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Cue Star Wars Theme and text crawl:

A thousand years of peace draw to a close. The Outer Rim territories of the Galactic Republic are rife with crime and oppression while corruption festers at its Core. The noble Jedi Knights are stretched thin throughout the galaxy in defense of law and order. Some believe that the Republic must raise a self-defense force to protect its citizens. Others argue that such a force would lead only to tyranny. As debate continues in the Galactic Senate, war breaks out on the frontier . . .

The story begins with a Falcon-esque freighter tearing through a screen-filling space battle between the Trade Federation and a Hutt Fleet. The freighter is captained by a brash, crude-talking young woman who hands the conn over to her R2 unit while she takes the guns. In her conversation with the R2 unit, we learn that she is a mercenary employed by Senator Skywalker of Alderaan to spy on the Trade Federation. As a side line, she’s been smuggling Trade Federation technologies to the Hutts. “How was I supposed to know they’d start a war over it?” she screams at the little droid, called R2-D2, over the explosion of another Droid fighter. “Senator Skywalker’s not going to like this at all. Threepio, you have that hyperdrive back up yet?” Cut to a golden protocol droid comically arguing with the ships brain. He apparently wins the argument and the scene ends with the stars turning into streaks of light.

Cut scene to Coruscant, in the Galactic Senate. Senator Palpatine of Naboo is finishing a speech to the Senate about the rapacious criminal activities of the Hutts and the need for a Republican Self-Defense Force to bring order to the galactic frontiers. His speech is met with both cheers and booing. Another middle-aged human Senator is cheering from the gallery as his aide comes up and whispers something in his ear. “Thank you, Bail,” he says and excuses himself.

Cut to a lavish office. Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Anakin Skywalker are waiting there. The Senator strides in, waving off reporters who are blocked from entering by his aides. "Master Qui-Gon Jinn." The Senator formally bows to the Jedi and then greets them warmly. “Young Anakin,” he smiles “I am always hearing about your accomplishments.” “Thank you, Senator Skywalker,” Anakin replies evenly. Senator Skywalker gets down to business, explaining to Qui-Gon about the latest skirmish between the Hutts and the Trade Federation. He confides that his sources all point toward a major rift in the Republic given that some powerful members do not feel that the Jedi can protect them anymore. A self-defense force is necessary to maintain the security of the Republic. He implores Qui-Gon to speak to the Council and gain their support on his behalf. Clearly uncomfortable, Qui-Gon explains that he disagrees with the Council on many issues but will relay the message.

After the meeting, Anakin seems dissatisfied with the encounter. The Jedi are walking down a corridor lined with windows. It is sunset. “My own father treats me like a stranger,” he tells his master. Anakin and Qui-Gon pause by a window overlooking the Jedi Temple. Qui-Gon explains that in many ways they are strangers given that Senator Skywalker gave up Anakin to the Jedi Temple not long after his mother died in childbirth. “Do you think he blamed me for her death?” Anakin asks as they continue walking. “No,” Qui-Gon reassures him gently. “You must learn to heed the Living Force. Had you been more mindful of the moment, you would have sensed that your father is proud of you.” Anakin pauses again and gazes out of another, this time facing the sun setting over the Galactic Senate.

Alright, focusedfire has expressed interest in the female smuggler character (who we'll call "Hanna" until a real name comes to us) and concern that Obi-Wan has not yet been introduced/that Qui-Gon is Anakin's master.

In Episode IV, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader was his pupil. To preserve this continuity, Anakin/Vader must at some point be the apprentice of Obi-Wan. In the real Episode I, Lucas kills off Qui-Gon to make this happen. That was a good choice. In order for the characters to grow, the wise-old-mentor archetype must step out of the way. That is why Obi-Wan himself dies three-quarters into Episode IV.

In re-writing Episode I, the temptation is to throw out Qui-Gon altogether in favor of Yoda and Obi-Wan. But that undoes another good point about Lucas's scripts for the prequels: namely, that Yoda and Obi-Wan (and so the Jedi Order at large) are themselves mistaken about a great many things. This sets up Luke's purity of heart and Anakin's resultant redemption. When thinking about the real prequels, I always wondered "what would things have been like had Qui-Gon lived?" So Qui-Gon's character, and his view of the Force, are thematically important to the overall story and ought to stay in.

