“Titanic proved you could make a movie where the overall ending was already well-known, and it could still work? How? How, you might ask, can a movie where we all know the ending still create an engaging narrative where you’re willing to assign feelings to characters? Well, by giving us characters we care about, and by setting it up so that although we know the boat sinks, we don’t know for sure who does and does not survive.
Star Wars went the opposite way. Nobody gives a shit about Anakin Skywalker. And we know the exact outcome for these characters.
Here’s how you Titanic this thing:
Put the big duel somewhere in the first third of the movie instead of the end. The next third is Anakin’s transition to full Vader. By the final third, we see where this is all going, how one sullen teen became the leader of an empire, and we get the whole thing where Obi-Wan sees the full effect of his screw-up.
You can end this like Empire, on a real down note, because we have the subsequent movies that bring things back up, all available at the time of Episode III’s release.
And you can still do Star Wars battles and shit. Have Obi smuggling the babies away and meeting some resistance along the way.
Also, Anakin should be there when Padme dies instead of her dying, essentially, off-screen, and someone whispering in Vader’s ear, “PS, your wife is dead.” I mean, forget the realism here, that he’d want to make sure, and just consider the dramatic opportunity there. Having her death on-screen earns you a lot more. Consider: if Padme is assassinated, let’s say, in an explosion, and it turns out the babies weren’t there, but Vader doesn’t know that, it’d give us the chance to bring a lot more to that sequence. If the babies were born and Anakin met them, that’d be a good chance for some, like, story as well. Anakin pursues the assassins and starts doing shitty shit out of anger. Maybe he discovers that the assassin was coming after him because of something he and Obi-Wan had done before, something good and just, and that convinces Anakin that the dark side is right. Maybe the retaliation is for something Obi-Wan talked Anakin into doing despite Anakin thinking it was a bad idea, and when the consequences come down on Anakin, he turns around and attacks Obi-Wan, and maybe the viewer kind of sees Anakin’s point. Maybe Obi-Wan was meddling in something he shouldn’t have and dragged Anakin into something he shouldn’t have, and maybe the viewer can see why Anakin would be pretty goddamn upset and feel like the Jedi are meddling in things they shouldn’t, where the Sith are trying to create order in a chaotic galaxy. Maybe Obi-Wan is conflicted, too, and while he can’t undo what’s happened, he does feel responsibility for the horrible consequences, and he’s defending himself physically, but unsure of whether he’s in the right.
This is why I have a hard time with this movie: It could’ve had a story with characters who have some complexity to them. It could’ve had a story. It could’ve been interesting and overly dramatic and nuts, but still have something to it. “