Warning: This is LONG. Be fully prepared for what you’re getting yourself into.
Earlier today I, off the cuff, started explaining why I felt that Episode 1 didn’t work as a movie. I was asked to expand it, so I went into a writing trance and came out with this mammoth. Enjoy.
Also there’s spoilers for Star Wars 1 through 6 but like.. Most people have seen them by now, right?
I’m not really breaking new ground here by saying that Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was not particularly good. But why? If we’re going to take on the task of a rewrite of the plot, and hey, possibly the whole prequel trilogy, then step 1 is to figure out what DIDN’T work about the films.
First up is the low hanging fruit, Jar Jar Binks. God damn. There’s been enough said about this guy, but the biggest crime of the character in my opinion is that if the movie had been done correctly in the first place Jar Jar becomes entirely unnecessary. He’s added as a comic relief to create a sympathetic character (It didn’t work, but that’s not the point) when in a good story that wouldn’t be needed in the first place. So we’re not going to try and rework that character, we’re going to entirely remove him.
The second (and more important) thing that didn’t work was that the characters had no real motivations. Star Wars has always been about heroes journeys, and TPM didn’t have one. Compare and contrast to A New Hope – Luke has a goal to leave his farm and go on an adventure – so he meets an old space wizard, hires a cocky pilot and his oversized dog, kisses his sister, , blows up his dad’s house.. wait.. what?
Sure it sounds dumb when I phrase it like that, but that’s STILL more exciting than the actual plot of The Phantom Menace. The only ‘Goal’ the heroes have is to “end the trade federation’s blockade of Naboo” – that goal doesn’t work as a dramatic set piece for a few reasons:
- It requires explanation. You have to understand what the trade federation is, what a blockade is, why that’s important.
- The explanation of the above is boring, it necessitates a trip through intergalactic politics, and by that point the goal is far too complicated and far too removed from human consequence to matter to the audience. In ANH Luke’s Aunt and Uncle got killed by the Empire! That’s bad! That gives us a connection to our hero on an emotional level! In TPM.. politics happens and there’s robots everywhere? Wha.. What.. Why do I care?
- On another level “end the blockade” isn’t a goal that was driven by the emotions of the heroes, it was a task set down by their superiors, the Jedi were just there on a mission.. that doesn’t resonate with an audience as “ADVENTURE!”, it resonates as “work”.
There are so many better ways to take that framework, tweak it around slightly and connect the goal to emotional consequences.. But more on that later because ‘a good story’ is just one part of the picture. That’s not all that the Star Wars prequels had to be.. and that’s probably the root cause of all the issues the movie has.
When George Lucas sat down to make Star Wars prequels, he wasn’t just trying to tell more stories, he was trying to very specifically tell stories that linked together to a pre-defined end point. He wanted to end the trilogy exactly where A New Hope started, with Luke on Tatooine – so there were always going to be certain things that the prequels NEEDED to set up, certain elements that were required, and countless confines in terms of not creating plot holes. On top of all that he had the vision of making movies that tied in like poetry to the originals, with scenes being echoed or mirrored.. He didn’t just need to make three good movies, he needed to make three movies that functioned well on their own AND functioned well as part of a trilogy AND functioned as part of a larger six part series. That’s goddamn INSANE. That’s the sort of thing that a LITERAL CRAZY PERSON would try and do, no matter what something has to give and you’re always gonna set yourself up to fail.
So guess who’s got two thumbs and is [arrogant/stupid] enough to give it a whirl… THIS GUY!
(I was.. uh.. I was pointing at myself with both my thumbs.. I guess that.. doesn’t really come across well in text..)
HERE WE GO THEN.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (2.0) – A rewrite that sticks to the same confines as George did, but also, hopefully, brings out a strong story in the process.
(The other thing I’m not doing for the most part is recasting. I thought TPM had a fantastic cast, and although I’m going to be asking a lot more of a certain actor, I’m sure he can handle it.)
We’ll open, of course, with yellow text crawling through space. I can’t tell you how much I’d LOVE to cold open this movie, but that breaks from the established conventions of Star Wars, so we can’t do that and we’re having yellow text. I’ve not written the exact wording, but I know that it needs to establish a few things:
- It is a time of peace (in contrast to ‘it is a period of civil war’)
- The Jedi Order exists, but it is a shadow of what it used to be
- This is one of the first plot holes I’ve fixed: It’s going to be heavily implied that there are only a few hundred Jedi, they mostly fill the role of religious guides instead of ‘the space police’ and it’s very possible that the average person would either not believe they exist, or not believe in the force because they’d never seen it first hand. – This is all so that Han’s scepticism in ANH still makes sense because that REALLY bugs me right now.
