Posted by Smalls at adsl-63-196-59-199.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net on January 16, 2004 at 13:10:42:
In Reply to: The second trilogy was TERRIBLE on every level posted by The O~* in Phantoms on January 16, 2004 at 12:23:11:
Episode One wasn't so very far from being a decent flick, if the changes had been made quite early in the game.
Take out or radically change Jar-Jar. Take out all the fart and poop jokes, age up the younger characters a little. Make the trade-whatever things British instead of chop-socky. Make the evil bug thing ambiguous instead of Italian/Jewish.
Make young Vader a lot more morally ambiguous and cut out all the "science explanation" of the Force. Make him not do good out of accident but out of intent and preternatural maturity. Or make it clear that his "accidental" heroics are all manipulated by the Emperor from the start, to slowly corrupt the person strongest with the force into being his lackey, through the mechanisms of being an intergalactic celebrity. Ditto for whatever is in the Jar-Jar character's place. No accidents, just manipulations and heroism.
He's set the stage that the Emperor is turning two sides against each other so he can win, let's play it up instead of making it a really obvious "surprise" at the end.
Fix the dialogue, make some better casting choices, shoot it in a much more actor-friendly way... take out all the unnecessary CGI, take out all the unnecessary universe building and cameos.
Make it about an amazing kid, scarred by a youth of slavery, getting caught up in a huge adventure where he ends up suddenly a superstar amoungst the stars... and it slowly warping him... and all the strings being pulled from elsewhere.
A collection of small changes in pre-production and... it could've been a really good, if not completely epic, flick. On a par with Jedi if not the first two.
Lucas is still great at coming up with the core story and he's still an amazing producer but... from there, bring in a screenwriter and a director and an editor who aren't yes-men and the ideas that come from him can still be really good.
If he had a talented creative team with the ability to say "no" to him, his characters... his "universe" could still have near-greatness in it.
Whether he would give up that level of control at this point, is debateable.
Mike