moral quandaries those in charge of the Manhattan Project had, and all the more powerful for being Japanese and much of the picture, from the flattened Tokyo to the dead and wounded, looking like those killed by American bombings or in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A good science fiction or fantasy film is never bound by its effects, only its ideas.

 

[heitclone]

This thread reminded me of a pretty obscure 90's movie called Freak Talks About Sex. It's a low budget flick, Steve Zahn would be the biggest name. He had a line "I can't think of a single movie that couldn't be improved by a lesbian sex scene". None of the Star Wars movies contradicts that statement.

 

[BryceC]

Vader was a calculated, ruthless, intelligent villain, the prequels made him a whiney baby who aside from Dooku and their terrible lightsaber choreography battles, never beat a trained force user 1 on 1 in the prequels.

I love Vader but this is just one of the biggest misremembers of any character. Vader was a thug who went where the Emperor pointed and used brute force and fear to get people to cowtow.

My overall thoughts:

Prequels: Scrap E1. We can have flashbacks to show them finding Anakin. Jump into the Clone Wars with him and Obi fighting together, but have him be young and impressionable during that time. 14 or so. He doesn't need to be whiney, but an incredibly confident and abrasive. As others have said, we need to see him being a total badass on the front lines which will make him endearing. Get somebody else to write dialogue and romantic scenes.

Original Trilogy: Something that honestly defined my childhood. Hard for me to say. Obviously Death Star 2 could have likely been avoided.

New trilogy: Starkiller base was dumb. I love the new characters - however, apparently in the Star Wars universe the only way to show that somebody is immature is make them whiney (Anakin, Luke, and Kylo). Would have made several changes to TLJ, including killing Leia right away at the beginning with no space walk. Would have removed the Finn/Rose scenes, I think Finn is a more interesting character when he's just sort of obsessed with Rey. I think the potential for 9 is better if Rey is deep into reestablishing the Jedi and Finn has a love that isn't returned. Maz just should have been Del Toro's character, no reason for him to exist. All of that said, those things are pretty small things to me and overall I really like the new trilogy and would lump 6, 7, and 8 together as far as quality goes.

 

[Bader]

Probably something bigger fans than me can confirm or refute but I heard that originally when Lucas laid out the overall storyline RotJ was supposed to introduce the Wookies and their homeland but that ended up having to be scrapped when he changed Han's copilot to a wookie. Thus the abominations known as ewoks were born.

 

[3GenClone]

My overall thoughts:

Prequels: Scrap E1. We can have flashbacks to show them finding Anakin. Jump into the Clone Wars with him and Obi fighting together, but have him be young and impressionable during that time. 14 or so. He doesn't need to be whiney, but an incredibly confident and abrasive. As others have said, we need to see him being a total badass on the front lines which will make him endearing. Get somebody else to write dialogue and romantic scenes.

What you have just described is referred to as the "Machete Order" for viewing the Star Wars films. The idea is that you watch the series in the following order:

4, 5, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & eventually 9.

The idea is that Ep 1 has no major bearing on the narrative of future films, and you actually eliminate Jake Lloyd's performance and the annoying scenes featuring Jar-Jar Binks. You start with 4 & 5, get the "surprise" reveal of Darth Vader's identity and then go back to see Anakin become a Jedi Knight

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/star-wars-best-order-watch-movies/

 

[LincolnWay187]

As a fan from way back, I guess I don't really care for some of the choices the filmmakers have made over the years...especially the prequals and new trilogy. I feel like a few changes would have made things a lot better. How would you have changed things if you could rewrite things? Here is what I would do:

IV: No real changes. Just a great introduction. My main beef is with the special edition. Han shooting first was just stupid. Really takes away from the character and serves no purpose. Also thought it was dumb to have Jabba in Mos Eiseley the way they did it...Han, my bookie.

V: I would not touch this movie at all. Perfect and one of the best ever.

VI: Ewoks were too much. Dumb decision to put a bunch of walking teddy bears in. Still, it's a good movie. I think it is right in there for 3rd best of the saga (do not count Rogue 1).

I: Could have been SO much better. Make Anakin a teenager and make the Gunguns more serious and less goofy. If Jar Jar was closer to stoic like Chewbacca, he could have been a decent character.

