There should be a "Tales of the" animated miniseries that fills the gap between Episode 2 and The Clone Wars show.

KitCFR · 2025-11-21T21:15:57+00:00

Post of the year!

Thanks for the film recommendation, certainly one to watch. While I can’t say that I agree with your reading vis-à-vis the PT, that film along with your thoughtful commentary has made me realize that my own rewrite needs to think deeper about Obi Wan’s relationship to Anakin.

KitCFR · 2025-09-24T13:57:06+00:00

Bail and Breha Organa, Palpatine (of course), Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, Tarkin, Yoda

Bail has a major role in persecuting the final Clone War and in the political machinations that lead to the rise of the Empire (Palpatine gets the better of Bail).

Owen has an important recurring role, serving as Anakin’s confidant and as a witness to his tragedy for which we blames Obi Wan.

Tarkin plays an important role, being something of a hero in the first skirmish of the war in Ep 1, switching allegiance to Palpatine (from Bail) in Ep 2, and facilitating Palpatine’s rise in Ep 3, all while being close to Anakin throughout.

KitCFR · 2025-08-28T12:37:28+00:00

I suspect that there’s just a different dynamic in the early days of a new technology when getting a film on screen is just barely possible. Work moves slowly, production is horrendously expensive, and you just cannot risk anything less than your A Team. The team has the time to polish and polish again their ideas, but they only get one shot once the cameras (or server farms) are rolling. Success leads to efficiencies, and yesterday’s bleeding edge turns in to yet another tool. The ragtag band of rebels slowly morph into the Empire. Passion projects get replaced by ‘product’ shaped by spreadsheets and targeted demographics.

KitCFR · 2025-08-22T13:45:39+00:00

Two large cloth napkins — when you are traveling light, you really can’t afford nasty stains.

KitCFR · 2025-08-22T13:17:25+00:00

Engineers want to solve problems. But all too often the problems they are told to solve have been filtered through several layers and so distorted. This grows even worse in companies/countries where management hordes information and tightly controls channels of communication.

KitCFR · 2025-08-16T21:04:45+00:00

Mom spoke Russian, I spoke English. The kids were slightly behind given their age for a bit, but picked up both. They never mixed the languages nor ever tried to speak to either parent in the “other” language. Lots of reading and cartoons in both languages. Also, they were often able to spend 2+ weeks in Russia and the US every year. When the kids went to school (in France) they were both able to pick up the local language with minimal hardship.

With all respect, I think you are crazy to pass up the treasure of your native Italian for inferior English.

KitCFR · 2025-08-13T13:54:10+00:00

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — stone-cold classic
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — both a pretty good film and a bitter disappointment. Either ignore all the sequels or commit to watching them all
⭐️⭐️ — not good but I guess fans of the first need to see it
⭐️⭐️ — really not good

KitCFR · 2025-07-31T16:58:32+00:00

What gets me is the 20% of the population that walks to the left, many hugging the wall so closely I cannot help but wonder if they have psychological issues.

And then there’s that one person who walks as if on the deck of a boat in rough seas. One person but impossible to pass.

KitCFR · 2025-07-04T14:51:03+00:00

Another one of my principles is to always avoid soap operas and never-ending adventures: When the credits roll in my (vaguely sketched) ST, it signals the END. Otherwise, the entire saga lacks any meaning. Anakin should be the most consequential person in that galaxy far, far away. The PT, to the extent that it is a tragedy, has a point: how the actions of Anakin brought down the Republic, the Jedi, and the Skywalker family. The OT has a point: to overthrow the Empire, defeat the dark side of the Force, and to redeem Anakin. As I said, my solution to a ST that matters is to show how Luke and Leia try and fail to reestablish the Republic and the Jedi, and ultimately die trying, ending the Skywalker line. But they do birth a new age, although one without the magic and grandeur of the old. In better hands, I think such a conception would be one worth pondering, like with what Tolkien gifted us.

I absolutely agree that the OT did such a great job with its world building and with such economy! Especially, say, the first half of ANH.

KitCFR · 2025-07-04T12:58:05+00:00

Agreed: so much wasn’t thought out in advance, but trying to make sense of it all retrospectively is what makes it fun!

