So as you all may know, we're big, big fans of the "Star Wars" series.
We've seen all the movies, all the re-edits and special editions, we (when we
say we we mean me) bought all three covers of the TV Guide special edition
celebrating "The Phantom Menace," we've seen the animated series, the other
animated series, that other animated series with those dumb teddy bears, the
animated series with the gay robots, and the current animated series exploring
Anakin's life before he became all evil and melodramatic. Recently we rewatched
the entire series on Spike TV here in America and realized that we didn't enjoy
the prequels as much as we remember. I mean I'm definitely in the minority when
I say "Attack of the Clones" was watchable, and "Revenge of the Sith" almost
(almost) gets in touch with what "Star Wars" is all about, but I sat watching
"The Phantom Menace" and... um... yeah, it's terrible. Terrible. Awful. I mean I
still don't know what the actual plot for that movie was. Seriously, tell me! I
decrypted the plot to "2001: A Space Odyssey" faster than I did for this.
But you know how the song goes. Every fan boy from New York to Belgium has cried
the name of Lucas in their sleep and has probably written a Death Note
especially for the bearded double chinned one, so you're likely just rolling
your eyes and looking for something else to do. I don't care, we're still going
through with the article. Here's us re-writing "The Phantom Menace." We're going
through every character featured in the movie and explaining how we would
establish them and stage their roles in the forming of the destiny of Anakin
Skywalker. Simply put it's another form of "Star Wars" fan fiction we're trying
to pass off as an article. But we're going to do it anyway. Screw you. Just be
advised that these ideas belong to us and we will know if you've stolen them.
We're just bad ass that way. |
ANAKIN SKYWALKER
We'd cast a better actor and increase the age of the character
because it made no sense that the Jedi Council was refusing to train
Anakin because he was too old and then suddenly see children older
than him still at that training stage. So we make Anakin in to a
more convincing pre-teen. This adds more depth to the character, and
we bring Anakin in to the scene as an aspiring thief who knows his
way around the planet and is basically keen to the shady characters
who dominate the village near where he lives. Anakin is cocky, smug,
very fast and rationalizes his criminal behavior convincing himself
that it's all to help his mother. This also helps because when he
gets to meet Padme it's no longer a young woman hitting on a little
kid, instead it's a young woman meeting a kid who is only slightly
younger than she actually is. And when the council refuses to train
him because of his age, we can believe it more and get a better
sense of why Anakin eventually craved power and revenge in his later
years, and we get a hint of how he became such a legendary war hero
in the future. He's also truly devoted to his mother and hardly ever
leaves her side. And he doesn't race no punk ass pods, instead he
makes a good living out of theft and is eventually caught.
QUEEN PADME AMIDALA
Amidala is no longer a young queen who sits around in ridiculously
intricate costumes for the purposes of ordering people around and
being bullied during senate meetings. Now Amidala is more head
strong, sassier, and we get a look at how Leia ended up so strong
and heroic. Amidala is almost the exact duplicate of Leia. She's
sarcastic, gives people a hard time, and refuses to be seen as the
damsel in distress because while she is the Queen, she's not someone
who has to be looked after and saved all the time. This would also
give us the impression that the character is not a talking cardboard
cut out like we saw in the actual movie. By "Revenge of the Sith"
all she did was stand around and witness the events unfolding. Padme
should be given more to do and in our version she gets to fight with
the boys. She gets shit done, she carries a gun, and yes she's well
aware of who and what a Jedi is... and she's weary of them because
they're sent to her planet to protect her and she don't need any
protection from people forced on her by the senate. She also manages
to come aboard the ships to experience some of the battles in space,
which accounts for her appearing on the star ship where Anakin
boards and eventually meets her. The two have instant chemistry, and
there's no ridiculous lines like: "I don't like sand. It's coarse
and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here
everything is soft and smooth."
DARTH MAUL
Surprise, surprise, Lucas completely under used Darth Maul. In his
effort to side step potentially scary characters in exchange for
more marketable kid friendly ones, Maul was completely mis used and
suffered a quick death. In our "The Phantom Menace" Maul has a more
prominent role in the movie. He's there from the beginning
eliminating Jedi Knights from behind the scenes and working under
the radar to help improve the chances of a treaty by drawing
suspicion away from Sidious. So he is assigned to basically kill all
potential threats who suspect Sidious of wrong doing. Qui Gon Jinn
is one of his many victims and he's assigned to destroy the likes of
Queen Amidala, Obi Wan Kenobi and potentially Yoda. Maul is a man
who gives our heroes a very hard time. He has excellent tracking
skills, gets in to one or two scuffles with other Jedi and knows the
ins and outs of light saber battles, but he's not as flashy as we
last saw him. He relies on his skills to bring down the Jedi but
allows his master to finish them off whenever necessary. In the
movie, he's tracking Kenobi and has an instant vibe about Anakin.
He's almost disturbed by him upon first meeting him in battle. And
yes by the climax he does go toe to toe with Kenobi but he has more
advantage over him because Kenobi is still ill-prepared and a
Padawan. Maul dies, but by the end it was all worth it because he
was a more vocal and active villain in the story.
QUI GON JINN
Congratulations Oskar, you're now a cameo! Yes, thanks to us Qui Gon
Jinn is not the master of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Instead he's only one in a
line of Jedi Knights victimized by the vicious Jedi hunter Darth
Maul. You see Qui Gon is on to Senator Palpatine's devious under
handed plans and in the opening is murdered during a light saber
battle that ends with Darth Sidious finishing him off. It's only the
beginning though as he plays an important role in the mystery of who
Sidious is and what he intends to do to the Republic.
SENATOR PALPATINE/DARTH SIDIOUS
To this day I'm still not sure what Lucas intended with Darth
Sidious. Did he really think people wouldn't guess that Sidious was
actually Palpatine? And why did he just give up hiding his identity
by the end of the movie? And why is it never talked about in the
later films? And what is the point of having Count Dooku and
Grievous? Anyway, my idea for Sidious would be to completely
separate their lives as Lucas did but in a more active way.
Palpatine's influence on politics would remain as his intentions
toward the senate and the republic would remain completely difficult
to decrypt and then we'd be able to see him spend time with his
apprentice Darth Maul. We'd see where Sidious goes to when he's
playing Sithlord, what kind of influence he has on the dark side and
what connections he holds underground. We'd also see the extent of
his dark powers as he prefers to try and convert the jedi Maul hunts
and then eliminate them when he's run out of options. Would Sidious
really be able to hide under the cloak of the darkside without at
least one or two jedi noticing? This would be reason enough to keep
Maul in most of the film, thus Sidious would have more to do.
There's not an actual villain in "The Phantom Menace" so Sidious
would definitely benefit as being one behind the curtain a la The
Wizard.
WE
CONTINUE RE-BOOTING THE PHANTOM MENACE! >>>
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