Tag Archives: Star Wars

Who Would You be if you were a Star Wars Character?

So when I’m looking to kill time in a way that seems moderately productive to an outside observer, I often turn to the site Quora and answer questions that are directed at me. Sometimes this is a great opportunity to teach someone a valuable skill, technique, or just impart some wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. Most of the time though, it’s questions about minutiae in Star Wars or Star Trek. And every now and then, I get an excuse to write up something completely ridiculous. This is what happened when someone asked me who I’d be if I were a Star Wars character.

Rendar Prox shivered as he stepped out of the modified YT-1300 freighter that had taken him to this strange planet of “Wes-con’Sen.” Snow-dusted triangular trees, seemingly untouched by civilization. Surely, there couldn’t actually be anyone living here. And yet all the stories said this is where he was. The mysterious wise figure who was his last hope to save the galaxy.

A wookie, the co-pilot of the ship he hired, howled behind him as the ground crackled beneath the ship.

“I hear it too,” Prox called back. There were other stories about this planet too. Stories that some kind of strange, burrowing predators named dachs lived underground, swallowing up anyone who wandered into their territory. “Go ahead and take the ship back up, I’ll comm you in two hours.”

“Unless the dachs get you first,” Chewbacca grumbled back as he closed the hatch of the Millennium Falcon and started preparing the old ship for takeoff.

Prox scanned the treeline. There was a small opening some distance off that looked about the right size for a person to go through, which was as good a spot as any. He set off for it, trudging through snow half-way to his knees. He’d gotten about half-way there when there was an ear-splitting “CRACK!” noise from behind him. He spun around and saw the ground rising up underneath the Falcon, the back half vanishing beneath the snow in an instant.

So the dachs are real! He thought in horror.

He started to move forward, determined to do something, but then reason returned. Chewbacca and Han were already as good as dead. If the dachs were big enough to eat an entire starship, there was nothing that he could do to save them with his single holdout blaster. So instead he turned around and began sprinting for the opening in the trees.

Unfortunately it wasn’t much of a sprint. He wasn’t used to running in snow like this, and his boots were built more for flying X-Wings than riding tauntauns. He’d barely made it ten meters before he slipped and fell straight into the snow. The cold momentarily blinded him as he struggled to regain his footing. And then he heard it. Someone approaching him from out ahead. Could it be him? The mysterious figure, arriving just in time to save him from being eaten by the native fauna?

He pulled his head out of the snow and squinted through the flakes still stuck to his face in the direction of the approaching noise. It was hard to see still, but… yes! There he was. A short figure with long ears, his head covered with short red fur and the rest of his body garbed in simple clothes that might befit a monk.

“Help!” Prox shouted to him.

The small mysterious wise figure shouted something back and quickened his pace. The snow must have been even harder for him, as it came up almost to the top of his neck, but he sped on as if powered by mystical forces. And then he was on Prox. Literally on prox. As in the small wise figure actually leapt onto his back and began shouting in his strange, alien language.

I see, Prox realized. He wants me to carry him on his back to show that I’m strong enough to be a worthy pupil!

“I’ll try, master!” Prox grunted as he pushed himself out of the snow.

Much to his surprise, the master responded by making a small yelp of distress and rolling off of his back to flop un-elegantly into the snow. Prox reached to help him back up, but the master only let out a growling noise and bit down on his glove, pulling it off and sprinting back towards the trees.

Oh, Prox thought as he watched the master run away on all four limbs, his no doubt wizened tail wagging rapidly back and forth. This must be some kind of test of my humility.

So Prox followed, doing his best not to think murderous thoughts as his hand slowly froze solid. Fortunately, the master seemed to have thought ahead. In running out to meet Prox and then immediately turning back, he’d created a clear path through the snow that Prox could follow. Pure brilliance. In no time at all Prox was safely within the trees, panting for breath while the master sat and watched him with big, inquisitive eyes, Prox’s glove still held in his mouth.

“Thank you, Master Reinemann,” Prox reached out. “Could I have my glove…?”

Master Reinemann responded by growling and shaking his head “no.”