In that same sense, it's important to consider the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Unfortunately, the real prequels did not manage to give their friendship much heart and it was only in their conflict that I was convinced that they were ever truly good friends--because only friends who think they've been betrayed fight that hard. Anakin and Obi-Wan ought to be friends--meaning equals--much earlier on in the story. And I mean on-screen, in the movies, not just in novels or comic books or cartoons and the rest of the between-movie ramp-ups.

As I mentioned earlier, I often think about Obi-Wan's first conversation with Luke. Note how he described the Anakin/Vader duality. When he spoke of Anakin, he talked about him as a peer and as someone who was even better at Obi-Wan in some respects (as a pilot). He did not say that Anakin had been his student. He said that Vader had been his student. This is a very revealing distinction: after all those years, Obi-Wan fondly remembers Anakin as his friend and equal, his partner in the fight to preserve law and order.

But he refers to Vader as his pupil. Later, in Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan admits to Luke that he thought he could teach Anakin as well as Yoda. "I was wrong," he confesses. We can see Obi-Wan's personal guilt colors his view of Anakin. In Obi-Wan's mind, Anakin and Vader are separate people. Specifically, Darth Vader is the personification of Obi-Wan's sense of failure. For this reason, Obi-Wan cannot see, as Luke does, that Vader is Anakin and is capable of redemption. So this is also a very powerful part of the overall theme.

To preserve and enhance these elements in a re-write, I think Anakin must start the movie as a padawan nearing the completion of his training. Obi-Wan would start the movie as a fully-fledged Jedi Knight. They need to have an adventure together that shows that they are friends and equals. (We need to actually see something of what Lucas describes in their conversation in the elevator at the beginning of Episode II, like Anakin saving Obi-Wan's life.)

By the end of the second act, Qui-Gon should die and Obi-Wan should step in for him to complete Anakin's training. This creates a tension between them that later can bloom into the mandatory betrayal-fueled duel at the end of the prequel trilogy and be temporarily resolved in Episode IV: "The circle is complete. Now I am the master." "Only a master of evil, Darth."

Here are Luke and Obi-Wan's conversations, for your reference:

The character list for any good re-write will rely significantly on already-established characters. Star Wars itself relies on archetypes and, because of its tremendous success, has informed the visualization of archetypes on a global scale. In a word, you don't try to fix what isn't broken. Plus, the characters themselves were actually one of the strengths of Lucas's prequel scripts. Unfortunately, much of their characterization seemed incomplete and they really deserved better. Obi-Wan and Anakin are the chief victims here. In fact, all of Episode I should have been devoted to getting the audience to love Anakin but turned out to just irritate us and make us ignore him.

Qui-Gon and Padme actually got pretty thorough treatments, which is unsurprising because they were entirely new characters. Given their centrality to the plots and themes of the prequel trilogy, these guys needed deeper exposition than Mace Windu. Good job, George! Similarly, any primary- and secondary-characters introduced in a re-write of Episode I must have thorough exposition. Hence why I start my first scene off with "Hanna" (more on her below). An why the second scene begins by introducing Senators Palaptine and Skywalker (we never knew Palpatine as anything but the Emperor before) and rounds out with an introduction to Anakin and Qui-Gon.

A lot of important things are going in this second scene: First, we see that Anakin's father and Senator Palpatine are political allies. We get a sense of their political goal and understand (to begin with from the booing and then from Senator Skywalker's talk with Qui-Gon and Anakin) that it is controversial. That reinforces the text crawl, which is the audience's first exposure to the story. Next, we find out a little about the Jedi's relationship to the Senate--that it is informal but awkward--and about the politics of the Council itself--that Qui-Gon is something of an outsider (which can be reinforced in later scenes, just like in the real Episode I).