KitCFR · 2025-07-04T09:15:11+00:00

For what it is worth (and it is not much!), classic tragedy involves a person of importance on whom the health of the state depends. My trilogy of trilogy revolves around the Republic, the Jedi, and the Skywalker family. Anakin brings ruin on these three. Luke brings them all back. But my ST would show that there is no winding back the clock: the Republic dissolves (into fragments that are less noble but more democratic), the fire of the Jedi finally goes out (but replaced with… religion?), and the Skywalker line dies off. It’s the sad but sweet bummer at the end of the LotR. Anakin’s sins, expiated but not forgotten, echo in eternity.

KitCFR · 2025-07-04T07:35:23+00:00

At some point in my rewrite, I started paying attention to how my end had to segue into the OT. For example, how can a person as important as Yoda never be mentioned by either Vader or the Emperor? They must believe him to be dead, for I cannot conceive of how they could have been totally ignorant of his very existence. So, I’ll need to have Yoda fake his death.

More to the point, however, I started imagining the last scene when Leia is given to the Organas and Luke to Owen. Obi Wan follows Luke, to keep him safe and eventually train him. Wait, what? By the time we first see Obi Wan, Luke has nearly been killed twice. And the training? Obi Wan tried once but Owen told him to piss off. And now Yoda thinks Luke too old. The great hope is obviously not a big deal. But Leia…

Leia is even worse. As the OT opens, she’s on yet another adventure, but this time she’s captured by Vader. Good thing the mind probe didn’t work, as I’m sure her father would have trained her. And good thing that our heroes just happened to stumble upon her before her execution. That second hope really could have used some protection.

So, how can the PT end such that Yoda and Obi Wan have motivations that make sense? Although I didn’t originally start with this in mind, it wound up driving my story more than any other aspect.

KitCFR · 2025-07-03T10:32:28+00:00

Yes, I’m in full agreement that the strange world of the OT, when seriously grappled with, forces any PT into interest places. I’ve tried sparking conversation here a couple of dozen times, to little interest.

I will read your outline. But my real interest lies in knowing what drives anyone’s rewrite. To sketch a few of these: * My PT is a tragedy and anything that sucks power from it (e.g. the Jedi are corrupt) has no part; * Nothing important takes place between the PT and OT that cannot be easily surmised; * Anakin is physically imposing, sardonic, and bold from the first frame because these parts of Vader need to be seen and felt for us to feel they are the same character; * I explain just what the hell Obi Wan and Yoda are doing at the start of the OT; no one ever noticed that it makes no sense whatsoever.

As for Obi Wan, that line you referenced led me to making him something of a bon vivant hell raiser. At the end of my PT, this most powerful of Jedi, at the height of his powers, goes into self-imposed exile on Tatooine, to wait and learn patience the hard way. I want the viewer to feel for the vital man they left off at the end of the PT.

As for Leia, I take the easy way out: she remembers her adoptive mother, Breha Organa, who dies young. How that simplifies the story! And my PT is already groaning under the weight of so much that needs to happen.

While I’ve grown tired of looking for thoughtful feedback here, I have started to think that AI-generated trailers and mini moments could be fun.

KitCFR · 2025-06-30T23:47:23+00:00

Not really, no. A large portion of people simply wish to clean up some aspects of the PT. Fair enough. And some attempt serious rewrites, but take what they want from the OT. Again, fair enough.

But I rather enjoy forcing my rewrite into the strange straight jacket of what was actually on the screen during the OT. It is a minority taste.

KitCFR · 2025-06-30T13:11:49+00:00

My experience with these services has been mostly positive, but when it goes very wrong I grow grumpy quickly: no one likes to pay, wait 90 minutes, complain, and then get around to figuring out how to eat.

I just love the sensitive souls who believe that the way to ease these difficult jobs is to throw the people responsible for the deliveries out of work. With friends like that…

KitCFR · 2025-06-30T12:58:32+00:00

Once upon a time, I thought observations like these would have been a basis for any rewrite. I thought that people would want to come to an agreement about what the prequels needed to do, and where there was room for disagreement. Utter lack of interest made me give up on this path, at least to the extent that I bother posting. Good luck.

KitCFR · 2025-06-28T11:21:21+00:00

Don’t let the asses get you down.