“Okay.” Prox retracted his bare hand and stuffed it beneath his armpit. “I… don’t quite understand the purpose of the lesson, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.”

Master Reinemann stared back with those same curious eyes for a long time and sniffed.

“I guess you want to know why I’m here.” Prox reached into his pocket and pulled out his father’s lightsaber. It was ornately decorated, with delicate scrollwork flowing down the choke into the silver and gold sculpture of the pommel.

Master Reinemann dropped the glove and began to sniff at the lightsaber.

“You recognize it?” Prox asked in excitement.

“I think he’s going to pee on it,” Master Reinemann responded in basic.

“Wha…?” Prox gaped in confusion.

“I mean, doubt me if you want, but I think I know him pretty well” A bearded man dressed in a long gray coat, thick gloves, and weirdly formal shoes and slacks stepped around from behind Prox where he’d apparently been watching. “Why are you talking to my dog?”

Prox stared up at the newcomer and felt his face starting flush, which only made the cold around him worse. “You’re Master Reinemann,” he said.

“Yep.” Master Reinemann nodded.

“So who’s the little guy?”

“That is a dachshund,” Master Reinemann said in a solemn tone. “And oh look, I was right!”

“GAH!” Prox jerked his father’s sacred weapon away from the sudden stream of warm yellow urine splashing on the emitter. “Wait, that’s a dach?”

“Dachshund,” Master Reinemann repeated as if he were talking to someone just a little slow.

“But… He’s so tiny!”

The Dachshund made a disapproving grumble and began burying Prox’s stolen glove.

“Yep,” Master Reinemann said.

“Do they get bigger?” Prox asked.

“They occasionally get wider,” Master Reinemann told him.

“But…” Prox looked out towards where the front half of the Falcon still jutted out of the ground at about a thirty degree angle. “What did that, then?”

“Gravity,” Master Reinemann told him. “They landed a starship on a lake just a week after it froze over. Frankly I’m surprised it didn’t fall through the moment they touched down.”

“But…” Prox repeated. “All the legends about the dachs being able to eat entire starships…”

“That’s what we call a metaphor.

“Meta-phor…” Prox mouthed the unfamiliar word. “Then it’s true. You really are the one they call the last of the Science Fiction Writers!”

The last of the Science Fiction Writers made an unpleasant face. “They’re really calling me that?”

“I was told that you were the only one who could help me,” Prox went on. “A terrible calamity has befallen the New Republic. A new enemy has come out of nowhere. According to an ancient Jedi prophecy, only one wise in the forgotten ways of technical plausibility can save us!”

“So you’re trying to learn how science fiction works… because of a mystical prophecy.” Master Reinemann made a small pained noise and began to rub at his temples. “Well, that’s a great start.”

“I was hoping you might be able to teach me how to use this.” Prox wiped the few bits of urine off of his father’s lightsaber and held it out. “My father’s lightsaber.”

Master Reinemann raised an eyebrow and took the weapon. “Okay…” He turned it over in his hands several times and found the activation stud.

“He was one of the first to fight against the new enemy,” Prox said sadly. “And one of the first to-”

“HOLY FUCKBALLS!” Master Reinemann shouted as the lightsaber’s brilliant blue blade snapped into existence. “This… what the hell is this?”

“Uh…” Prox blinked. “It’s the weapon of a Jedi knight.”

“It’s a weapon?!” Master Reinemann looked back at him. “This is not a weapon. It’s a self-amputation tool at best.” He waved the blade around a few times. “The blade is, what, a rod of magnetically contained plasma? With the amount of power that has to go into keeping the thing rigid like that, you could probably run a small starship. And you’re using it so you can sword fight people.”

“But… sword fighting is so civilized.”

“Since when did ‘civilized’ describe carving people up with a plasma torch?” Master Reinemann turned off the lightsaber and handed it back to him. “The sensation of burning is one of the most intensely unpleasant things a person can experience. You’ve actually found a way to make dismemberment even more traumatic than it already was. Not that it matters much, because anyone with a ranged weapon is just going to shoot you before you can use the damn thing.”