- There are a few ‘bad’ groups within the republic, but generally the alliances hold together and any quarrels are short lived.
- Recently, one such group known as the “trade federation” has been causing trouble for smaller planets, and there are rumours of this group being a front for something far more sinister…
Side note – I’ve always hated the text crawls. I know they’re an homage to Buck Rodgers and they’re meant to evoke war time broadcasts but they’re often needless, a lot of people don’t read them and honestly they seem like a lazy way of getting backstory in with words instead of visual storytelling… But, we’re making a Star Wars movie, and it’s iconic, so it HAS to be there.
Pan down to empty space with a bit of Naboo in the bottom of the frame – a large federation vessel passes overhead – we can see lines and lines of drop pods along the bottom of the ship – It’s a repetition of the opening shot of ANH. On the side of this larger ship we focus in on a smaller, single person ship that is hiding from view. (just like the Falcon did at one point)
The pilot (wearing a flight mask and robes), breaks away from the larger ship and quickly makes his way down to the surface of the planet – luckily, he is not noticed.
We follow this smaller ship down to the surface of the planet, and then pan across (this has all been one shot so far, because oners are cool.) to a modest looking temple, fitting in with the typical architecture of Naboo.
Inside this temple, we see Qui-Gon Jinn, sat down on a floor mat with his legs crossed and talking to a young girl of around 14. We immediately see warmth in the Jedi’s eyes, a smile on his face, we know that he is a good person from his mannerisms, because visual storytelling is actually pretty easy sometimes, especially when you have Liam Neeson as an actor.
Qui-Gon is telling a story to the girl, it’s a story about the old republic and the old days of the Jedi order – we only hear the ending, but we can tell it was a good story from how absorbed in it the girl is. He’s mentioning the force, he’s mentioning an old, wise Jedi Knight, he mentions how the evil Sith were defeated, something like that.. oh and he’s 100% not mentioning midichlorians. Ever.
Side note because it’s important to explain these things – This young girl is Padme. She’s NOT the Queen (she’s still a princess, because Star Wars is a fairytale in space, and fairytales have princesses.. also this lets us set up another ANH parallel, more on that later.) but she IS more age appropriate as a love interest for Anakin in the later movies.
At the end of the story, the door opens to reveal the masked man from the ship earlier, he takes off his mask, lowers the hood of his robe – it’s Obi-Wan.
Padme and Qui-Gon greet him, and for a brief moment it’s smiles all round before Qui-Gon gets more serious – “So, what did you find?” “They’re close, master, and I sense a disturbance in the force” “Let’s get this one back to the palace, we can talk later”
So by this point, we want to have established that both Jedi are well known in the local community, they are respected by the residents of the planet, they act as chaplains for the citizens of Naboo and we get the impression they have been there for a while. Now we have a connection to the characters on a human level. We care about them, we see that they have feelings, we see that they have friends, we see that they are people just like us, we can relate, and when we relate we give a crap about what happens to them and we want them to be successful… We’ve also established that there’s a giant scary ship closing in on the planet, and when the wise old man has an ‘uh oh, get the kid to safety’ reaction that should start some alarm bells.
At this point, we need to quickly stop pissing around, because I’m well aware that nothing has ACTUALLY happened yet. We’ve seen an example of the ordinary, so now let’s see the extraordinary to kick off the story – In Campbell’s terms we need to immediately get a call to adventure… Let’s have it fall from the sky in the drop pods that we established in the opening shot.
So the Jedi are making their way through the streets with Princess Padme – they get to a somewhat crowded market square and then BOOM. DROP POD. Droids start to assemble themselves from the pods and draw their weapons. They’re threatening the people in the market square, and the humans are obviously outnumbered. We pull back for an overhead shot, we see more drop pods landing in adjacent streets, a few on the roofs of buildings, suddenly a town of peace has devolved into fear, we hear screaming and the clanking of droids, we see smoke from the buildings and streets quickly being overrun by mechanical killing machines.
Obi-Wan reaches for his lightsaber, because he’s younger and impulsive, but Qui-Gon stops him and whispers “Get to the palace, protect the Queen. I’ll hide with the princess and meet up with you later” “Yes master” “Oh and Obi-Wan.. don’t draw attention to yourself this time” “..Yes master” – this dialogue is one of those ‘establish the universe’ things that has to be there, it sets up a typical relationship between a master and apprentice, it sets a precedent for the relationship that will form between Obi-Wan and Anakin later in the trilogy.
