Alternative Fiction - Star Wars, Episode I: The Blackhole Apprentice

The Idea

Okay, so before you freak out and think that this is some sort of foolish "re-imagining" of Episode 1 - 3 of the Star Wars Saga, you'd only be half right.

I, alike 99% of the people that enjoyed and fell in love with the original Star Wars movies made in the 70's/80's were extremely dissapointed with the new Star Wars prequels. Not because they were not entertaining, but because they lacked depth and were basically just crammed full of needless and pointless action which had no suspense or drama in it. And don't even get me started on the storylines that made virtually no sense.

For that 1% that raises his/her eyebrow to what I just wrote, I will point you in the direction of my good friend (not really my friend, but I am an admirer of his work) Redlettermedia's reviews on youtube. They are extremely informative, funny and hazardously watchable. His work outlines all of the prequels' plot holes and essentially reveals George Lucas for the "hack" he is.

Anyhow, what I soon thought of after I saw these films was "It would be really awesome if someone actually re-wrote Episodes 1-3." However, this idea was far from obtainable for obvious reasons; nobody would ever direct or be allowed to redirect the Star Wars Prequels again, clearly.

So, I decided to do the next best thing, write them for myself with the help of a few other writers/Star Wars fans on a forum that had serious writers and far from criticism or penalisation of the media or George Lukey himself.

The easier of the two options. Go me.


The Basics

I require at least 3 or so other people to help me work on this project.

What this set of "fan-fiction" or "alternative fiction" prequels needs from players is the following:

• To completely forget all pieces of information not shown or said in the original Star Wars trilogy. This means forgetting the entire universe that Lucas created beyond the original characters, settings and plots that A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi outlined.
  All that we know about the prequels is: Yoda trained Obi Wan, Darth Vader's real name was Anakin and he was trained by Obi Wan before he fell to the Dark side, before the Empire there was a Republic and that Obi Wan and Anakin served in a conflict called the Clone Wars.
  This basically means that nothing that is said or has "happened" in the prequels exists in this Star Wars Universe.
  
  
• To be imaginitive to create new races, new planets and new characters that are real and deeper than the two-dimensional ones found in the current prequels. One thing I will ask for is to distance players from the current star wars prequels and all terminology/phrases/information it brings.
  
  
• To accept the current Star Wars pequels for the failure they are in terms of storyline, character depth and lack of general sense. (This is just a preference, but it helps when people are on the same page as each other in terms of creating something new from something old - if you still disagree with my views, watch this!
  
  
• To feel free to interject/come up with ideas and throw them back and forth in the OOC topics (should they be made). A significant difference between the new movies and the old movies is that back in the 70's/80's, George Lucas, although founder and creator of the whole Star Wars phenomenon got a lot of feedback and critique on work regarding storyline and characters, whereas in the new films he did not. I will therefore value every writers' opinion and ideas as if they were my own, ultimately not making this a work purely of my doing with a little bit of help from the side, but a collage of brilliance through collaborative efforts.
  
  
• To be able to willingly give their MSN/Skype/Whatever addresses/names so that all of the above may be made possible.
  

The Backstory

While the backstory for Episodes 1-3 of the alternative Star Wars series are still in skeleton-stages, I can say that this will be a slightly darker spin on the series than seen before (there is still room for comedy, romance and so on, but what I mean by this is that it's leading up to "A New Hope", so strictly speaking, events will not turn out for the best).

I will be taking on the roles of major characters from Episodes IV, V and VI such as Yoda, Obi Wan, The Emperor and Anakin.

If I do drum up enough support to make this go through to OOC stages (which I sincerely hope), I will create a good basis for which characters can be created for the game. However, storyline details right now will not be revealed.

Thank you for taking your time for reading this and I hope you decide to join.

Howler.

Seems interesting, so I'll poke my head in.

Very interested.

-Edit-
Question: Do The Caravan of Courage, The Battle for Endor, and The Holiday Special still exist?

I'll sign up if you'll have me - I gots me an escapee from Order 66 character that I can rejig. Y'know, to fit into a better set of prequels - though I have to admit, much as the handling of the Jedi temple raid could've been better, I didn't hate the way that was done as much as other stuff - but then in order to lead up to A New Hope, somethign similar will have to happen anyway, right?

Just a thought, aside from there being no "Order 66" -yet- in this alternate universe we will create, very little is revealed about the Jedi Order in the original trilogy. We know there are teachers and students, and Obi-Wan calls himself a Jedi Knight, but they never mention a Jedi Council, a Jedi Temple, or the Great Jedi Purge. So the story we create could very well have none of those elements.