“Ah,” Prox said. “But the Force helps us see threats before they happen. Thanks to that, we can use this to deflect blaster bolts!”

“Blaster…” Master Reinemann shook his head. “Ah, right, the pocket nuclear slingshots you call ranged weapons. Tell you what, I’m going to throw a snowball at you. I want you try and block it with your lightsaber.”

Prox nodded and planted his feet in a defensive stance, then turned on his father’s blade. As he did so he reached for the Force. He could see the vital moment so clearly. Even as Master Reinemann reached down and began packing snow into a rough sphere, he could see the finished product as it left his hand, its flight through the air, and the position his blade would need to be to intersect the snowball.

This would be child’s play.

“You ready?” Master Reinemann asked.

Prox closed his eyes, willing the image into even clearer focus. “I’m ready,” he said.

And then the snowball was in the air. The Force flowed through Prox’s arms, pulling them and his blade up into the perfect position. The snowball hit the blade, the center vanishing in a puff of superheated steam in a moment…

…And then two halves of the snowball slammed directly into his face with a wet “thump” noise.

Prox staggered back a step, powering down the lightsaber as he started to spit pine-needle laced snow out of his mouth.

“You see,” Master Reinemann said, “The fact that you can deflect a blaster bolt kind of makes sense. It’s constrained plasma. The blade is constrained plasma. They’re naturally going to repel one another. But snowballs aren’t plasma.”

“But the blade should have vaporized it,” Prox protested.

“Ah, afraid not,” Master Reinemann shook his head. “There’s this thing call the Liedenfrost effect that keeps that from happening. Point is though that all you need to do to beat your space-sword there is a projectile with a cross-section that can’t be neatly blocked by a two inch straight line. Or, you know, someone firing at you from both the front and back at the same time. Kind of makes the argument for it being an effective defensive tool pointless.”

Prox stared down at the lightsaber. Suddenly, the Jedi weapon seemed a lot less impressive than it had a moment ago.

“So… you’re saying that the Jedi should use blasters against this enemy.”

“Ehhhh…” Master Reinemann waved his hand in the air. “Let’s not go that far. I could spend literal hours on how you’d probably be better off with bullets for about ninety percent of the things you use blasters for.”

“So you’ll teach me?” Prox asked.

Master Reinemann sighed, then reached down and pulled Prox’s half-buried glove out of the snow. “Sure. Beats spending another week failing to invent the Holonet version of Netflix. You sure you’re ready to have me systematically deconstruct your entire aesthetic?”

“I have no idea what that means!” Prox told him. “But I’m not afraid.”

“Well, that’s good.” Master Reinemann reached down and picked up the Dachshund, who immediately began trying to climb inside his big gray coat. “Because by the time you realize how completely screwed you are against someone who’s technology actually makes sense, you will be.” He paused and repeated for dramatic effect. “You will be.

The Fourth is With Us!

So this year I decided to do something a little different than the usual sale to celebrate Star Wars day, since there’s actually something to celebrate this year! Rather than offer you discounts on the old stuff, I’m emulating Abrams and giving you all something new: a Shadows of Time short written just for the occasion!

As for where it fits in continuity, it’s after book 2 but before book 4, and that’s all I can say for certain.

So enjoy, fellow nerds, and May the 4th be with you all year!

Continue reading The Fourth is With Us!

I’ve Seen STAR WARS, Internet! Is it safe to come out now?

So, now that I’ve finally seen Episode VII, I can return to the internet free from all danger of spoilers.  Do all you want to me, you pathetic bastards!  I know all the secrets!

Of course, a great many people haven’t been able to see the film yet, so I’m going to avoid anything that could be viewed as a spoiler myself.  But I did just want to state my feelings on the film.  If you want to be absolutely sure I’m not going to spoil anything, feel free to skip it, I won’t mind!  The rest will be after the jump.

Continue reading I’ve Seen STAR WARS, Internet! Is it safe to come out now?