We then get a short sequence of Obi-Wan sneaking through the city and jumping across rooftops – this shows the power of the force, shows that he’s a badass and is a visually impressive display of the abilities of our protagonist. While this happens we hear a voiceover coming from the ship and playing to the whole planet – “Naboo is now under the control of the Trade Federation. Comply with our demands or our droids will be forced to take aggressive action. We will shortly be meeting with your leaders, surrender will be your only option.”
Cut to a boardroom inside the palace. The Queen (a woman in her late 40s.. I’m gonna say played by Michelle Fairley) is in a heated debate with her advisors, they’re trying to convince her to surrender, she doesn’t want to, that sort of thing. Whatever, the scene doesn’t last for long because WHAM, the window bursts open, Obi-Wan jumps through “Your Majesty, follow me to the hangers, we need to leave right now.” – This IMMEDIATELY stops the argument because we want to reinforce that he’s respected by this community.
A high ranking member of royal security, Captain Panaka (Hugh Quarshie’s character, slightly retooled, but I want to keep him because he was pretty good.) leads the Queen, Obi-Wan and a small security escort through a secret tunnel, they come out in the hangar bay and start to make their way towards that weird silver ship. A blaster shot goes off and one of the nameless security guards goes down. A red skinned man in a black cape jumps down from the rafters holding a blaster, it’s Darth Maul, but he speaks a bit more now, and he hasn’t revealed his lightsaber yet. – “Stop exactly where you are, or your princess dies” – a large escort of droids walk through the door, they’ve captured Padme and Qui-Gon is nowhere to be seen.
Maul walks towards the group:
“I thought [shoots a guard] we made it clear [another guard] that you were not to resist us? [shoots one more guard and holds his blaster up to Panaka’s face]”
Note about Maul – In this he’s speaking more and he’s actually a lot like a classic vampire but without the dodgy accent, he sounds almost charming but in an INCREDIBLY creepy way. You can immediately tell that he’s evil and he should make your skin crawl with the way he uses his voice and facial expressions.
Obi-Wan is clearly waiting for his moment to strike, but suddenly we hear a whoosh of a cape, Qui Gon jumps out of hiding, palm outstretched – he uses the force to knock over the droids that have Padme tied up, slides along the floor to pick her up under his arm, unties her bindings and she runs behind an ammunition crate to hide. This is because Liam Neeson is a BADASS, he can and should have awesome sequences like that.
Darth Maul turns to face Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon shouts “Obi-Wan, get the Queen and the Princess to safety, I’ll deal with this guy” (or.. something like that.. we’ll workshop it..) – He draws his lightsaber (this is the first active lightsaber we see BECAUSE THAT SHOULD BE A SPECIAL MOMENT) and rushes towards Maul, parrying blaster shots.
Maul draws his own lightsaber – it’s at that moment that we realise he’s a Sith lord. Oh. Shit. Qui-Gon puts up a good fight but the element of surprise was against him, and he’s just plain outmatched. Qui-Gon is a GOOD fighter but Maul outpaces him every step of the way – Qui-Gon is using his weapon like a longsword (see: the fighting style in the original trilogy) but Maul is using his more like a katana, with fast and agile motions that are closer to all the ‘flippy’ fights in the prequels.
Qui-Gon dies at the hands of Maul. That’s right. We’re killing Qui-Gon at the end of act 1… For a few reasons really.
- It makes the story clearly about Obi-Wan. We now have one main protagonist to focus on, we have a properly defined hero to get attached to instead of following a group of heroes around.
- It sets up Maul as a more credible villain. We’re scared of him because of his mannerisms, we’re scared of him because of how good a fighter he is and we know that at this point in the story he holds ALL the cards.
- Death at the hands of a Sith so that the other heroes can escape on a ship? What does that remind us of? (It’s.. Obi-Wan’s death in ANH.. if.. if that wasn’t obvious..)
- It forces Obi-Wan to cross a threshold, to explore the darker parts of life, and it gives him a lot more character motivation. We now have a singularly defined and complex main character who we sympathise with – AND THAT MEANS WE DON’T NEED JAR JAR BINKS! It actually means we don’t need Gungans at all – if the Jedi start on Naboo there’s no need for any of that sequence, so I’ll gladly cut the whole thing as it adds nothing to the movie.
