Fixing Star Wars - Episode 1

(See the previous post: Fixing Episode 6)

Flush with success, we asked ourselves: "Could episode 1 be fixed?" It seems impossible, but let's look at the problems:

1. Gungans
2. Confusion in the final act (four disparate settings)
3. Amidala, the eleven year old politician
4. Anakin, the five year old love interest
5. Slow start (the fate of the whole galaxy rests in trade negotiations at a backwater world?)
6. Darth Maul -> Count Dooku issues
7. C3PO (a protocol droid) built by a five year old for his enslaved mother?
8. Light treatment of slavery on Tatooine
9. Midichlorians (or was it mitochondria?), 'nuff said
   

Ok, that's a lot of issues. But we can tackle them one-by-one.

1. One, two, and five are somewhat related, and can be solved together. I think everyone can agree the treatment of the Gungans falls somewhere between atrocity and poorly done. More subtly, they slow down the story at the beginning, and overly complicate the story at the end. It seems Lucas was trying to show that the rebellion includes metropolitan and rural interests. This can be done better by reducing the footprint of the Gungans to a minority population in the cities (on top of cleaning the material). This quickens the introduction, and eliminates one setting in the finale. A handful of Gungans can help Amidala to retake the palace.
2. Handled mostly above. Also improvement needed in how Anakin influences the battle.
3. Amidala needs to be either: a beauty queen (like American idol for a position more like England's queen, i.e. public relations) or the daughter of a more senior politician. She should also be older, maybe early twenties. This gives a lot of room to play a smart, rebellious youngster against older politicians.
4. Ok, I think Anakin was supposed to be closer to ten; but you put him next to Liam Neeson, and he's going to look tiny. A lot of the problem is Lucas is very fuzzy/odd about the Jedi order. From episode 4, Luke is "too old". He was about twenty. But Anakin is "too old" too! Clearly, you have to be about three to be a Jedi! That's kind of creepy. Actually, that's a lot creepy. Combined with 3, Anakin can be about 16. Say 13 is the cutoff.
5. Handled mostly above. The pod racing scene also could be reduced. Time savings should be converted into deepening characters, settings, and politics.
6. The Count Dooku issue will raise its head again. But the first step is to stitch together Maul and Dooku. There are supposed to be two Sith (master and apprentice). Instead we get master, old apprentice, new apprentice, and robot apprentice (General Grievous). The solution is to make Maul the mask for the public figure of Dooku (you can even keep both actors). Hmm, now you can't kill Maul at the end of Episode 1, but that's ok. Maul kills Qui-Gon, knocks out Obi and makes his escape.
7. C3PO is clearly part of Amidala's staff. If you want to show off Anakin's skill, he can create a robot we don't see in the late trilogy (or one we know less about).
8. There is room in Episode 1 to deepen this. But resolution should probably wait until 2 or 3.
9. I said 'nuff said!
   

Ok, that was painful. But we made it! Epsiode 1 is fixed! Now finish them!