Plotting Along – The Phantom Menace (Part 3)

Darth Maul really got a pretty raw deal.
I know, I’m hardly the first person to say this, but it bears repeating nonetheless. Consider the marketing that lead up to the release of this film. Darth Maul was freaking everywhere, glowering down at filmgoers in a grim promise of how uncompromisingly awesome he was going to be. The guy had a cadre of devoted fans before the movie even opened.
Given how it turned out, I sometimes have to wonder if perhaps they went so far overboard with the marketing as an apology to Ray Park for how little screen time he actually ended up getting.

Unfortunately, I can also see why it happened. Darth Maul’s not actually the villain of the film. Palpatine is. Darth Maul’s just an enforcer. And he actually fills that role pretty well. Audiences don’t expect the two hundred pound gorilla who serves as a bouncer/bodyguard for the mob boss to be a richly developed character. But, like Boba Fett before him, Darth Maul looked really cool. Thus everyone really, really wanted him to be more awesome than he actually was.

So how do you fix this? Basically, you do it by almost completely cutting Palpatine out of the film. Which you may be surprised to hear I almost hate saying.

Now, I am a big fan of Rod Hilton’s machete order for viewing the Star Wars films. If you haven’t read the original article yet, go there now. It’s worth a look, and is an excellent demonstration of how making relatively minor changes to the plot structure of the story as a whole can actually improve both trilogies. And one of the things that he highlights in it that makes the whole concept work is the fact that Palpatine is actually a really freaking scary villain in the prequels.

Think about it: the guy not only managed to engineer a war, he managed to engineer it in such a way that he was actually leading both sides. In addition to that he managed to get the Jedi to break their long-standing prohibition against getting actively involved in military conflicts, leading to the corruption and ultimate destruction of the entire order save for a few stragglers who went into seclusion, and he did it all without ever being so much as suspected of being a Sith. Even at the end when he was revealed it was because he flat out admitted it to a Jedi. This is the villain we really wanted. But sadly many people rejected him because, well, he was an old guy in a robe. He didn’t look cool, and no amount of awesome evil voice work was going to sway people’s minds in that regard.

By letting Darth Maul have Palpatine’s (or more accurately Darth Sideous’s) scenes and lines though we achieve two goals. The first is that we are no longer disappointing fans looking for a scary and awesome looking villain. The second is that Darth Maul can now actually be present in person at Naboo, running things directly. Which is greatly preferable to just having Sideous sending instructions via hologram the entire time. There’s a reason Darth Vader always lead from the front, and it has everything to do with how the audience reacts to seeing a menacing super-powered badass ready to step in when the army of useless stormtroopers inevitably fail.

So would this change diminish Palpatine? Well, maybe. Frankly though I think it would be worth it and possibly only serve to make him more threatening in the second and third films if you mostly cut him out of the first simply by letting the threat of him loom a bit. After all most Star Wars fans knew he was the emperor going in. Letting him be there but apparently not doing much would set everyone wondering just what plans he might have in place, or even if he was actually a sith yet. It would also help close the plot hole formed when the captured Trade Federation leaders didn’t immediately turn around and announce that, yes, they were taking instructions from a creepy guy in a cloak who referred to Darth Maul as an apprentice, and could we please not get shot now? In fact you could even capitalize on it by having a scene where the Jedi are questioning them about Maul trying to find if he was the master or the Apprentice. All of them say that he was running the show, except perhaps for one who offers an opinion that he thought Maul might have been getting instructions from somewhere else. Or if that’s too much just give him some last words, perhaps a barely coherent plea to his master for help. In short, give us a little bit of mystery here as to what the balance of power is.

And with that out of the way, that only leaves the side characters… oof.

So first off, R2-D2. In an early draft he was actually supposed to be the POV character, recounting the history of the Skywalker family from his own experiences to an advanced being hundreds if not thousands of years after the battle of Yavin. And, even though that was dropped, he actually fills that role really well. He’s the perfect fly on the wall character – always present yet usually ignored. To paraphrase the awesome HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic, “Droids are like furniture. No one thinks much about them. Which makes it the perfect surprise when the lamp in the corner pulls out a high powered blaster combine and liquidates them.” So how does the quirky little astromech do?