All of these things are something that TPM never had, and in my hypothetical time machine it now does have those things.
So Qui-Gon drops dead – Padme (from her hiding place) screams out, and starts to run towards the ramp of the ship as it’s closing and preparing for an emergency take off with the Queen inside – Obi-Wan reaches out a hand to grab her, but Darth Maul picks her up with the force – the ship pulls away, the door closes, the ship speeds off.
Cut to inside the ship – the Queen is hysterical – “My daughter! My daughter is down there! Turn back right now!” – cue a short scene where Panaka explains that if they turn back they’ll all die. The Queen gives up on her own men and turns to Obi-Wan.. If we want to be hacky and awful we can have her say “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi… You are my only hope.” but either way he’ll reply with: “Panaka is right.. we can’t go back now, but she’s not dead, I can still sense her. I promise on my honour as a Jedi that I WILL save Padme.” – Our hero now has a clearly defined goal, which is important because it’s a clear end point to drive all his actions towards.
Back on Naboo, we’re hearing one side of a conversation as Darth Maul talks into a communicator: “The Queen escaped.. but we have the girl.” … “Yes, Master. I understand” – he clicks his fingers at a bunch of droids – “Take her to a holding cell!” – and Padme is carted off, looking dejected, devastated, but resolving to stay strong and refusing to cry.
(Hey look, we’ve got a captured princess!)
Act 2 is actually remarkably similar to the original movie, because a lot of that worked. The scene where the ship is damaged and R2-D2 has to repair it is pretty great, and it’s a good introduction to everyone’s favourite Droid. The only difference here is that C3PO is also a droid stationed on the ship – this makes sense, he’s a ‘human-cyborg relations’ droid, he speaks loads of languages, and this is an ambassadorial ship, so it makes a lot more sense that he’s there instead of having him built by Anakin, which is hacky, and also won’t work with my version of Anakin. More on that later.
So anyway, the ship is damaged, R2 stabilizes it but it’s still got a broken fuel cell that can’t be fixed so they are forced to land on Tatooine, just like the original movie, because that worked well. However, because Qui-Gon is now dead, it’s Obi-Wan (our protagonist) who goes to the surface – he has no idea what to expect, so is accompanied by R2 and 3PO for translation and utility purposes… and probably comic relief, because its R2 and 3PO.
He manages to find his way to the Mos Eisly cantina, but it’s not nearly as crowded as it was when we saw it in ANH and, while there’s a stage, there’s no live band playing. Obi-Wan explains his predicament to the bartender, who says he doesn’t know, notes that the reason nobody is around is because there’s currently a podrace on the other side of town and offers advice that if there’s anyone who’s likely to have spare engine parts it’ll be podracers!
Obi-Wan heads over to the pod racing track right as it finishes (“AND YOUR WINNER IS…. SEEEEEBUULLLLLLBAAAAA!”) – the racers walk out onto a stage in the order they finished in, to receive their prizes and applause from the crowd – we get to see a few cool looking aliens and then the announcer calls “AND, IN LAST PLACE, ONCE AGAIN FAILING TO FINISH THE RACE, THE HUMAN… ANAKIN SKYWALKER!”
Anakin walks out to a crowd who starts to laugh at him and boo him, but he holds his head high and doesn’t rise to the bait. The important part here is that when Anakin walks out Obi-Wan has a head snap reaction, he can SENSE the force coming off this kid (because why would you need to take a blood sample, that’s dumb)
Side note – Anakin is older than he originally was in TPM, we’ll put him at around 14 or 15 – a similar age to Padme because SERIOUSLY that age difference was weird later on, and it really doesn’t change anything about the plot.
Obi tracks down the kid in the podracing.. garage? Backstage? Hangar? Pit Lane? …whatever one of those would be called. – They have a fairly lengthy conversation that establishes a few things:
- Anakin built his own pod from stolen parts
- His parents are both dead (let’s cut THAT tie early, and also there’s no more ‘totally subtle’ Jesus reference)
- He can’t win podraces because he’s only a human, so he has to steal to feed himself.
Because basically my version of Anakin is much more like Aladdin, he’s a cocky street rat who has always been on the wrong side of the law (Gee, I wonder what THAT’S setting up?) BUT he’s also got a lot of heart, he’s never hurt anyone and he is actually trying his best to earn an honest living. It might seem weird at first, but, trust me, it’ll pay off.