Most importantly of all, we are exposed to Anakin's relationship to his distant but "real" father and his beloved teacher and father-figure. This sets us up for the grand themes of the trilogy. To begin with, Anakin needs a father. Star Wars is about fathers and sons. (Whatever can be said against Jar Jar Binks, Shmi Skywalker was just as silly and useless a character as him.) The central theme of Episodes IV- VI was the mystery of the father/son relationship. Regarding Anakin, Luke begins with the naive, hero-worshipping attitude of a child, becomes disillusioned and finally loves and accepts his father, in which his father finds redemption and the entire story finds resolution. Episodes I - III need to be about this thematic arc NOT working out properly.

Star Wars is kind of Greek in this way. I think of the series of three plays by Aeschylus called the Orestia. In the first play, Agammenon comes home from the Trojan War and his wife--still pissed that he sacrificed their daughter to calm the seas so that the Greeks could sail against Troy--conspires with her illicit lover to kill him. In the second play, Agammenon's son Orestes takes revenge by killing his mom and her lover. In the third play, Orestes has to suffer judgment for what he's done. The destiny of this family has become a cycle of violence, personified by the Furies. But in the third play, the Furies are appeased by justice and compassion and become transformed into the Eumenides (or "gracious ones"). Episodes IV - VI are like the third play in the Orestia: the hard-won redemption that culminates in the reign of harmony and justice. Episodes I - III have to deal with the content of the first two plays: the violence that destroys relationships and in so-doing perpetuates itself into a vicious cycle.

Taking our cue from Episodes IV - VI, the watchword for re-writing Episodes I - III must be "Luke breaks the cycle." Or, put it another way, "Anakin brings balance." What does that mean "brings balance"? Isn't it the case that Anakin is the one who disrupts the balance? No, the stage onto which Anakin comes is already out-of-balance. As per the opening crawl, violence and corruption are spreading everywhere. The Jedi are not strong enough to maintain law and order. This should tell us not only that there is something wrong with the Republic and the galaxy-at-large but also that there is something wrong with the Jedi themselves. After all, they were the successful guardians of peace for "a thousand generations" before. So things are already wrong: it didn't take Darth Vader to make things bad. Episode I is about us, the audience, seeing through Anakin's eyes how wrong everything already is. And it's about that external wrongness affecting him, bending and warping him until he is wrong on the inside.

Well, until he gives into it. Darth Vader isn't just a "product of the times." He chooses evil, albeit out of grief and frustration. And Episode I, rather than being about a boring eight-year-old, should move him significantly in that direction.

So how do we do that? Well, Anakin begins the re-written Episode I very well: in Senator Skywalker, he has a famous and powerful dad that he admires and will get the chance to know better; in Qui-Gon, he has a kind mentor that is very wise and understanding of his faults; in Obi-Wan, he has a great friend who looks out for him and makes up for his failures without holding those failures over him; in Padme, he will (over the course of Episode I) meet and fall in love with a beautiful, intelligent girl who loves him back.

And we get to take all of that away from him:

- His father uses him as a pawn in a political game, or at least Palpatine makes it look this way.
- His mentor dies, probably because Anakin messed up or was being irresponsible.
- His friend gets put in charge of him and so they're no longer equal and no longer truly friends.
- His girlfriend . . . well, he's not even supposed to have a girlfriend and she ends up dumping him "for his own good" as she begins a political career herself.

The first two events are the core ones for Episodes I and II. What I envision happening is Senator Skywalker is elected Supreme Chancellor thanks to some daring adventure that Anakin and Obi-Wan pull off (in all likelihood, liberating Naboo while "meeting" Padme). But in the midst of that adventure, Anakin loses Qui-Gon. (I think Qui-Gon should be killed by Darth Maul, actually.) He therefore returns to Coruscant as an exalted hero BUT inwardly confused and in search of a father figure to replace his master. He turns to his real father, who is reaping the reward of Anakin's success in his election but Supreme Chancellor Skywalker doesn't seem to have time for him (and doesn't really know how to be a father anyway). Anakin, who has started to fall in love with Padme at this point, asks his real father for advice. Supreme Chancellor Skywalker tells him that whatever the Jedi Code says, he must be true to himself. He's then pulled away by his duties and Anakin feels abandoned.

