btw when i woke up and before i checked anything else i had a whatsapp message from my brother in law going; listen you’re gonna wake up to bad news, be prepared don’t let it ruin your day and just think about louis tomlinson
My widobrave opinion of the day is I absolutely believe that Caleb is in love with Veth. I also believe he has reasons for never making a move:
The last time he was in a poly relationship it went up in flames (hah)
He cannot be the reason a family breaks apart because he's projecting his own past self onto Luc - he wants the boy to grow up with both parents and a magic mentor who wants what's best for him
I'm not forgetting the speed at which Liam called for an insight check when Veth said Yeza and her had an open relationship. I see you, Mr Widogast.
In conclusion: if Veth discovers polyamory and then immediately gets with Yasha and Beau instead of him, he's gonna be miffed lmao
hey completely apropos of nothing you should talk about how you'd fix the prequels :)
you know what I SHOULD
SO. If given the chance I would actually remake the prequels TWICE. In the first version I would just redo the individual movies, but keep the overarching plot beats the same, which I will admit is just an excuse to make Phantom Menace good by giving Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon coherent and thematically relevant emotional arcs (or, like, any arcs at all). I don't have thoughts about how I'd do this for the other movies, because at the end of the day I care about them much, much less than I care about Phantom Menace.
Version 1:
Essentially, I would set up Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's relationship in TPM as a sort of... microcosm of the Jedi Order, replete with all its failings.
Both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Very Good Jedi (albeit in different ways), but maybe—maybe they're not very good people. Qui-Gon is unattached, devoted to the Force, devoted to remaining Fair and Just and Unbiased, and he's trying to make Obi-Wan that as well. But in doing so, he alienates Obi-Wan when Obi-Wan needs companionship, or praise, or just the confirmation that he's not a bad person for failing occasionally. When Qui-Gon dies, he leaves behind an Obi-Wan who doesn't understand what he did wrong (because he didn't do anything wrong—but Qui-Gon never told him that).
I think eventually, on Tatooine and after Anakin's fall, Obi-Wan understands what Qui-Gon was trying to do and why, and he doesn't... forgive him, because it's a hard thing to forgive feeling unloved for that long, but he does move past it, and accept that he cared about Qui-Gon anyways.
At the end of it, there's a comparison drawn between Qui-Gon, who didn't let himself care enough, and Anakin, who let himself care too much, and Obi-Wan, who managed to muddle his way through the middle ground.
This version of the prequels ultimately becomes Obi-Wan's story, which doesn't make it better than George Lucas's (the goal of the second way I would remake the prequels), but it does make it more interesting to me.
The SECOND version is the version that my writer brain wants, which is... not starting entirely from a clean slate, because I'm keeping the personages of the prequels, but completing undoing the phantom/clones/sith beats and creating a new trilogy.
Anyways, this bit is copy-pasted directly from where I typed it out on discord last night for rachel
Version 2:
We start at the beginning of the clone wars with anakin who’s not yet knighted but mostly on his own and in this very tense position with Padmé where they both clearly are in deep love and lust with each other but can’t consummate it or w/e due to Anakin’s duties as a jedi and the war. Also he clearly has this mentor/mentee relationship with Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan is very noticeably absent. We’re also introduced to Ahsoka and anakin’s men, the former of which he’s just meeting and the latter of which he clearly has a good relationship with already. Something happens in the middle obvi + at some point anakin goes to obi wan seeking guidance and affirmation, and it’s clear that obi wan knows what he wants but is trying to be A Good Jedi about it and just sort of. Leaves anakin out in the cold. At which point anakin goes to palpatine, who actually seems warm and comforting and tells him to follow his heart in a way that at first glance seems grandfatherly and a bit naive but well-intentioned but upon rewatch is very clearly him trying to drive a wedge between anakin and obi wan. At the very end of the movie Anakin gets married to Padmé (with some sort of “love conquers all” rationale) and in doing so accidentally somehow gets all his men killed. He’s still so on cloud nine about being married he manages to get through it, which causes the Jedi to knight him, but the last scene is him mourning. This sets a pattern for the rest of the trilogy, where Anakin makes larger and larger personal betrayals up until the end of rots, where he betrays obi wan and Padmé and the Jedi.
The second movie, is which I have even less of a jplot for, ends in ahsoka’s death. Crucially, this has to be something that the Jedi advised him to do (not like. Leave her to die, but something something greater good) that makes it clear that (a) anakin is not the kind of person you should trust to run a war and (b) the Jedi are kind of fucked up, man. Like let’s address the child soldier thing from a watsonian perspective. Also this is the movie where we start to dive into anakin and obi wan’s relationship, so you get the master/padawan parallels and contrasts between obi wan and anakin and anakin and ahsoka. Also Palpatine is there, providing a model and a contrast for how anakin interacts with obi wan and ahsoka, and he is still not immediately identifiable as the main villain.
The THIRD movie we have Padmé getting pregnant and going all baby crazy ‘let’s set up a house back on Naboo in the middle of a war in which we are both major participants’ BUT since it’s been clear from the beginning that they both view themselves as, like, Romeo and Juliet but Better, it completely tracks. Make her crazy from the beginning!! This is the movie where we bring in some flashbacks to anakin’s slave backstory, especially drawing direct parallels to the way Palpatine’s coercing him into sketchier and sketchier shit, BUT there’s also a contrast that makes it clear that Anakin (a) could walk away because he’s not bound to Palpatine and (b) won’t walk away because he doesn’t know how because both Palpatine and the Jedi taught him only to obey orders. The movie still ends with the Jedi purge + anakin killing more kids + mustafar + him choking Padmé until she’s almost dead. Padmé’s impassioned ‘there’s still good in him’ is framed mostly as her being delusional, even if she’s right, bc her faith in anakin is mostly selfish (she refuses to believe that he’s bad bc then her dream was only ever a dream and it CAN’T have been her love was REAL) as opposed to Luke’s selfless belief (he just… knows that Vader is hurt and hurting and believes everyone deserves the chance to do better). The trilogy still ends on the shot of twin suns, because that fucks and is objectively correct
Also key to this experience is the fact that it, despite being closer in tone to a Serious War Film, still has lots of fun, lighthearted moments, especially in the first two, because This Is Star Wars God Damn It, and it should be fun
Anyways, the great thing about remaking the prequels is that they don’t even have to be good, they just have to be better than Lucas’s attempt, which I feel I feel I could succeed in. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