Actually, pretty well. R2-D2 is more or less perfectly handled in The Phantom Menace. This time he’s brand new, and obviously a bit more capable as a result of it, but frankly what else did we expect? I imagine he’s pretty far out of warranty by the time A New Hope rolls around.

And C-3PO. The overly polite slightly prissy protocol droid who really has no business being in a war. In this movie, he’s presented to us as a naked do-it-yourself project in some kid’s bedroom.

And again, I really don’t have a problem with it. I actually think it’s kind of a good twist on the character that 3PO, who always made a point of bragging about the features he had to everyone he met, was actually cobbled together from spare parts and junk. As for the alleged plot hole of why Vader never recognized him… should he? How often did they actually interact in the original trilogy? And, if you think about it, how many identical protocol droids are out there? The fact that C-3PO and R2 were able to pretend to be droids belonging to the Death Star in a New Hope suggests that there were probably quite a few gold-plated protocol droids and blue astromechs on board the station, so seeing a droid that was identical to C-3PO was probably a daily occurrence.

Which leaves… which leaves…
(sigh)
Jar-Jar.

Okay. Well, first off we should be asking a very important question: does he even need to be here?

No, he doesn’t. At no point are his actions vital to the plot. Taking them to the Gungan city? Naboo has been populated for long enough that I’m pretty sure that the humans know the Gungans are there. Leading the Gungan forces? We’ve already got a Gungan officer character who can do that. Comic relief? You do realize you have a naked C-3PO in this movie, right? And a sarcastic snarky Obi-Wan? Enough said.

So yeah, my thoughts (unsurprisingly) is that this is a character that simply does not need to be here. If you really wanted to keep him though, I would actually suggest taking a page from the Clone Wars series currently wrapping up on Cartoon Network. There they make the simple change of having the disaster that follows in his wake due not to him being mind-numbingly stupid and cowardly, but simply profoundly unlucky. In which case you could make his introduction more the result of the Gungans trying to snub Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon by offering them a guide that they feel will be a hindrance. But honestly, the movie would be well served by just getting rid of him completely.

Plotting Along – The Phantom Menace (Part 2)

So tweaking Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon was really mostly an exercise in fine tuning. While there may have been a few areas where the script stumbled, their characters were actually handled pretty well. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Anakin Skywalker, aka the reason everyone was watching this mess of a film.

For the three people in the world who don’t know how this turned out, Anakin Skywalker in the Phantom Menace is the most adorable cherub of a future despot ever born into slavery. The only reason he’s not constantly highlighted as the film’s greatest mistake is the fact that he so often shares screen time with Jar Jar Binks.

Now I get what George Lucas wanted to do here. He wanted us to see that Anakin was a good kid, that evil can come from anywhere, etc. And you know what, he’s right, it was important to establish that. With subtlety. This Anakin is about as subtle as driving a screw with a sledgehammer. So how do we address this issue?

First off, and this should have been a no-brainer, Anakin needs to be older. Making him so young was a huge misstep that ended up making every single character who meets him into a horrible person. The responsible Qui-Gon becomes a self-centered mess of an adult willing to endanger a kid at the drop of a hat so long as he can get something out of it, Padme becomes uncomfortably pedophilic in every romantic scene that she has with him, and Obi-Wan ends up looking like the single worst Jedi Master to ever pick up a lightsaber for somehow managing to turn the living personification of cuteness and light into Darth Vader. Even R2-D2 takes a hit for letting the kid fly straight into what is essentially a suicide mission.

Adding another ten years or so would have immediately fixed so many of the problems with Anakin’s characterization that I’m almost tempted to stop there. But that would be ignoring the other problem with him – namely the fact that he’s got to be the most cheerful slave child ever shown on screen.

Slavery in the Star Wars universe has always been a bit of a sticking point with me. Not only because it’s just casually there, but because even the people we are supposed to view as the enlightened good guys are perfectly happy keeping slaves in the form of droids. And yet this is never confronted in the movies. And given that, I feel that making Anakin a slave was actually a rather brilliant move, both because it explains where Anakin’s fall began and provides the perfect excuse to finally confront this massive elephant in the room.