Enter Senator Palpatine. As the political spotlight shifts to Supreme Chancellor Skywalker (remember, it was Palaptine who was giving the speech in Scene 2), Palpatine begins to take a close interest in Anakin. Despite his heroism at Naboo, Anakin's irresponsibility gets Qui-Gon killed. The Council therefore denies him knighthood and makes Obi-Wan his master. Although Obi-Wan objects to this privately, he dutifully accepts and Anakin feels humiliated. Palpatine tells him that he is special and that the Jedi fear him. Palpatine tells him of an ancient prophecy about "one who will bring balance to the Force." "I believe," Palpatine confides to Anakin, "that you are this Chosen One. And I believe the Council is afraid that might be true." Shortly after this meeting, Darth Maul appears and a now-cloaked Palaptine/Darth Sidious commands him to continue the plan.

That is the midpoint of the Episode I, the fulcrum around which the rest of the movie turns. I'll get into more specifics as they work themselves out in my head.

And, by the way, the "Hanna" character really should be Padme.

((P.S.--did anyone catch which planet Senator Skywalker is from???))

Manchu,

I do have another point of concern.

You have Anakin being a child of an influencial Politician. I've always thought that a large part of the story was that a common everyday working man could still end up being special and unique enough to change the universe. The way that Lucas has "Luke"(you ever notice how the hero is his name sake?) being a dirt farmer from a frontier family and Anakin being a product of indentured servitude/slavery, he seems to be intentionally staying away from Elite/Nobility in the case of his male heros. This is reinforced by the fact that, with the exception of Han, these commoners are Jedi, which are a Sci-fi equivalent of the Templar Knights (A religious group where the individual forsakes all previous ties to the material world in exchange for military training and the title of Knight). It also seems that George was addressing a nature vs nurture debate by the difference in Anakin's and Luke's upbringing.

This brings up the question of, "How do you hide Owen Skywalker from the eventual political turmoil and backstabbing?" With a Senator Skywalker you kind of force a situation of Owen being a Bastard child Just to explain his still being breathing and unknown after Palpatines take over. There is also the matter of having Anakins mom dying shortly after his birth that creates a problem in the Owen/Anakin backstory. Honestly though, this is not completely your fault, because Lucas dropped the ball here. In "A New Hope" Owen talks about Anakin chosing to go off and join the Jedi and fight in the wars, but a child chosing to join the Jedi while his brother was an infant just doesn't support/fit this statement by Owen.


Possible solutions to these issues would be:
A) Have Senator SkyWalker be from a frontier world like Tatooine. Make him sort of an Abe Lincoln type character, a working mans Senator. Go ahead and have him as neglectful to Anakin due to his career but with a few changes.
B)Senator Skywalker could be a part of those who oppose Palpatine, but not a noted member of the Senate. He is someone Palpatine eventually eliminates, but isn't so much of a pain that he wipes out the whole family.
C)Have Owen be from another mother. Anakin rankles at being left in the care of a replacement mom. She is nice and caring but critical of why Anakin and his dad bother themselves with all of the off world "non-sense".(This also explains why Vader and Palpatine do not watch Owen, because Owen has no Force abilities and is firmly rooted planetside on Tatooine like his mom.)
D)Have Anakin Join the Jedi to help fight in the clone wars as an adolescent and in defiance of his neglectful father and critcal Step-mom(This could open an interesting story arc of parental rights vs need to train powerful Psykers and possibly become a key plot point as to why Anakin eventually destroys the younglings). This helps to set the stage for Owens later statements about his brother.


As to Pademe being a Smuggler? Lucas was following a tried and true formula of the unattainable Princess character. This formula is often used and is not outdated as a story tool(Pirates of the Carribean and Lord of the Rings each had such characters).
I think it might be neat to make her a Princess that left everything behind to become a Jedi. She and Anakin have a common ground in that they both disobeyed their fathers by joining the Jedi. Make the relationship forbidden on some level so that when she dies in child birth, Anakin's suppressed guilt at causing his mothers death becomes magnified by this new guilt at Pademe's death that he breaks.(I know that this is close to what Lucas did but I think that the changes are enough that the story would flow better and fall more into the adventure romance/swashbuckling theme.


Just a few quick ideas, Hope they help.