II: So slow. And the romantic scenes were corny. Needed a total rewrite. The arena scene riding an animal around was just stupid.

III: They had the right idea here. Just too many shortcuts. Could have made Anakin's flip more believable. The birthing scene was dumb and the final lightsaber fight was over the top. The whole thing could have been done so much better with decent writing.

VI: Total rehash of IV. There was no need for that. Characters were good outside of under developed Poe and Kylo's temper tantrums. I just wish they would have did something other than destroy a bigger death star.

VII: I honestly don't understand people who say this was one of the best. Way too many holes. The Rose/Finn excursion was dumb and unneeded. The Leia space walk...GoG and she never used the Force before? The whole "chase" was similar to BSG and why couldn't the First Order just jump ahead of them and gun them down? Didn't care for the cantankerous Luke or the trick at the end. I wish they could have given him a real heroic ending. And I wish Leia was the one to pilot the kamakazi ship and kept Laura Dern alive.

Overall, I just hate that they now have to explain every little thing when actually using your imagination for things like how the rebels stole the Death Star plans, the Kessel Run, Boba Fett's background, how Han met Chewie, what happened in the Clone Wars was one of the best things about the OT.

Completely agree with about all your changes/gripes. I absolutely Hated this last star wars. It kind of ruined the series for me actually and might take a miracle to get me back into it.

 

[Alswelk]

Film the X-wing books from the old EU (at least the first couple - and let's not make the main character force sensitive, it was unnecessary). Also, in my opinion, Thrawn should've been the First Order's big bad.

 

[Frak]

Completely agree with about all your changes/gripes. I absolutely Hated this last star wars. It kind of ruined the series for me actually and might take a miracle to get me back into it.

Right? I mean, they did the hard part of introducing new characters. Rey and Kylo are both really good. Snoke and Poe were not very interesting and underdeveloped. Knights of Ren are supposedly real, but we've seen nothing of them. I would have given Luke and Leia heroic endings in this last movie. Leia does the kamakazi light speed jump. Luke actually pulls his X-Wing up and flies to Crete to face off against Kylo AND the Knights of Ren giving all of the other rebels a chance to escape. Then Episode 9 is the big Rey/Kylo/Snoke showdown with Kylo eventually turning to the light side.

Seems like now all they are doing is playing on nostalgia and explaining every back story because they have no new material.

 

[Bader]

Right? I mean, they did the hard part of introducing new characters. Rey and Kylo are both really good. Snoke and Poe were not very interesting and underdeveloped. Knights of Ren are supposedly real, but we've seen nothing of them. I would have given Luke and Leia heroic endings in this last movie. Leia does the kamakazi light speed jump. Luke actually pulls his X-Wing up and flies to Crete to face off against Kylo AND the Knights of Ren giving all of the other rebels a chance to escape. Then Episode 9 is the big Rey/Kylo/Snoke showdown with Kylo eventually turning to the light side.

Seems like now all they are doing is playing on nostalgia and explaining every back story because they have no new material.

People only think Leia should've died because Carrie Fisher died. If she had died when the cockpit blew up people would've (justifiably) been angry when they found out how much more footage they had of Carrie Fisher's last performance and didn't use it. They had her do some space wizard stuff, shocking.

You claim they're playing on nostalgia when you're pining for Kylo and Rey to follow the Vader/Luke redemption arc in the original trilogy.

In the OT the Emperor was supposedly real, but we didn't even see him until RotJ (outside of a distorted holo-vid face). About the same amount of screen time the Knights of Ren got in VII.

 

[BryceC]

What you have just described is referred to as the "Machete Order" for viewing the Star Wars films. The idea is that you watch the series in the following order:

4, 5, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, & eventually 9.

The idea is that Ep 1 has no major bearing on the narrative of future films, and you actually eliminate Jake Lloyd's performance and the annoying scenes featuring Jar-Jar Binks. You start with 4 & 5, get the "surprise" reveal of Darth Vader's identity and then go back to see Anakin become a Jedi Knight

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/star-wars-best-order-watch-movies/

I've done this with my children actually.

 

[jcyclonee]

Boobs /thread

Less Jar Jar, more Kate Upton!