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Another Star Wars Prequel?

boarder8925 writes "George Lucas said he was finished with the Star Wars movies, but it seems George Lucas has an idea for another add-on to the Star Wars movie series: a prequel to The Phantom Menace. The story would follow the Jedi regaining control of the universe from the many Dark Lords some 88 years before Anakin Skywalker ever graced the universe. Yoda, who, according to Lucas, was instrumental in the effort, would apparently have a headlining role. However, Lucas, now age 60, says he won't be captaining such a ship if it ever happens."

15 of 661 comments (clear)

  1. No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No more SW prequels please! Would be interested however in seeing some subordinate stories like where do Han Solo and Chewbacca meetup between Episode III and IV and perhaps a story following Boba Fett's bounty hunter quests. THere are lots of good stories that could work within the characters Lucas has already presented but please, George, stop going back in time.

    One would have thought that the Star Trek franchise was proof of how difficult that is to pull off.

    1. Re:No! by Olix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not so anti SW prequels. Lucas has made a really impressive universe for his StarWars films, and it would be stupid to waste it.

      What about if they made another trilogy of films following the example liad down by the game Knights of the Old Republic - set a triliogy in that same StarWars universe, with the already developed locations, mythlogy and nice Good versus Evil plot, but set it 1000 years in the past. You could have a whole new load of characters and focus the story in some Sith uprising or another. Oh, either avoid love scenes or get a director who can do them.

  2. This can only lead to good by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Star Wars franchise can only be rescued by Lucas' continued meddling in the storyline.

    After Return of the Jedi, I didn't think there was a hope for the Trilogy, but now, with the latest three movies delivered, I realize that my feelings back then about the original movies were truly happy and optimistic.

    Because Lucas was able to show me how far down the toilet he was willing to let the franchise go, I appreciate the original trilogy all the more. Even his remasters of the original three make me wax nostalgic for my childhood.

    1. Re:This can only lead to good by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How so many slashdotters manage to blame Lucas for the ageing process and their overactive childhood imagination has always escaped me.

      The new movies lack elements present (even central) in the original 3. There was always the slapstick. C3PO was the butt of many jokes. However, the sarcastic intelligent wit of Han was completely gone. The part for the adults was simply left out, with nothing similar to fill the void. And relationships. We have brother-sister that don't know, with Han and Luke both fighting for the same plucky girl. In the new 3, there is no mystery who she will end up with, no double-entendre, and the scenes are painful, uninteresting story development, rather than fun and interesting scenes by themselves. Leah is directly quoted for some of her good lines related to Han, Luke (though possibly as badly delivered as in the new 3) is quoted as well.

      So, what filled the void? Much better flight/fight scenes. The movies can't be aimed at the same audience, because many key elements are significantly different. That is the complaint. He builds a fan base, then ignores them for what (presumed by the fans) is the search for more money. Maybe he would have done better if he were gretly restricted on the money he could spend. Then he would have spend more time coming up with a story and lines, rather than impressive fight/flight scenes.

  3. Re:Hmm... by DenDave · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yah.. and the guy REALLY came up with it all is dead, his name was Frank Herbert....

    Star Wars was rejected by moviemakers on first draft because of the plagiarism, only after a significant re-write did they want to go forward...

    The real prequel is called Dune.

    --
    -if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
  4. Sequels by FidelCatsro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now i know there has been alot of prequal hype of late and sequels are very unhip.
    for the love of god though there are some real gems in the books/comics set after the origional trillogy , Dark empire for example , the reformation of the jedis and so on ... Perhaps a movie where you don't know whats going to hapen(unless you read the books) would be a little more exciting than another bleeding prequal , though yoda doing some cool jedi tricks would be cool

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
  5. In a galaxy far far away by el_womble · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Starwars universe is great. A clever mix of magic, politics, religion and technology. This is what makes sci fi great. You take a few physical laws, mix them up a bit and see what happens when you introduce humans into it.

    This is George Lucas' legacy: a standardised universe, that captivates the imagination. He has woven a rich tapestry of worlds, cultures and characters but is a lousy story teller, particularly dialog.

    Please Mr. Lucas, let the universe go. Spend the remainder of you professional life as an executive producer who lets others write and direct, whilst you approve and fund.

    As a side note, I'd really like to see a script from Kevin Smith. Given a free reign (and a ban from using his friends as cast members)he could write the Starwars adventure we all think we remember.

    --
    Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
  6. Remake IV-VI? by crull · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Am I the only one actually wanting the old movies remade with todays standards?

    I really like the universe and I espect the fact that SW-fans is fanatic and all but... it comes down to one thing: Entertainment. Right now its just silly, tried looking at IV the other day and I couldnt stand the figthts, it does just not fit in anymore.

    --
    this is not my signature.
  7. I liked the prequels by lheal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've seen all of the Star Wars movies in the theater as they came out, and I've liked them all.

    I just steadfastly remain intentionally shallow.

    It's supposed to be eye candy, not give you a doctorate in comparative theology or high-energy physics.

    --
    Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
  8. Re:Hmm... by bbzzdd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Never having read Dune I was amazed how much of Star Wars was influenced by it, as outlined here

    To his credit, Lucas also robbed Flash Gordon, Kurosawa, Joseph Campbell, and Tolkien :)

  9. Re:Well, duh! by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cannon means what the original author/creator himself has done/written.
    Thus (like it or not) the prequals being more directly from Lucas are more directly cannon.
    Unless a different definition specific to SW has been established (with Lucas's endorsement). It's my understanding that Lucas considers the Zahn books second ONLY to what he's put (most recently in the case of things like Queedo/Solo shooting) on the screen/vhs/dvd.

