Fixing the Star Wars prequels

I've seen a lot of discussion recently about the best order to watch all of the Star Wars films if you've never seen them before. While my personal opinion was initially to watch the originals in order and never bother with the rest, the idea of viewing 4,5,1,2,3 and then 6 seemed to catch on, so that you could view the prequels without spoiling the revelation that Darth Vader is Luke's father (yes, people do still get to watch the originals without knowing this sometimes). Taking this a step further, the 'Machete Order' has also been suggested, which excises The Phantom Menace completely and makes a convincing argument for why nothing in that film matters in the grand scheme of things.

In what seems like taking this a step further again, I read about Topher Grace editing all of the Star Wars prequels into one 85 minute movie. From the summary given, this version uses a very small amount of footage from The Phantom Menace and removes a lot of plot-lines and characters from the others. Supposedly it opens with the climactic battle from TPM between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul. This immediately struck me as a great way to open the film and get you involved straight away, rather than spend 20 minutes discussing some trade disputes. The intent of this scene is also changed through a re-written opening crawl, which now states that the Jedi are there attempting to protect Queen Amidala from assassination attempts, which offers an immediate and clear focus to the film. Since this is part of the plot in the second film it seems like this allows quite an easy transition between the two.

There is also no footage used of the young Anakin Skywalker, which again masks the transition between films as you are not questioning how much time has elapsed for him to grow up so much. I also feel that it has always been difficult to reconcile the happy and care free youngster from TPM with the petulant teenager we see in Attack of the Clones. It's very difficult to understand just what has changed him so much, other than being away from his mother and general teenage angst. You can contrast this with the young Tom Riddle from the Harry Potter books for example, where there was always a clear sinister undercurrent to his younger self. Sweeping Jake Lloyd under the carpet is probably the best thing that can be done given the circumstances.

I'm pretty sure that this cut will not fix all of the problems with the prequels, there's only so much that can be saved in editing. I don't think there's any way that a believable love story can be dragged out of what we have already seen, though it apparently also uses a deleted scene where Anakin meets Padme's family. This would have come out of nowhere had it been in the original films but could well work in a single movie. The other area that I think would be hard to improve is Anakin's reasoning for finally giving in to the dark side. One thing that they could change is just to cut the line "what have I done?" just before he agrees to become Darth Vader so that it would look more like he was already a lost cause, and not just flip-flopping between viewpoints. Ending this version on the helmet being lowered onto him for the first time mirrors the dark ending to Empire Strikes Back and more importantly makes sure that we never hear his laughable "Noooooooo!!!!"

I can obviously see why this particular cut will probably not see the light of day, what with a famous and easily identifiable perpetrator to sue. But from the descriptions given and those who did get to see it, I can see someone eventually constructing a similar version that could be 'leaked' more anonymously. It definitely sounds like the best way of fitting the prequels in between Empire and Jedi as suggested, while keeping the pace up and not wandering too far from bringing the original trilogy to a close. I think I'd definitely like to see it if it ever surfaces. At the end of the day though it seems that this really shows that less is more where Star Wars is concerned, so can anything ever be better than having no official version of events before the original trilogy and leaving the clone wars and Anakin's fall to our own imagination?

The Star Wars prequel trilogy is a fairly unique occurrence in terms of being almost universally disliked but at the same time receiving so much attention from fans. I suppose it's hardly surprising as other than the Matrix sequels, I can't think of a single other film event that promised so much and caused so much disappointment. Attempts to 'fix' it have been around since the first film, where The Phantom Edit attempted to trim a lot of the fat from the film to make it into something more watchable. I guess in a sense the saga has always felt like it belonged to the fans after the original trilogy was complete, with so many people keen to write books and other stories in that universe. Lucas clearly no longer thinks that these films belong to us and their intent should be his alone, even trying to convince us that our own memories are incorrect. I suppose it's fitting that he wants to 'fix' his original trilogy, while the fans will probably continue to try and fix everything else...