Anakin as he is does neither. He and his mother, slaves of a master who’s shown to be rather poor, live in a home that seems rather nice by Tatooine standards and apparently have enough disposable income to share food with whoever happens by and build droids and pod racers in their spare time. Lucas’s version of slavery doesn’t seem that bad. I trust I don’t need to explain how monumentally screwed up that is.

Anakin needs to be damaged. He needs to have been shaped by his experiences. In short, he needs to be angry, resentful, and what’s more the audience has to see that he has good reason to feel that way. And you can’t do that if you’re not willing to show the ugly side of slavery. If you’re not willing to show that, you really are better off just dropping the entire slave premise.

My Anakin would be much closer to Vader from the start. Show him as brash, overconfident, and fully willing to abuse the tremendous power he’s discovered he has to try to right the wrongs he’s seen in his life. Let him have grown up hearing stories about the Jedi from his mother, about their supposedly magical abilities and dedication to justice. This way it’s not a innocent boy that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discover, but a young man who is already trying the hardest he can to be a Jedi even if he is getting so much of it wrong.

As for his mother… honestly I wouldn’t change much. In fact I’d even let her keep her house. I’d just explain that the only reason she has it is that Anakin basically mind-tricked her master into setting her up with a more comfortable life. Let her be the idealistic good hearted woman we saw on the screen, seemingly the one person on that miserable dustball who still believes in the Force and the Jedi. Because this, ultimately, would be the redemptive element for this darker, more dangerous Anakin. The woman who serves as his moral compass and initially inspired him. Only take it further.

The Shimi I envision is part prophet, part social worker. Show her taking care of the rest of the slaves, tending to their wounds, teaching them about the light side and goodness. Bringing hope that they desperately need. Basically just commit to the virgin Mary allegory they fumbled with in the original script. A woman who’s already experienced a miracle and knows that her son will go on to do even more. Which gives her the perfect reason to stay behind when Anakin goes off to become a Jedi.

These changes would not only help this movie, but the following ones as well. Having Anakin already powerful and knowledgeable in the force even before his formal training began gives a reason for his arrogance in Episode II, and having been raised on idealized stories of Jedi nobility would explain his disillusionment with the order by the time Episode III rolls around. And it gives a legitimate reason for the Jedi Council to show hesitation at training him.

From their perspective he’s already started down the path to the dark side, too set in his ways to ever fully embrace the Jedi code. Perhaps even have them conclude that while it may be his destiny to bring balance to the force, he will do so as something other than a Jedi. At which point the story could go one of two ways. The first would be if Obi-Wan, young, supremely confident, and willing to believe that anyone can be redeemed steps forward and announces that he will train him. Not Qui-Gon, which robs Obi-Wan of the responsibility for Vader’s fall. This moment would not only restore agency to Obi-Wan, but also give added weight to his warnings to Luke in the original trilogy that Vader may be beyond redemption. The second option is that he stands back, holds his silence, and then after Qui-Gon’s death comes to Anakin and offers to train him in secret. Ideally after a scene where Qui-Gon suggests to him that there is more to being a Jedi than being a member of the order.

I can see advantages to both sides, and honestly am torn on which would make for a better story, but I find myself more drawn to the latter approach. Having Anakin trained in secret would have the advantage of explaining why his name wasn’t common knowledge in the time of the original trilogy. It would also further establish him as an outsider with perhaps an overly idealized vision of what the Jedi were, one they ultimately failed to live up to. Finally it would give him an out for his relationship with Padme. As he was not a member of the order, the requirement of celibacy was not imposed on him, thus he could pursue the relationship without compromising his vows, only to have it become a point of conflict for him later when, as an adult, he is recognized as a Jedi and properly inducted into the order.

And that’s pretty much it for Anakin. Only one more part now, focusing on the Villains, the side characters, and the most challenging thing of all… Jar-Jar.