The every-man circumstances of Luke Skywalker are hardly the melodramatic slave circumstances of Anakin. I found Anakin's back story to be another major yet unnecessary annoyance of Episode I. As for this every-man theme you detected, it never struck me as important. I'm not saying it isn't there; just that I don't see it. Besides Luke, the other characters are all pretty remarkable. Leia is a princess. Han is not just some average-Joe truck driver, first impressions aside. And actually even Luke turns out to be the son of one of the most if not the most important guy in the galaxy . . . So I don't think having Anakin be the son of an important Senator really disrupts anything thematically.

Plus, having Anakin raised away from his father by a severe, mystical order would keep him from coming across as a bratty rich kid. If anything, the question should be "how can an audience relate to someone who has been raised in a severe, mystical order?" And again, that's where Qui-Gon Jinn comes in. Unlike the Jedi Council masters, Qui-Gon is humane and compassionate. He stresses the Living Force and rejects all but the haughty tenants of seers and prophets like Yoda. (It might even be good to have Qui-Gon give Anakin the same advice concerning Padme as his real father does later on.) He is not just a teacher to Anakin, but a parent. So Anakin can come across as more of a normal kid than, say, a golden boy like Obi-Wan.

About Owen: to begin with, he's always been Owen Lars rather than Owen Skywalker. In twenty odd years, no one really thought that Owen and Anakin were biologically related. That's something Lucas did to jam his failure of a mother-figure into Episode II as dark side baiting for Anakin. There's no reason why Obi-Wan and Anakin cannot just meet Owen later, maybe not even on Tatooine. At any rate, there are much, much better ways of explaining Owen than working around the idiotic, misplaced idea of the Force conceiving Anakin.

I think you've truly missed the point about Princesses. Aside from Joseph Campbell, the biggest influence on young George Lucas was probably Akria Kurosawa. One of Lucas's favorite Kurosawa movies was "Hidden Fortress," in which the sole-surviving princess of a feudal kingdom is smuggled out of enemy-held territory along with the royal treasury by a disguised general. The princess is tomboyish, passionately concerned about defending her people, and very strong-willed. She has to pretend to be a mute peasant throughout the film but at the end she is presented in all of her royal splendor.

Lucas has acknowledged being influenced by this particular Kurosawa film--especially in regard to telling an epic tale of adventure through the eyes of lowly characters. (In "Hidden Fortress," these were the last surviving conscripts of a peasant army. In Star Wars, these were the droids.) But Lucas has said it wasn't too big of an influence. And that's a blatant lie! Leia owes something to the Princess in "Hidden Fortress" but Padme Amidala is practcially a re-telling of that character, complete with feudal Japanese-inspired clothing and makeup.

In any case, Lucas uses a "Reverse Hidden Princess" motif. He takes the image of a damsel in distress and flips it around. Think of Leia taking charge when Han and Luke "rescue" her from the Death Star Detention Block. Or Amidala taking charge in the insurgency-style attack on her Nemoidian-captured palace. But while Leia was effectively introduced as a strong character, Padme's first appearance is . . . rather underwhelming. And her turning out to be a queen is so anticlimatic that it's hard to even believe that the Gungans are surprised.

So I would have Padme introduced as a smuggler, an underground agent of a powerful man, a seeming fringer who's no stranger to hives of scum and villainy. And then have that same girl turn out to be the prim, proper, beautiful, and brilliant elected Queen of Naboo? That's the kind of girl Anakin Skywalker could fall for. I think it makes her the strong character that she really should have been right off the bat. And, to be a bit conceited perhaps, I think it's an interesting twist on the Kurosawa-inspired Reverse Hidden Princess motif.

Manchu wrote:The every-man circumstances of Luke Skywalker are hardly the melodramatic slave circumstances of Anakin. I found Anakin's back story to be another major yet unnecessary annoyance of Episode I. As for this every-man theme you detected, it never struck me as important. I'm not saying it isn't there; just that I don't see it. Besides Luke, the other characters are all pretty remarkable. Leia is a princess. Han is not just some average-Joe truck driver, first impressions aside. And actually even Luke turns out to be the son of one of the most if not the most important guy in the galaxy . . . So I don't think having Anakin be the son of an important Senator really disrupts anything thematically.

