5 Silly Star Wars Things We Hope Disney Can Fix

These are not going to be grand changes to the films (for the most part). We're not going to say things like, "completely edit out Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars," even though that would be neat. That bell can't be unrung and we need to move on. We're not talking about rewriting entire scenes. We also know that some of this might be impossible with a murky distribution rights situation, but Disney, can't you just work out a deal with Fox to make this happen? Tell them they can continue to mismanage the X-Men MCU franchise for another decade or so while you repair some things in Star Wars. These are little things that can be done with varying degrees of difficulty, but doable with either some continued editing or further exposition with the Anthology Films.




If the prequel trilogy has one iconic scene that will be emblazoned in the minds of fans in perpetuity, it's the Battle of Geonosis. But when a critical aspect of that battle relies on one of the main protagonists using the same exact strategy as Vizzini uses in The Princess Bride to distract Wesley and switch the poison goblets, you know you have problems. Let us set the stage to remind you. Attack of the Clones hammers home the advantage of clones over an automaton army, that clones can think creatively. The unspoken flip side of that coin is that droids slavishly and faultlessly follow orders, even when they might not make sense. That is, of course, until that one time they decide not to.

The Jedi are eliminated one by one until only a doomed survivor's circle remains. Count Dooku offers Master Windu a chance to surrender, but Mace chooses door number 3. The droids train their weapons on the soon-to-be executed Jedi. For no good reason, Dooku holds the "fire" command, giving Padmé exactly enough time to shout, "Look!" as the Republic Gunships swoop in to the rescue. And this is when the droids decide they didn't want to miss this and opt to think creatively, indulging their curiosity by looking up. Had they not, Dooku could have shouted, "kill them!" and with their blasters still trained, the story is over. It's just bad. Nitpicky, but it's bad.

How about we just nix a few frames? Dooku apologizes for the execution order he's about to give, but doesn't have chance to complete his sentence because battle droids start spontaneously combusting from the impossibly potent Gunship ball turrets.




Why do all clones sound like Jango Fett? On a scale of 0 to 100, this makes negative one billion sense. Speaking accents are not hereditary. They are acquired. If they weren't, I would speak with a brogue, and my business partner, Mr. Nomadscout, would speak with a Kreplacki accent. But they are not hereditary, so I speak with a wicked awesome Boston accent and he sounds like some sort of Vinny Barbarino doofus. Your accent comes from your environment. Even if somewhere in the de-canonized Expanded Universe that I didn't read it's explained that Jango trained the first batch of his replicants, that New Zealand accent should have worn off over time. The Clones eventually should have started to speak like the native Kaminoans. I'm not sure what the Kaminoan accent is. I dunno. Lets call it Dutch and move on.

Certainly by the time of the Galactic Empire, the accent should have been washed out, and the Stormtroopers should have sounded a lot like their contemporary Imperials. You know, exactly how the pre-Blu Ray Stormtroopers sounded. So this is an easy one, Disney. Just hit the undo button on the OT, but maybe also knock around the idea of redubbing some of the lines in Revenge of the Sith.




Battle Droids are useless (by Lucas' own admission). Super Battle Droids are useless, but at least they can't fumble away their blasters in slapticky fashion. Destroyer Droids are practically invulnerable and cause the Jedi to run away in fear. So why does the Trade Federation continue to dedicate resources to the first two? Why don't they just focus their factories on Destroyer Droids instead of building a nearly endless supply of useless Battle Droids (super sized or not). We can excuse this in The Phantom Menace because it could be argued the Trade Federation would never have forecasted the militarization of the Jedi, but certainly by the time of Revenge of the Sith they should have known the Jedi were the biggest obstacle in their battle plans.

Now there are 100 "just off screen" reasons we can come up with as to why more Droidekas weren't used. Cost, impracticality, finite resources, Sidious purposely down-throttling the CIS's war-waging capabilities to keep his puppet conflict ongoing, etc. I for one don't think this is excusable, however. The audience shouldn't have to fill in a blank when one or two lines (in a trilogy where economy of dialog was extremely lacking) could have closed that gap. Now I'm already off the "simple edit" promise I made earlier, but all this would take is the recording of an extra line or two. We just need someone in the film to acknowledge this obvious discrepancy. I'm sure Disney can find an actor who can do a semi-racist Asian accent so the Neimoidians can say something like, "Why won't Sidious get us more Droidekas? They are, like, totally unstoppable when General Jar Jar isn't killing them by accident."




The climactic scene of the PT was one for which fans had waited since the legendary duel was alluded to in some early sources, including the Return of the Jedi novelization. Twenty-something years in the making, we had to endure 96% of the PT just to get to get to the scene. Say what you will about everything else leading up to it, the duel thrilled as it unfolded. It went on for 78 dramatic minutes (well, maybe it just seemed that way), only for Obi-Wan to essentially declare victory because he was standing on a rock. Anakin decided to make the worst offensive decision since Pete Carroll called for a pass, and got all his limbs sliced off in the process.

Almost any alternative ending to this epic confrontation would have been better. Even having a desperate Obi-Wan hanging above a lava flow for dear life and then duplicating his winning maneuver against Darth Maul could have been cool. While not as easy to fix as some of the other items in this list, reshooting less than a minute of action along with some creative editing could transform this tragic waste of an ending and give us the complete duel we deserved.




I'm saving this for last because it would undoubtedly be the most controversial for fans, and the most effort for Disney. The white armored Stormtroopers and Biker Scouts on Endor are muy, muy estupido, especially after the introduction of camouflage into the Star Wars universe with the 41st Elite Kashyyyk troopers. The white armor is forgivable in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It is clear that the Imperial forces we see in those films are the equivalent of our real world Navy. Check your Vintage Collection VC 94 figure and it's right there in black and white (on green). The Navy is a very very silly service*. They modeled part of their uniform after Donald Duck, by gum! The hat, that is. Not the pantless thing. The pantslessness was a happy coincidence. Go watch A Few Good Men, and you will see everyone makes fun of the Navy's white uniforms. The white armor in Episodes IV and V are just a natural parallel.

But when deployed to the field, such as on Endor, it has a habit of pulling the viewer out of the film. The white armor is absolutely conspicuous in the dense foliage of Endor. Our terrestrial Navy has BDU's for such occasions. Shouldn't the same go for the troopers in that galaxy far, far away? Once again we can come up with some "just off screen" explanations. Maybe the highly advanced military optics in the Star Wars universe render physical concealment obsolete, so why would the Empire bother? No, that dog don't hunt. That would be like saying "why bother wearing my kevlar when a bomb will kill me anyway." There is no good reason to forego all attempts at camouflage. So if George Lucas can go back and give the Ewok's pupils, why can't Disney use some CG magic and hide those imperial troops a little better. Think of all the extra toys that can be sold? Don't give me some purist rant about continuing to tinker with the OT. That horse is out of the barn.

What else do you think could be fixed with a little editing? Remember, no rewrites!

*Several members of my family have proudly served in the Navy, including my wife. I keed. I keed.

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