August 2011
12 posts
Scenes 18 & 19: Invasion!
Scene 18: Darth Maul stalks through the station’s corridors, until he reaches a great observation window, looking down over Nabooine. He snaps his fingers, and a spider-legged holo-projector (similar to the one scene in LI) scuttles over. Maul waves his hand, and a bluish-gray hologram appears before him – that of a hooded, wrinkled figure: Darth Sidious.
“Report,” Sidious growls.
“The...
Scenes 16 & 17: Not Out of the Woods, Yet
Scene 16: “What happened?” Obi-Wan asks.
Artoo rolls into the cockpit, and says something to Padme.
“He says they must have gotten too far from the control station,” she says, sighing. “Lost their power and direction. Thank the stars…”
“We’re not safe yet,” Obi-Wan says, slumping down on the floor, massaging his temples. He looks beat. “With the hyperdrive gone, we can’t get...
8 tags
Scenes 13-15: Three Escapes
Scene 13: Obi-Wan, Padme over his shoulder, runs through the corridors, making his way back to the hangar. Padme stirs, and begins pounding on Obi-Wan’s back. “Let me down!” she yells. Obi-Wan does, but checks her over for a moment. “Are you alright?” he asks.
“I’m fine, just rattled,” she says. The ship shakes with another bad hit. “What’s happening?”
“Your value to the Trade...
8 tags
Scenes 10-12: Things Blow Apart
Scene 10: On the Federation command ship, a communications droid turns to face Ursana. “Commander, Ship 217 is reporting intruders – Two Jedi.”
Ursana spits something into a spittoon, and almost rises up from her command throne. “Blast! What about that girl-Queen, isn’t she on 217 as well?”
Droid: “Affirmative.”
Ursana’s face twists in disgust. “Bah. She’s more trouble than...
6 tags
Scenes 7-9: Different Missions
Scene 7: Obi-Wan is running down the corridor, but he skids to a halt, as two destroyer droids roll up before him, unfolding to deploy their shields and weapons. They start blasting away at Obi-Wan, who scampers back behind a bulkhead, looking around desperately to figure out where and how to escape. He finally leaps straight up (maybe a bit of a somersault to it, because, hey, Jedi) into an...
5 tags
Scenes 3-6: Arrival at the Blockade
Scene 4: The Jedi ship drifts in closer to Nabooine. From inside the cockpit, we see Qui-Gon’s furrowed-brow and Obi-Wan’s startled reaction. Then we see the planet itself – Nabooine is practically encrusted with matte-black Trade Federation ships, droid fighters zooming past in swarms, other independent-looking ships all docked with and, presumably, being boarded by, Federation...
6 tags
Scenes 2 & 3: The Two Sides of the Force
Scene 2: High above Tatooine, the binary stars off in the distance, a small, unmarked vessel (perhaps a sleeker, early-model Corellian freighter?) shoots past the planet at extreme speed, heading toward the brighter sun. This is Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s ship.
Obi-Wan sits at the controls, looking nervous. Qui-Gon, of course, is a picture of bemused serenity.
“Seven years you have been my...
2 tags
Scene 1: Enter Anakin
As the opening crawl and fanfare music fades and recedes, the camera swoops down to the planet Tatooine, a dry and dusty world, with two suns blazing away oppressively. The scene switches to Tatooine’s surface, looking out over the town of Mos Espa, including the massive domes where most of the populace lives. The scene then changes again, to the spare, worn-looking bedroom belonging to a...
4 tags
Opening Crawl
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
STAR WARS
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The mighty Galactic Republic stands on the edge of great conflict: The power of the greedy Trade Federation has been challenged by the charismatic Senator Palpatine of the planet Nabooine, and the Federation is beginning to lose its support and influence within the Republic. Now, however, Nabooine...
Episode I Notes
All notes listed below are subject to addition and change as I write more of The Phantom Menace’s treatment, and more things need explanation or elaboration.
-The ages of various characters has been slightly revised. Obi-Wan is no longer an ambiguous early-twenties age, but is now much closer to Padme, around 17-18 (around the age Luke Skywalker is in A New Hope). Anakin has been bumped up...
Some Things
The first format in which I’ll be writing this draft is not as a screenplay, or as a prose narrative, but as a loose treatment, a collection of scenes and notes, which I think will make it easier for people to envision without a whole lot of technical filmmaking jargon. A full script and storyboards will, of course, come later, but this first part is just me figuring out how I’m going...
Introduction and Mission Statement
I was twelve years old when the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace, premiered. This is an important thing to keep in mind when considering the rest of this project, because it means a few things. Firstly (and this is more important than it may seem at first, unless you’re also a life-long Star Wars fan, in which case this will make perfect sense), is that I was still young enough...
