Cinco Ranch Aggie said:CharleyKerfeld said:
In all seriousness, as Cinco said, the problem is really Anakin, not Jar-Jar.
1) Find a late teens/early 20s actor who can play a little younger and who will be the face of the franchise for 3 movies.
2) Have him be 15 or 16 and Padme the same or slightly older so it's way less weird and she can feel genuinely attracted to him when he saves her entire planet from the Trade Federation. Imagine him wearing rags and dirty clothing the whole movie (and why don't they give him clean clothes on Coruscant, what the hell?) and then she sees him with the haircut and the Jedi robe at the end. Padme's all about that.
3) Show him on multiple occasions USING THE FORCE without even knowing what the Force is. They could have done so much with that during the Pod Race, especially after Qui-Gon tells Shmi "he can see things before they happen." I have always thought that the biggest miss was not having a scene where he taps into the Force during the pod race and they cut to Qui-Gon feeling it in the crowd, Obi-Wan feeling it back on the Naboo ship, and the real winner, Maul in the desert monitoring his probe droids, and he feels it too, and maybe is even a little freaked out by it - because he knows who the 2 Jedi on planet are, but this is something totally different. They could also have him using the Force to eff with Watto or in the deleted scene where he fights Greedo to give you that early hint of what's to come.
4) When he and R2 take off in the N-1, he should let R2 fly the ship at first, and then realize he can do it faster and better because of his Force skills, and blowing up the control ship isn't a fluke, it's him figuring out something with the Force and taking a crazy, but Force-enhanced shot, just like Luke does in ANH.
I feel better now.
I agree with every bit of this. Implement Anakin's character in this fashion, and I have to believe The Phantom Menace is not raked over the coals every time it's mentioned now.
It's still the best of the prequels.