Anakin explains that, despite building a podracer and having decent technical knowledge, he doesn’t exactly have any spare hyperdrive engines lying around, so Obi-Wan goes on his way, making a note of how incredibly force sensitive this kid is.
Later that evening back in the Cantina, Anakin is caught stealing food from the bar, he runs through the streets pursued by Greedo (yes, Greedo.), who eventually catches up to him by cornering him in a junk yard. Obi-Wan senses the commotion and defuses the situation, using his last remaining credits to “pay the kid’s debt.”
Anakin thanks Obi-Wan, but points out that with no credits he can’t possibly buy a new engine to help him get off the planet. Obi-Wan insists that it won’t be a problem, because Anakin is going to win the next podrace (which, for convenience, is going to be tomorrow morning BECAUSE WHY NOT.)
Tl;dr, that happens. The podracing sequence is the best bit of TPM as it stands so we’re keeping that mostly intact, it’ll just be preceded by a scene of Obi-Wan instructing Anakin to trust his instincts, think don’t feel, ‘this is the force, you’ve got buckets of it, use it.’ etc etc.
All in all the time spent on Tatooine won’t be that long. They buy an engine, Anakin helps Panaka to install it, while also having a conversation about the photograph of Padme that he saw the Queen carrying – “She’s an angel!” if we REALLY have to.
We get off the planet pretty quickly when Subulba teams up with Greedo to ambush Obi-Wan and Anakin – they claim that the “human kid must have cheated” and they want the prize money that they feel entitled to. Obi-Wan attempts to be diplomatic but Anakin shows the first signs of giving into his rage and lets out a high power force push, knocking both of the aliens to the floor – it’s a “what the.. what.. WHAT DID I JUST DO. AM I A WIZARD?” moment and he runs on board the ship, which then takes off before any more trouble starts.
Around this point we cut back to Padme, imprisoned by Maul, because it’s important to refresh the main objective after what was essentially a detour – Maul is being super creepy, he knows that she doesn’t know where her mother is, but that’s not going to stop him from being an absolute terror. Despite all this, Padme stays strong, because it’s important to establish her as a badass character. “Qui Gon told me stories about the Sith. He told me they always lose in the end, so no, I’m not scared of you, I know you’re going to lose, I know Obi-Wan is going to defeat you.”
And that’s basically Act 2. It’s not fantastic, but it’s functional. It gets through a lot of the necessary setup for the trilogy, it’s got a fun set piece and there’s lots of potential for character moments. Also notice how there’s no Watto anywhere, because offensive Jewish stereotype. No thanks.
So let’s recap: Padme is kidnapped, the goal is to save her, defeat the droid army, defeat Darth Maul, reclaim Naboo for the republic. BUT we can’t go back there just yet because we’ll still lose for sure, AND we now have a force sensitive kid in tow – those are some pretty good reasons to visit Coruscant.
Obi-Wan takes Anakin to the SECRET AND UNDERGROUND Jedi temple on Coruscant. (because remember the Jedi are a secretive order in my version, having them as a well known intergalactic police force is a huge plothole). Meanwhile the Queen of Naboo goes to the galactic senate to plead for reinforcements. We get two scenes that run in parallel to each other:
In one scene the Jedi are saying “We can’t help you with this kid because he’s too old, and we REALLY can’t send anyone else to Naboo because our forces are scattered all over the galaxy. I mean, it’s really worrying that there’s a Sith lord, but we literally do not have any Jedi to spare. Just look around you, 90% of the council is teleconferencing via holograms!”
Meanwhile the Queen is making her case to the senate, but they have no idea that the trade federation is evil, so her pleas keep getting shot down. They eventually agree to spare a VERY small squad of troops, but that’s all they can manage, because they don’t have a proper army right now (Gee, I wonder what THAT’S setting up?)
So the odds are stacked against them, the people who can help are refusing to, but Obi-Wan made a promise and he’s GOING to keep it. They load up into a troop transport ship, grit their teeth and head back to Naboo.
Upon landing (in a jungle away from the main city without being seen) they devise a plan and split up into groups – Obi-Wan will deal with Maul. The republic troops, the Queen and Panaka will find and rescue Padme, and Anakin and the droids will stay on the ship, because he’s an untrained kid and he’s only there because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
The last part of this plan does not last for long. Anakin wants to save Padme himself, because he’s completely in love with her, so he leaves the ship and goes off after the troops – said troops get pinned down and stuck in a firefight with a large army of droids, they’re holding out for now but they’re outnumbered – Anakin sneaks around the side of the building, walking on window ledges because he did that ALL the time on Tatooine. (Remember, basically Aladdin. TOLD YOU that would pay off.)