Plotting Along – The Phantom Menace (Part 1)

Ah, Episode 1. Possibly one of the biggest disappointments cinema has ever produced. The film that actually made people nostalgic for the days when the most embarrassing things about Star Wars was the Ewoks, and we thought that C-3PO’s lowest point was having his ass handed to him by Salacious Crumb.

And this is the first movie I’m going to do in this segment. Well, I suppose there are weirder ways to find out that you’re an online masochist. I can’t imagine there are many though. Given the enormity of the issues with this particular film, I’ve decided to break it up into a few more manageable chunks. Fortunately the film lends itself rather well to this, as each character is pretty much given a discrete story arc within the movie.

Okay, so, let’s start at the most basic level. The premise. Let’s face it, the prequels are essentially just an origin story for Darth Vader. No secret has ever been made of this. And you know what, it works. I know a lot of people have complained that we shouldn’t know more about Vader’s backstory, but that’s not a view I’ve ever held. There’s some rich character development there. What’s more, Vader’s gradual corruption parallels the fall of the republic perfectly, particularly in the fact that it was the hubris of Obi-Wan, the man who literally first showed the audience what it was to be a Jedi, that allowed it to happen.

Which brings me to the first issue. The Obi-Wan in the film is introduced to us as a padawan. Not only that, but a surpremely humble one. Qui-Gon is the one who takes the center stage here.

Now I have no issue with Qui-Gon. In fact I like him a lot. But the unfortunate fact is that while he’s around, Obi-Wan really doesn’t have much of anything to do. He’s almost reduced to a supporting character, overshadowed by his master.

This problem isn’t limited to Obi-Wan either. Darth Maul, also, is completely overshadowed by Palpatine, which is problematic both because it gives Darth Maul nothing to do and because for Palpatine to act so directly is very much out of character for how he’s presented. He’s a puppet master, yes, but he uses extremely powerful and capable pawns to be his public front. Both can be addressed.

My version of the film would start much the same way with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan heading to Naboo, much the same as it does in the film except for a few changes. First, Obi-Wan is a full Jedi Knight, fresh from his trials, and perhaps slightly annoyed (though still respectful) at Qui-Gon’s presence, as he sees it as a sign that he’s not entirely trusted to handle what should be a simple negotiation. They arrive on the flagship and are taken to a conference room. Only this time instead of being outed by a droid, Darth Maul, already physically present and apparently in control of the blockade, is the one to detect them. As the force is a two way street he immediately orders them killed before they can reveal him, against the protests of his trade federation allies. They then escape, reach Naboo, and rescue the queen. Except this time while Obi-wan goes to escort the queen, Qui-Gon stays behind to try to protect the people of Naboo and investigate Maul’s involvement.

This serves two purposes. The first is to give Qui-Gon a plot that doesn’t require Obi-Wan to wait around on a starship doing nothing. Second is that it sets up a precedent useful for the rest of the series, as Qui-Gon’s investigation of the Sith has the unintended consequence of turning the Jedi peacekeeper into the general of a rebellion – further explaining how the Jedi transitioned into an officer corps by the second movie.

Which then takes us to the next issue in the script: Anakin Skywalker.
Anakin pretty much needs to be redone from scratch. A lot of people have said that he shouldn’t be likeable. I don’t agree. He should absolutely be likeable, otherwise you don’t feel anything when you see him fall. What he shouldn’t be is cute. And that’s exactly what Anakin is in the Phantom Menace.

The Anakin the film needed would be more like Han Solo. Arrogant, brash, and even a little evil from time to time. In a sense someone who is only as good as his surroundings will allow him to be. Next time, we’ll take a look at how the Skywalker family might have been improved.

May the Fourth Be With You!

Hello everyone!

So confession time: I’m not really the biggest Star Wars fan out there.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot about it I like, even love, but at the same time I don’t think anyone who prefers Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan (aka the only really GOOD thing about the prequels) and will engage in long arguments about how Empire Strikes Back was probably the only really great movie in the franchise can call themselves a die hard fan.  Plus I’m a Trekkie, which I believe in some states legally obligates me to shoot Jedi on sight. At least according to Wikipedia.

