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A long, long time ago, I wrote about Ian Doescher’s delightful book The Empire Striketh Back–a re-imagining of the Star Wars film as though written by William Shakespeare.

Well, I recently learned that Doescher also wrote more of these books for the prequel trilogy.  As my readers know, I like the prequel trilogy very much, but there’s no denying it has a weak script that undercuts its other strengths. This is especially true of Attack of the Clones.

Doescher’s treatment fixes these problems. Most notably, it fixes the character of Anakin Skywalker.  In Doescher’s version, Skywalker seems like he actually cares about Padme Amidala.  This really helps the romance between them. (I know, you would think this would be obvious, but apparently it wasn’t to Lucas.)

That’s not the only improvement–all of the dialogue is much better when done in the style of the Bard.

The irony is that Lucas has always defended his awkward script by calling it “stylized dialogue”.  Well, Doescher’s dialogue is even more stylized; but what’s more is that it’s good. It trips off the tongue.

What Lucas should have done was give his story outline–which is very strong, with its political machinations, epic battles, and forbidden romance–to Doescher or someone like him, who could give it a fittingly poetic script to match.  Then maybe put the exceptionally talented cast under the direction of a Shakespearean director (say, Sir Kenneth Branagh?) and they would have really had something.  It would have been stunning.

The prequels are not bad–they just needed a better script.

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Good article on Felicia Day’s Geek and Sundry site by Kendall Ashley, on the good points of the Star Wars prequels.  Ashley writes:

You could argue that Lucas’ attempts to make lightning strike twice with the exact same formula on an audience who had only grown more jaded and cynical since their first viewing of the original trilogy doomed the project from the start. I think if we had come to Star Wars for the first time as kids with Phantom Menace, we’d feel a bit more fondly towards the prequels.

Having just watched all six Star Wars movies again, after not seeing them (except Phantom Menace, which I saw in 2012) for about 8 years, I would say that my impression was still that the prequel trilogy, while flawed, was far better than the original trilogy, which is entertaining but a mess. A New Hope was frankly rather silly. I’ve always felt this way, but this time the feeling was actually more pronounced.  The Phantom Menace may have some of the best scenes of the entire saga–each time I see it, I’m impressed by how good it is.

I’ve written at length about why each of the Star Wars prequels are actually good here, here and here.  I think people are gradually coming to appreciate them more.