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The prequels sucked not because the acting, dialogue and story were bad, but because the character of Anakin Skywalker (and the love story with Padme) was so ill-formed and dislikable that all of the story’s tension and tragedy immediately evaporated. https://twitter.com/thatfanrex/status/1284529500328427525">https://twitter.com/thatfanre...
Here& #39;s what I would have done to fix the character of Anakin.
1. Age him up. Make him 25 at the beginning of AOTC, 30 (or whatever) in ROTS. This immediately shifts his decisions from those of a hormonal teenage kid/rebellious young adult to a grown man& #39;s deliberate choices.
1. Age him up. Make him 25 at the beginning of AOTC, 30 (or whatever) in ROTS. This immediately shifts his decisions from those of a hormonal teenage kid/rebellious young adult to a grown man& #39;s deliberate choices.
2. Darth Vader has a literal mask. Anakin Skywalker should have had a metaphoric one. The idea of making Anakin& #39;s core fear that of being powerless and losing those he loves is a really good one. We should see him actively concealing that fear in a guise of competency/likability.
One of the major problems of the prequels is that we constantly see Anakin acting out, giving into violent/emotional urges, and the elder Jedis around him going, "Hmm, that& #39;s not right." Make Anakin fool them.
Make his violence something done in secret or something characters like Obi-Wan are more complicit in. Have characters like Obi-Wan or Mace make excuses for Anakin. Make Yoda unable to tap into the mental shield that grown Anakin is putting up.
Anakin is a former slave, a survivor. That needs to inform his every decision. We should see from the get that the other Jedi love Anakin, but that he is putting up an emotional wall and obscuring the darkness within him.
3. Anakin needs to be likable. He needs to earn his legendary status by being supremely brave, competent and intelligent. There should be a touch of Tom Riddle to Anakin Skywalker, in that he is somehow good at everything and loved by everyone, but without Tom& #39;s callousness.
This means, no whining about Obi Wan or Yoda. He does as he is tasked with efficiency. And when he does adopt unorthodox ways of solving a problem and brings Obi Wan along for the ride, Obi Wan has fun.
It was a terrible call to make Obi Wan always criticizing Anakin and feeling tired by his actions. To make the final scenes on Mustafar hit home the dynamic needs to be different: Obi Wan is a little inspired/awestruck by Anakin, and Anakin loves and protects his mentor.
4. Make us care about Anakin and Padme. I would do this by not turning Anakin into such a bumbling teenage mess. Anakin comes off as a creepy fascist in the movies. In my version, he& #39;d come off as a hot badass with some unfortunately authoritarian leanings lol.
Part of the films& #39; problem is that MoviePadme always sort of sees Anakin as an immature kid. Instead of them flirting and rolling around in Naboo, let& #39;s inject some Han/Leia tension to this relationship.
How about on the way to Naboo, their spacecraft is found and they have to eject via pod to a more primitive planet. Maybe you have scenes of Anakin feeling he has to physically protect Padme, until he realizes that she is perfectly capable &that her diplomatic skills have value.
Conversely, maybe you also show Anakin in a moment of true compassion, which softens Padme& #39;s feelings about him. All of a sudden she realizes the kindhearted boy from Tatooine is in there, somewhere.
Also, reverse the dynamic they both have about their relationship. Have Anakin be the one who is struggling against his desire to be with Padme (it& #39;s his story!), while Padme just wants him to make up his mind.