Luke turns out to be the son of an important firgue who also had a humble start. It doesn't matter that Vader later turns out to be Anakin, Luke was raised as a struggling dirt farmer. Lukas had Anakin start off as an indentured servant(Difference between a slave in that they can buy their freedom). In fact, Outside of Vader, Leia and Obi-wan were the only ones with a remarkable history and that was only to introduce Luke to the force and the rebellion. Han is essentially a Truck Driver, Chewbacca his team driver. Luke is a farm boy. It was taking these relatable characters and putting them in an underdog fighting against Tyranny setting that made the first three movies resonate amongst the viewers.

Making a "to be" villian relatable to the audience is difficult because of the mindset of the average audience and the unwritten rule that movies like these need to be morality plays where evil is demonized. If you then make him the son of so rich politician you will never get the majority of the readers/viewers to relate to this character. Instead you fall into the stale 1980s-ish spoiled rich kid villian.

Manchu wrote:Plus, having Anakin raised away from his father by a severe, mystical order would keep him from coming across as a bratty rich kid. If anything, the question should be "how can an audience relate to someone who has been raised in a severe, mystical order?" And again, that's where Qui-Gon Jinn comes in. Unlike the Jedi Council masters, Qui-Gon is humane and compassionate. He stresses the Living Force and rejects all but the haughty tenants of seers and prophets like Yoda. (It might even be good to have Qui-Gon give Anakin the same advice concerning Padme as his real father does later on.) He is not just a teacher to Anakin, but a parent. So Anakin can come across as more of a normal kid than, say, a golden boy like Obi-Wan.

Again, hard to make him relatable as a hero falling from grace. If you use Qui-gon as an effective parent figure then you remove much of what fuels Anakins angst. This is why I suggested having Anakin raised by a step-mom until he runs away at 13 or so. You can introduce both Qui-gon and a young Obi-wan at this point, but honestly I question the inclusion of Qui-gon to any great extent. His character seens like an unnecessary complication to the original story. Originally, Obi-wan and yoda disputed the training of Anakin/Vader.

A more logical step in the prequel would have been to have an 13-ish year old Anakin come to the attention of Obi-wan after showing signs of being a wild/untrained force user with deep emotional scars. He is a piloting savant and is for some reason able to operate in the adult world without much question. Once Anakin comes to the Jedi's attention a viscious argument arises as to whether they should terminate his life or attempt to train him. Yoda and Obi-wan advocate training but argue strongly as to who should be Anakins teacher. The decision falls to Obi-wan because Anakin not only net him dirst but that they were also in combat together and developed a level of trust. It is deemed that the trust is the deciding factor as to potential success. This would also explain the trepadation that Yoda has at teaching the young adult Luke.

Manchu wrote:About Owen: to begin with, he's always been Owen Lars rather than Owen Skywalker. In twenty odd years, no one really thought that Owen and Anakin were biologically related. That's something Lucas did to jam his failure of a mother-figure into Episode II as dark side baiting for Anakin. There's no reason why Obi-Wan and Anakin cannot just meet Owen later, maybe not even on Tatooine. At any rate, there are much, much better ways of explaining Owen than working around the idiotic, misplaced idea of the Force conceiving Anakin.

I still like Owen as the step-brother that Anakin never takes time to get to know, thus he never thinks of going back to investigate on how that part of his history fares. It would also explain some of the body language that Vader displays at having to go to Tatooine. This does not contradict your Senator Skywalker father story, while allowing a strong visual similarity between the beginnings of Luke and Anakin.

Manchu wrote:I think you've truly missed the point about Princesses. Aside from Joseph Campbell, the biggest influence on young George Lucas was probably Akria Kurosawa. One of Lucas's favorite Kurosawa movies was "Hidden Fortress," in which the sole-surviving princess of a feudal kingdom is smuggled out of enemy-held territory along with the royal treasury by a disguised general. The princess is tomboyish, passionately concerned about defending her people, and very strong-willed. She has to pretend to be a mute peasant throughout the film but at the end she is presented in all of her royal splendor.