    Also I seem to remember reading in one of the books that the Death Star series was THREE deathstars. The original devlopement prototype that never had an outer shell and was mainly a proof of concept/testbed for several years. The final working version destroyed in ANH (built over a few years itself) and the enlarged (almost double IIRC) sequal blown up in ROTJ.
    This parts a bit sketchy in my memory but I seem to recall that the prototype DS was started in secret by Palpatine before he was powerfull enough to do as he pleased after the higher ups in the military rejected the proposal for it durring the clone wars. I believe it was built in a black-hole cluster near Kessal(sp?).
    That black hole cluster was used to patch Solo's "in under 12 parsecs" statment of how fast the Falcon was by claiming that the trick to the Kessle run was how short a path through/around the mess of black holes you could plot that your ship had the speed and toughness to handle.

    Mycroft

    --
    https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
  10. Dune was much more deeper than SW by Gopal.V · · Score: 5, Interesting
    > The real prequel is called Dune.

    Dune deals with the fact that what you see into the future locks you into that - or more correctly, the self fulfilling prophecy paradox. Star Wars doesn't (maybe revenge of the sith does hint on that) . It just handles prescience as just a sense and tries to concentrate on moralizing about the Dark and Light sides of the Force. (which it did very well too). Also Dune deals with the inversion of scarcity - Melange which is rare, but common on Arakkis , Water which forms oceans in other worlds, but rare on Arakkis.

    The Force - Prescience

    "Luke, I am your Father" - Baron Harkonnen is Paul's grandfather

    Vader Helmet - Baron Harkonnen with suspendor globes

    lightsabers - crysknife

    Death star - guild frigates

    ?? - Sarduakar ?.

    Dune carries a lot of fatalism - especially ironic because Paul is prescient. Also the fact that he lets go of Chani rather than turn into a Tlelaxu puppet - which Anakin was not able to do. Also the twins - a girl and boy , the mother dies at birth.

    If you really think about it , the Matrix had some of the themes too - Neo is not The ONE , but turns out to be , Paul is not the Kwisatz Haderach , but he becomes.

    Dune has the best eyecandy - I remeber dreaming about Shields and lasguns - the sound, color and shimmering feeling. For some of us, CG effects are never enough . Also yeah, the first 3 Dune books were good - the rest of them sucked (come on !.. honored matres' ?. .. sex that blinds)... Same for Star War movies . Both Lucas and Herbert seems to have gone bad.
  11. Re:Ideas by Eminence · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Maybe a Sith Lord can have multiple apprentices. But if one of them finally succeeds in killing the master, what would happen to the others?

    Well, this was made very clear - neither Sith nor Jedi masters don't have more than one apprentice at a time. The difference being, of course, that Jedi masters let go of their apprentices and there is no rivalry amongst them.

    It's important to notice that Anakin's fast advancement within the Jedi Order was possible only because of the turmoil created by the Clone Wars. He skipped some tests. He probably fought more than meditated. He, so to speak, sneaked past the system designed to screen against any padawan becoming too powerful without developing enough compassion and understanding. It wasn't all that hard, because it was a system built on trust, not paranoid suspicion.

    And he managed to keep his relationship with Padme a secret from the rest of Jedi. His betrayal of the Jedi in a sense begun with that.

  12. Re:Could be interesting. by keymygrip · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A tear jerker is what Lucas called this blasphemy. How on earth can you possibly cry when every line delivered from Ian McDiarmid (Palpy) was vocally awkward. I know I couldn't. I was drawn out of the movie by every performance. I was drawn out of the movie by Ewan's good performance because it was so out of place. I sat there thinking "that's actually a good performance" instead of what was going on in the scene.

    The security hologram scene was stupid looking. There was no time spent developing emotion. I wanted to feel for the characters and physically couldn't. You must have wanted it more than me.

    The story had to be blatant (aka. Anakin had to verbally say why he was turning dark) or else you would never be able to infer what was going on. The real symptom of this movie (and the two before it) is that without blatantly being told what was happening, we would never know. The problem is that Lucas has no grasp of sublety.

    Lucas is an incredibly bad director and writer. I will banket the statement by saying all bad acting performances were Lucas' fault. A New Hope was good because he was under enormous pressure to finish it. ESB and RoTJ were good because he had other people do the important work. These movies (and his bastardized remakes) are his vision. His vision sucks. He got lucky making Star Wars and got lucky with his timing to let the fan base create create an incredible universe. The story has not been his for a long time now and I don't think he has any right to go in and ruin it.

    All that said, Episode III is by far the best of the prequels. But I also believe that all the "good reviews" of this movie have everything to with how pitiful the other two were.

  13. Simpler explanation: by autopr0n · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lucas is just an idiot. Look at the scene at the beginning of ep III (which I swore I wouldn't see, then good reviews came out) where the ship tilts 90s. The gravity inside the ship also changes direction 90 degrees. Why? Is the ship just hovering in space, with no orbit? Then why does it start to "burn up" as it enters the atmosphere? If the ship is in orbit, using artificial gravity, why does the direction change?

    I mean, this is high school physics stuff. The most basic 'science' stuff in sci-fi and Lucas fucks it up.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.