Meanwhile, Obi-Wan has found Maul and they’re battling in the control room, it can be one of those long and fancy lightsaber battles, because these two are actually a pretty even match for eachother. Maul is quicker, but Obi-Wan is much stronger in the force. They’re essentially locked in a stalemate for a little while and are slowly wearing each other down.
Cut back to Anakin, he’s in the holding cells and he’s using a combination of agility, stealth and ‘bashing with a metal pole’ to get round the droids that are guarding the princess – he throws open the cell door, she looks up at him and he steps forward half blushing to blurt out “I’m Anakin Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you!” (because these are the sort of things we SHOULD be mirroring)
Cut back to the lightsaber duel (btw, we’re still keeping ‘Duel Of The Fates’ – that’s an AMAZING piece of music) Obi-Wan seems like he’s tiring.
Cut back to the firefight, loads of casualties on both sides all that’s left is Queeny and Panaka. – His blaster gets shot from his hand, looks at it, it’s broken. He looks over to the Queen – “Your Majesty… Run.. Find your daughter.” and he jumps over his barricade with a barbaric yawp as he’s shot down – The Queen escapes and runs down a corridor.
Cut back to Anakin and Padme, also on the run from blaster fire. All in all it’s not looking good for any of our heroes, and the John Williams score is reflecting this. The kids run into the queen, Anakin has a force sensitive moment – “Obi-Wan is in trouble. Quick. This way”
Obi-Wan is on the floor, barely blocking swing after swing from Maul – the rest of the gang run in from the other side of the room, Anakin leading the pack and shouting “GET OFF HIM” or, y’know, something better than that, we’ll workshop it later.
Maul is distracted by the outburst for a brief enough second for Obi-Wan to get to his feet and reset the battle – Anakin runs towards a large power unit in the middle of the room and plunges the strip of metal he’s been carrying around as an improvised into the top of it, a computer message tells us that the droid army is deactivated.
Unfortunately this gives Maul the opportunity to land a square kick at Anakin’s chest, he falls down one of those weird bottomless pit things that are in so many Star Wars movies, and is barely holding on to the ledge with one hand.
Obi-Wan sees this happen in slow motion, and as it happens he hears Qui-Gon’s voice in his head (just like when Luke was making the trench run hearing Obi-Wan’s voice) – “Trust your abilities, you can defeat him, the force will be with you” – Obi-Wan takes a giant, powerful swing and lets out a primal scream, cutting Maul in half before he can finish Anakin. It’s important that we give him the killing blow, because hero’s journey, this represents that Obi-Wan is now a fully fledged Jedi, willing to kill for the greater good. It’s ALSO important that Anakin is in the room and sees this up close and personal, because now he’s seen what extents a Jedi will go to when they are fighting against injustice.
And then we have wrap up – Is everyone ok? Yes, after we pull Anakin out the pit. Padme runs over to him, kisses him on the cheek, it’ll be adorable, before running back to her mother’s side. Obi-Wan and Anakin have a heart to heart. “Thank you. I could never have defeated him without you” “Don’t be stupid, I didn’t help, I almost got us both killed, I’m a mess” “No, you saved me today. I sense great potential in you, and I want to train you as my apprentice” “But the council sa-” “I don’t care about the council. Master Yoda doesn’t always know best” (because remember at this point Obi-Wan is still arrogant, even more so after he’s just killed a Sith and it’s that arrogance that unfortunately brushes off on Anakin later on.)
The Queen addresses them both formally. “You’ve saved our planet. Thank you. We will forever be in your debt.” – Cut to a parade to end the movie. Anakin, with slightly longer hair to show that time has passed, is walking side by side with Obi-Wan to receive a commendation from The Queen. They walk past the camera, both of them wearing Jedi robes. Hard cut to credits.
BOOM. DONE.
So there we go. A more Obi-Wan focused Episode 1 that still sets up the future of the series, still ties back to the original trilogy but actually has things to make you care about the characters on an emotional level. It’s still not going to be a great movie, it’s still trying to do way too much, and I’m sure that if I look at this in a week there’s going to be things I hate about it, but for a first draft of a synopsis I’m pretty happy.
btsaf 
Totally awesome treatment. I would show this to my kids the way I haven’t with the PT.
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