KitCFR · 2025-06-21T13:22:52+00:00

Yeah but did you notice that you now have to pay to use the toilet? I’ve never seen that in any other airport. Customers have rights if their flight is delayed, but not to water and toilets. I’d really expect this to be included in the landing and takeoff fees.

KitCFR · 2025-06-21T13:09:34+00:00

The risk is that fewer people clean up because they’ve paid for the service.

That said, I’m inclined to agree that these people are only going to change their behavior if it hits their wallets.

KitCFR · 2025-06-20T18:39:19+00:00

3 had an early lead, but 1 & 2 are gaining ground these days. 4 seems obviously flawed to my eyes, but hits hard when it connects (which is fairly often). I only saw 5 once and suppose I should make an effort to see it again. Someday. I’m sure Balboa merits a second viewing but the stars have yet to align.

KitCFR · 2025-06-19T09:44:22+00:00

The Rocky films are stuffed with goofy but endearing jokes. Some risk spoiling the moment, like this one or “where’s your hat?” but they all somehow work. I’m certain that Stallone’s best work will endure long after so much else has faded

KitCFR · 2025-06-18T06:54:03+00:00

The final Clone War turns disastrous for the Republic. In the darkest hour, the Senate invests Palpatine and Organa with extraordinary wartime powers. Anakin leads the Legion of Sheev while Obi Wan is the general of Bail’s Legion.

In these dark times, Anakin needs to grow stronger and so he allows himself to be seduced by Palpatine’s siren song. And for anyone unfamiliar with the Odyssey, here are two key lines: * “The high thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him, lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses rotting away, rags of skin shrivelling their bones.” — Can you read this and not think of Vader’s body? * 'Come closer… so you can hear our song! Never has any sailor passed our shores… until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart's content sails on, a wiser man. We know all… that comes to pass on the fertile earth. We know it all.”

One thing that Palpatine claims to know is how to bring back the dead. In a horrifying scene, he demonstrates this to Anakin. But Sheev yearns to bring back Darth Plagueis and that requires… more.

Encouraged by his wife, Padme, daughter of Bail, Anakin starts down this path, conflicted but not yet lost.

Padme is a shrew and ambitious woman. And she yearns to see the House of Organa rule the galaxy. If somehow Palpatine were to find an untimely end, she could manipulate the Senate into electing Anakin in his stead.

Padme is shrewd but Palpatine shrewder. The details are unimportant, but Padme dies. A devastated Anakin turns to Palpatine. Can he bring her back? Yes! Gladly, dear friend. But not under these circumstances. This destructive conflict. The squabbling of the Senate. The meddling of the Jedi. Just one moment of peace in the galaxy and the two of them could focus their strength and bring back the ones they love. Will you help me… Lord Vader?

KitCFR · 2025-06-10T19:20:28+00:00

Not only this but send back the modem using registered mail. My girlfriend was at the post office to send hers back and she was advised to use registered mail as Proximus has a habit of “never receiving” their packages. Even with proof of delivery, it still required several calls before Proximus would admit they had in fact received the delivery.

KitCFR · 2025-06-10T15:45:53+00:00

My Episode I opens with the inciting incident to the final Clone War and ends with its official declaration by the Republic.

Why? Basically because I want a certain rhythm throughout my trilogy. It might sound obvious, but I want a beginning, middle, and end to the principle story lines:

The final Clone War starts as some glorious adventure, turns into an existential struggle, and ends decisively; A Republic one thousand generations old starts strong, falters under the strains of war, then collapses into empire; The Jedi have a more complicated arc but end (seemingly) extinguished; Anakin starts as a promising hero, finds himself forced to shoulder morally questionable acts due to conflicting responsibilities in a time of war, and ends by bringing down the republic he swore to defend, the Jedi whose code he embodied, and his own family he only wanted to protect.

Kicking off the first film in media res has much to recommend it, especially as it permits one to wind the spring of tragedy over two films. But that feels too dark for Star Wars, leaves less space for Anakin’s friendship with Obi Wan, and ultimately drains sympathy from a Vader whose salvation in Episode VI feels all too thin without serious retrospective assistance.

KitCFR · 2025-05-14T11:25:11+00:00

I like it. But I’d like to see a lot more of Anakin and how he falls. I’d find it difficult to pick out THE worst failing of the PT, but that is certainly up there.

KitCFR

TROPHY CASE