That said no one, even a casual fan like myself, could possibly have the gall to deny that Star Wars was huge for science fiction, even if it wasn’t really science fiction so much as a fantasy story where technology actually did develop past the middle ages.  Just like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter have made epic fantasy mainstream with their success, Star Wars made everyone sit up and start taking science fiction more seriously.  And that is something that I find worth celebrating.  So go out, grab that ForceFX lightsaber you hide whenever people come over out of the closet, and geek out.  Personally I plan to watch the Empire Strikes Back and puzzle over why Boba Fett has as many fans as he does. 

Finally, as a gift to all sci-fi fans out there, if you head over to here you’ll find the Kindle version of Probable Outcome provided free of charge for the entire day.

Happy geekday everyone.  Yes, it’s predicated on a corny pun, but we’ll take it anyway. May the fourth be with you.

Plotting Along – An Introduction

So I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in my time.  Sadly that kind of comes with the territory for sci-fi fans, which means that most of you can say the same.  And for years one of my primary coping mechanisms has been picking said bad movies apart and trying to figure out where the film makers or, more specifically, the writers went wrong.  In other words, I nitpick, lampoon, and riff mercilessly. 

That said not all of that riffing is negative.  Every now and then me and some friends like to sit down and actually work out what kind of changes would be needed to make a bad movie into a good one.  Usually in unnecessary detail. Which is basically what these bits, so far called “Plotting Along” (yeah, a pun, sue me) are going to be all about.  Mostly because I do want to put something on here other than just endlessly droning on about Shadows of Time.

There are a lot of movies that could be really, really good but for a few missteps.  The reasons for this are generally varied.  Sometimes it is incompetence, but even more often it’s just a lack of necessary resources, be they money, actors, or time, to do things the way the people involved want.  In this case it’s really not anyone’s fault if a film falls flat, it’s just reality.  Which is why before I start I want to lay down some ground rules.

First, this is all in good fun.  It’s what-if musings about how a story might have been tweaked, not an attack on anyone or their tastes. 

Second, this is not necessarily an exercise in real world film making.  A surprising number of sci-fi movies are filmed on a shoestring budget these days due to the cost of the special effects they require.  In the real world scripts get trimmed for budget, dialog gets tweaked by a star’s favorite writer, and scenes get dropped or added in order to hit a targeted running time.  All of these tend to play havoc with the scripting process and none of these factors are ones that will be regularly considered in these articles.  They exist in an ideal world where actors can do every role handed to them, producers write a blank check but otherwise are unseen, and the only schedule the director needs to stick to is “when it’s done.”  Like many of you I have a lot of opinions on these practices, but these aren’t a forum on any issues I have with the entertainment industry.

Third, all of this, of course, reflects my tastes.  And I enjoy a lot of stuff that others dub as overly cerebral or slow.  Obviously the changes I suggest wouldn’t please everyone.  This is not a value judgment or attempt to assess the quality of any particular style or genre, just a reflection of what I like.  So don’t take it personally if I come up with an idea that in your mind would ruin your favorite movie. 

Fourth, by the same token, there are films I like that a lot of people hate.  For example, I have a huge soft spot for Star Trek The Motion Picture, a film that is regarded as unwatchable by many.  I can understand a lot of the objections people have to watching it, I may even agree with a few of them, but I still don’t feel it’s a bad film.  And by and large this is going to spotlight films that failed to live up to their potential in my personal opinion.

And finally, just because the goal is to come up with a better version doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be original.  I know I’m not the first person to compile constructive criticism or alternate scripts.  I’m not setting out to copy anyone else’s ideas, but I have no doubt that a few of the ones I come up with will bear a resemblance to ones others have made public over the years.  If this happens just leave a comment with a link – I’ll try to look at it and possibly even edit the article to include it.  It’s always interesting to see someone else’s approach.  Should I ever actually reference another article on purpose though, it will be credited as such.

And that’s it for now.  First randomly selected movie for revision is… Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

…huh…

This is going to take a while.