True. But for students ir teachers to have existed, and for their numbers to have been great enough that they caused enough problems for the Emperor to need them gone, I'd say it's a safe bet they'll be similar regardless. That and much as it's a great starting point, basing absolutely everything only on what happened in the first three films will leave you without a lot in the way of interesting development. For something to not be mentioned, doesn't mean it wasn't there in some manner.

After going back over the original trilogy scripts I realized that Yoda does mention, in a round-about way, that there was once a Jedi Council when he says, "My own council will I keep on who is to be trained!"

And the Emperor did give Vader the order to hunt down the remaining Jedi, which hints to something akin to the Great Jedi Purge, and Yoda mentions that he has been training Jedi for 800 years. So yeah, there probably were a lot of them at some point.

However, I completely disagree with the idea that basing our plot solely on the original trilogy will leave us without any interesting plot developments. In fact, I think it will be the exact opposite. Using only what we know from the first three films gives us a plethora of plausible plot scenarios to use for the prequels.

I'm interested in this, I mean, even if we utterly failed in our attempt it'd still be better than the movies.

Can I still play a Gungan?
lol.

Well, to each their own then. I think that if all you have as a base is the original trilogy, then you're very soon going to need to branch beyond it and make stuff up - which I'm fine with, but my point stands that you're gonna need to go beyond the first three films eventually. I would think that rather than giving you any plausible plotlines to use, it would just leave you with a large gap to fill with some form of plot - that doesn't guarantee that the plotlines used will be good. Still - we can't come up with anything quite as bad as dear old George.

Well hot-damn!

Glad to see this much interest and indeed some people who agree to some extent that Episodes I - III were tosh.

Brilliant.

*Ahem*.

Well, without any further ado I will begin drafting up the story arcs etc.

Answers to what the universe's current state is will be in the OOC thread (which will start in a two weeks (i'm off to uni and will need to set myself up before I can begin anything)).

However, character formation can start now. Note: You may be a Jedi, but numbers of the Jedi are FAR fewer than in the original prequels. And yes, there is in some respect a "council", but it isn't something like in the previous films. That quote from Yoda you speak of Lumeus is to do with his own council meaning himself. There was also no order 66. But exterminating of the Jedi is something that is real, bare in mind however that Luke, Ben and Yoda were the last three Jedi... You might understand what I'm insinuating.

The Blackhole Apprentice will start soon after all characters are created and accounted for. I wish for there to only be 4/5 players in this Roleplay so we don't have overcrowding.

Well, as a preemptive, I'd very much like to play a force-sensitive, but now that I have a better idea of my choices, it's highly likely that he's not been Jedi trained nor will he be a Sith. More along the lines of a hedge-wizard in space, heh.

Thanks for reminding me Renzo about the Sith.

Note about the Sith: They don't exist. There are simply Jedi who have fallen to the darks side of the force. The Sith in the Star Wars series are actually a race from a planet that are just lead by dark jedi. But in this case they have never existed.

Oh, sweet clarity! Something Mr Lucas in his infinite wisdom decided against and later foudn out was necessary for other human beings to understand this Star Wars thing. Ok, so Jedi / Dark Jedi, not Jedi / Sith. Cool. Well, my character is likely to be best described as an off-kilter Jedi. He's dead against outright abuse of either the force or those around him - but sure he'll use it for a harmless practical joke every now and then. Why not? It isn't like he's encountered too many other telekinetic, laser-sword wielding space-wizards to tell him 'no'.

I personally wasn't planning to play a force sensitive, tempting though it may be.

However, if most everyone else in our group does, that sort of leaves me with significantly less ass kicking ability once the force powers start flying, no?

EIRrey has made a good point.

We don't want a clusterfuck of Jedi. So. I'm allowing a maximum of 2 other Jedi other than the canon characters. PM me if you wish to be one of these two people who have Jedi or force-oriented characters. Give me a general gist of what it is you want in your character. This is not a first come, first serve scenario, this is a "whose character is best" type situation.

If I find that along the road that we are missing some Jedi, I'll allow people to create more Jedi.

Howler wrote:clusterfuck of Jedi

This made me laugh.

Renzo has reserved one of the Jedi spots. One left. Don't feel pressured to make one if you don't really feel that you are 100% made to play Jedi.

Yes, Yoda was talking about his own council, but the way he phrased it makes it sound like there was once a time when he took council from others on who was to be trained.

This is true Lumeus, I guess I might have been taking it too literally. Foolish me

Anyhow, onto business. I have created most of the story arc and it's looking in order.

I will be posting the OOC sooner than expeced (perhaps even tonight) due to my surprisingly but hopefully not premature progress.

There is still one Jedi position available, Message me if you are interested.

/fidgets anxiously