I understand about the princess. I also picked up on a slight Anastasia theme with the whole sole surviving Royal that is being kept in hiding to possibly preserve the cause/blood-line.
What I think that you are missing is how Lukas presented the only two female characters "Princesses" that fight for their people. There is a sub-concious psychological choice he makes by elevating the women to being the only royalty in the movies outside of the Emperor. He could have introduced them as senators to explain that they were strong political women but he made the choice to elevate them to royalty.

Manchu wrote:Lucas has acknowledged being influenced by this particular Kurosawa film--especially in regard to telling an epic tale of adventure through the eyes of lowly characters. (In "Hidden Fortress," these were the last surviving conscripts of a peasant army. In Star Wars, these were the droids.) But Lucas has said it wasn't too big of an influence. And that's a blatant lie! Leia owes something to the Princess in "Hidden Fortress" but Padme Amidala is practcially a re-telling of that character, complete with feudal Japanese-inspired clothing and makeup.

In any case, Lucas uses a "Reverse Hidden Princess" motif. He takes the image of a damsel in distress and flips it around. Think of Leia taking charge when Han and Luke "rescue" her from the Death Star Detention Block. Or Amidala taking charge in the insurgency-style attack on her Nemoidian-captured palace. But while Leia was effectively introduced as a strong character, Padme's first appearance is . . . rather underwhelming. And her turning out to be a queen is so anticlimatic that it's hard to even believe that the Gungans are surprised.

I don't have a problem with Pademe's character, at least until the last movie. She provides the link to the political issues in the Galaxy and provides a opposition for Palpatine that does not immediately include the Jedi or the Skywalker family. I think that changing the character a little bit to where she shows a bit more warrior and princess in hiding would have improved the story, but think making her into a female Han character will be as bad as Kiera Knightly's character in the last Pirates of the Carribean movie. The womens empowerment cudgel used in the last PotC movie was so ham fisted in it application that it has ruined the movies. Don't, get me wrong. I love the idea of a female "Han" type character, a smuggler mother of Han Solo would be a blast(I imagine a personality that would be a combination of Debra Jo Rupps character from that 70's show and Conchata Ferrels character from Two and a Half men). I just feel that such would be better if not connected to Pademe. That way you don't limit it to only obe strong woman in the universe. It is the tring everything to a single female character that loses the movie goer. It would be like trying to make Luke and Han into one character.

BTW, not rying to be insulting with the reference to the craptacular Kiera Knight performance. Was only attempting to point out the flaw of making the sole female character into a combined does everything uber hero.

Manchu wrote:So I would have Padme introduced as a smuggler, an underground agent of a powerful man, a seeming fringer who's no stranger to hives of scum and villainy. And then have that same girl turn out to be the prim, proper, beautiful, and brilliant elected Queen of Naboo? That's the kind of girl Anakin Skywalker could fall for. I think it makes her the strong character that she really should have been right off the bat. And, to be a bit conceited perhaps, I think it's an interesting twist on the Kurosawa-inspired Reverse Hidden Princess motif.

This cuts out the roots of Han Solo completely. I think one of the biggest mistakes Lucas made was not including a Han Back Story. Han was arguably(Outside of Lando)the coolest character in the first three movies. Lucas then reunites these characters via their progenitors but excludes Han and Chewbacca.WTF??! He has already hammered us with the "Its a Small Galaxy" theme by having the Droids pop up, to leave Han and Chewy out was an error of epic proportions.

As stated earlier, I have no problem with Pademe being the obvious roots of Leia's "kick ass and take names" personality. I just feel that ommitting a Han back story is a diservice to one of the best characters in the franchise. You could make the Female Han character a Scoundrel friend of Anikens that Pademe views as a rival. Yes it echoes the original movies but could be handeled in a very different and enetertaining manner, because of the 2 strong-willed women involved.


If you are dead set on your current course, I will try to introduce story ideas within the confines of your chosen characters. Currently I feel that the characters are still in developement and is why I am suggesting things that only require a small tweak in the intro, but will possibly allow for a more engaging and flexible cast of characters. I will understand if you disagree or want to develope the characters as you currently have them and will try my best to help within the confines of your set story structure.