George Lucas nearly wrote a great Star Wars prequel trilogy. Just didn't notice.

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By Episode III, the still-young Anakin has a massive facial scar. He must have been through some serious shite already, and, realistically, should be suffering some level of brutalisation/trauma/depression/PTSD. But rather than addressing any of the above, the movies reduce his would-be legitimate issues with the Jedi to arrogant, teenage sulking.

But what if they didn’t? What if, instead of vague, generic complaints of anger and unfairness, Anakin and the Jedi have considered philosophical friction, stemming from Anakin’s intelligent observation and conscious decision-making? Then Anakin has perfectly sensible reasons to have issue with the Jedi, and thus his actions can be understood and empathised with. And most crucially, he has – as every protagonist should have – real agency.

In the existing prequels he bounces haphazardly from crisis, to emotional tirade, to impulsive response, like an out-of-control drunk, coming across as stupid, thoughtless, and devoid of any control over his own path or actions. That’s not how you create an engaging lead character that the audience can really go on a journey with. But if all of the – existing – groundwork were followed through, it would have created a wonderful mirror to Luke's story, Anakin growing to self-realisation and then clashing with the Jedi, just as his son completes the same journey to battle the Sith. There’s poetry there. It rhymes.

There’s balance.

And there are subtler problems to explore within the Jedi machine, again, largely glossed over, but still there on-screen. Obi-Wan’s youth and inexperience mean that he isn’t ready for Anakin’s training either, eventually letting the master/student relationship erode into friendship. The idea gets occasional lip-service, but Anakin’s lack of a strong guide or guardian should be the back-bone that informs his entire ‘descent’.

And then there’s Yoda. He appears cold and clueless in the prequels, but there’s a way to make that work in the saga’s favour too. The original trilogy introduces Yoda as a spiritual, internalised Jedi of the mind, who knows that inner strength, not outward aggression, brings true power. Blend this with the themes of inward-looking Jedi detachment we’re exploring in this remix, and you have both a great case for Yoda’s prequel trilogy ineffectuality, and a perfect philosophical figurehead for the organisation Anakin opposes. And by training Luke – directly contradicting the old Jedi rules in agreeing to do so – Yoda later gains his own arc of redemption-through-moderation, to parallel that of Vader.

With Yoda an absentee landlord, there’s also plenty of space for hard-arse Mace Windu to ascend as the aggressive, dominant, dogmatic force he should have been, a personification of the Jedi hardline spearheading Anakin’s opposition. With these dynamics explored properly, Anakin is a genuine threat to a genuinely worrying dogma. This doesn’t make him a bad guy, but the more set-in-their ways, extreme Jedi of the Council will see him as exactly that.

As for Padme? Imagine that relationship written plausibly. Imagine that Anakin isn’t a generically angry creep, and that Padme is an intelligent, but pragmatic human being, rather than a flighty robot-woman. Rather than repeatedly blowing hot and cold, and arbitrarily throwing out ‘But I’m a senator!’ (like that explains anything), Padme follows her heart, but the weight of Jedi disapproval weighs heavy on the relationship. Until, that is, the Jedi act to end it. Forget the nonsensical contrivance of Anakin’s ‘prophetic’ dream of Padme’s death. With oppressive Jedi disapproval clearly apparent, there’s already a much more sensible and meaningful catalyst for Anakin’s ultimate desertion.

Anakin is not tricked into embracing the Dark Side. He chooses it. Not because he wants to, but because he is forced to, by those who don’t truly want the balanced line of moderation and progress he aspires to. He’s bullied into choosing an extreme, and while the hardline of the Sith is philosophically no better than the hardline of the Jedi, by that same note, it is no worse. Anakin understandably makes a very human decision, and goes for the option that looks to help his real, personal situation. It’s a move we can sympathise with, and rather beautifully, one that parallels philosophically with the Sith’s libertarian ways. Plot, subtext, action and ideology all in sync, informed by – and informing - real character development.

All of this would make Darth Vader stronger, not weaker. It was an impossible notion before the prequels hit, but they actually make it hard to respect him. They turn the biggest, most interesting, most enigmatic bad guy in the galaxy into a sniveling, mopey teenager, blighted by angsty, adolescent grumbles and mistakes.

Get it right though, and Anakin’s agency and desire for change maintain the forthright strength he has in the original trilogy. They also make his relationship with Luke more poignant. He's not strictly trying to corrupt his son, but to complete the task of balance he himself wasn't able to achieve in his youth. He's seen Luke not as a potential Sith apprentice, but as a way out from beneath the Emperor's tyranny, and an opportunity to rebuild the Force anew. Luke also represents the chance to regain his family, the loss of which pushed him to his reluctant decision in the first place.

Heck, given his history with the oppressive Jedi, Vader has probably resented the Emperor for a long time, and for very similar reasons – a nice hark back to the idea that one extremism is as bad as another - but only truly manages to break his indoctrination at the end. Because manipulative, abusive relationships are hard to get out of. If all of this had come to pass, we’d have a prequel trilogy that supports and improves the original, rather than sitting separate and contradictory as it currently does.

Damn it, George, you were nearly there…

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I doubt I read any of that. But Jar Jar Binks as a master sith lord mastermind is the best part of

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