Would a teenaged Anakin in Ep. 1 been better for the Star Wars films?

[Mike Daniels]

Obviously, Jar Jar was almost enough to destroy the first film by himself but I think they also made a mistake in having Anakin be a small child who contributed nothing to advancing the overall story line.

If they had started the series off with Anakin as a teenager you could have still followed the majority of the first plot line but eliminated the need of the juvenile antics of Jar-Jar Binks.

An older Anakin also would have been capable of being more involved with the events of the first movie and less of an observer which would have allowed more time over the first two installments to flesh out the character as a whole.

From there you could have picked up Episode 2 pretty much where it started originally and you'd still have a good flow between the two films chronologically.

Admittedly, I can see where a teenaged Anakin at the beginning would have been too close of a rehash of Luke from Ep. 4 but I think it would have served the films better as a story device.


O.K., that's enough geek-dom for now. Anyone else have any thoughts of how the recent trilogy could have been better served at the beginning?

[lenidog]

1. A plot and not having George Lucas directing would have been a good

start. Don't get me wrong Lucas is a visionary and a great idea man. He is just a poor scriptwriter (uses too many cliches)and director. The best film of the whole group was the "Empire Strikes Back" or the one that he did not direct and had the least input on the script.

[JHB]

2. My own personal re-write...

...is to make Anakin a happy-go-lucky wiseacre (with an occasional temper) rather than Mr. quiet broody-boy. Smiling, cheerful, nice to be around, with his dark side a bit better hidden.

[GOPBasher]

3. Yeah, I think that would've been better.

There were too many lame lines from him, like, "I'll try spinning this spaceship; that's a good trick!"

[Mike Daniels]

5. The spaceship was the main item that got me thinking about starting older

If I recall properly, the only thing the kid Anakin did that actually played into the general action in Ep 1 was the spaceship. Even then is was more "OOPS!! Now that I've locked myself into this ship and am now spinning around, what do I do for the rest of this battle?".

[GOPBasher]

16. I agree, it turned out pretty lame, and I'm a huge Star Wars fan. n/t

[Tyrone Slothrop]

4. The biggest mistake made in the new trilogy

Is the lack of a clear, main villain.

This is what made the first Star Wars trilogy so great. From the very opening scene of Star Wars when Darth Vader boards Leia's ship, you know exactly who the villain is, and you're terrified of him.

The new trilogy makes all sorts of veiled references to this "Phantom Menace", without having any explicit villain. Darth Maul shows up midway through the action, but he's sort of campy and he's dispatched by the end of the movie.

This, IMHO, is why Attack of the Clones worked better than Phantom Menace. At least, there's a decent villain working against the good guys.

The Phantom Menace would have been fine with a good, strong villain even with Jar-Jar, I think. In all honesty, he's not THAT much more annoying than C3P0 in the first films. It's just that that balance is needed in the originals because Vader is so damn terrifying and scary.

[JHB]

6. Jar-Jar's biggest problem (well, among them...)....

...was that he talked in that thick pidgin. "Silent" characters like Artoo or Chewie bleeped, gronked, or whatever, the other characters reacted to it, and youre mind could instantly fill in what was said (or a good approximation).

With Jar-jar, you spent too much time and attention trying to figure out what he was saying. That, and the fact he was an idiot rather than just a walking case of Murphy's Law.

[4_Legs_Good]

7. Yes.

the kid was horrible. HORRIBLE!!!

Had they gotten Haley Joel Osmet (sp?) to play the role as he wanted to, it could have turned the whole thing around... maybe. But the kid who played the role, and having George Lucas writing his lines and directing the thing.

Oh my my my. Horrific x 100,000

david

[Technowitch]

8. I agree with you

For all of Yoda's talk about Anakin being "too old to begin the training", I kept asking, "Exactly how young do they need to be? Are we talking toddlers here? Or newborns?"

Another horrid mistake in Ep. 1 were the characters that came off as horrid alien versions of human stereotypes. It wasn't just Jar-Jar. The Trade Feds, the junk dealer...

Nevermind the silly "fly into the big ship and blow up the reactor" rehashed plotline!

But yes, a teen-aged Anakin would've been better. Hell, pre-pubescent would've been an improvement.

[Mike Daniels]

13. If Anakin was technically too old to begin training what 's with Luke?

Hell, Ben Kenobi didn't have any issue with teaching Luke about the ways of the Force/Jedi in Ep. 4 and Luke had to be a pretty late-year teenager at that point at best.

[SkipNewarkDE]

15. And Yoda commented to Obi Wan in "Empire..."

That Luke was too old.

The problem probably has to do with making sure the kid doesn't have anger issues before giving them an understanding of the Force, or some such thing.

[SkipNewarkDE]

14. Attack of the Clones showed Yoda...

... training toddlers, ages 3-4 yo.

[jpgray]

9. Someone who could act would have been ideal

Ewan MacGregor and Liam Neeson just *barely* got a mediocre performance on the table, and they can fucking act. Put a six year-old in that environment, or a crap/mediocre actor... :scared:

[Catchawave]

10. Was Anakin's father ever revealed ?

Maybe in Ep3 ?

[JHB]

11. Magical Force pixies...

...or whatever the hell "midi-chlorians" are.

[Catchawave]

17. Thanks, that's what I remember...

some sort of immaculate conception ? I wonder if there will be a "Luke I am your father" moment in Ep3 ?

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

12. Lucas can't write dialog.

Look at Star Wars (Ep 4) and The Empire Strikes Back. The dialog is sharper, wittier, and just a bit more "real".

That's why Liam Neeson and Ewan MacGregor gave barely passable performances in Episode I. The dialog was crap.
(And don't get me started on Natalie Portman's lackluster dialog in Episode II. There's no way that movie convinced me she was actually in love with Anakin.)

[Catchawave]

18. Nor did she look 9 years older...

Cute couple, but it was a stretch :)