1. The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Could Have Made More Of An Attempt To Tie Into The Original Trilogy
And so we come to the obvious choice. In an article talking about how movie franchises could have been so much better, Star Wars has to take the number one spot. On the face of it, it was such an easy task, Start with the Republic and Jedi in power. End with Palpatine and the Empire in power. Meet Luke and Leia's mum. Show Anakin falling to the dark side. And throw in Obi Wan Kenobi failing. Across three films there was more than enough time to hit those big plot points. Also, there were a couple of key references from the original trilogy that needed to be met: 1) When Obi Wan met first met Anakin, he was a great pilot (the best star pilot in the galaxy) 2) Leia remembers her mother. The first mistake was the entirety of of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Don't get me wrong. There was some good stuff. Liam Neeson's Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul, but starting Anakin's journey as annoying child meant that they had to rush the Padme / Anakin romance in the second film (Han and Leia got to have sparks flying from their first moment in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). It also meant that the Clone Wars, and the big moments got squished into two films. If anything the first film's sole purpose was to show the universe pre-Empire. Well, a few carefully crafted scenes would have been sufficient, allowing for a better paced three-film story that dealt with the rise of the Clones, Palpatine and the fall of the Republic. Also, Anakin was a slave child when Obi-Wan met him. Hardly a great pilot (pod racing skills aside - remember Obi Wan saw nothing of his (frankly ridiculous) antics in space in the final act of Phantom Menace. - it only adds to the raving lunacy of his meanderings (or lies) to Luke in A New Hope. That other key fact - Leia remembering Padme was a beautiful moment in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi. The fact that Padme dies straight after her birth absolutely ruins that moment in Jedi. Why George Lucas chose to ignore that baffles me. But there are so many more idiotic mistakes, Anaking building C3PO. R2D2 being MORE advanced in the prequel trilogy. Obi Wan not 'remembering' the droids. There are a whole host of actions in the prequel trilogy that seem to go out of their way to contradict what happened in episodes VI-VI (Check out this
article from fellow WhatCulture writer Alex Leadbeater for more of the mistakes the prequel trilogy made). Personally, I think we should have started with Anakin as an adult, meeting Padme (saving her life) and starting his training with Obi Wan. End the first film with the start of the Clone Wars. Spend the second film building the Anakin / Padme romance (AND GET A BETTER ACTOR) and then deal with the fall out and Anakin's fall to the dark side in the third. Finally George Lucas should have scoured his own films for every pre-A New Hope reference and made sure the story he created fit with what was said. It isn't difficult. But that's why though George Lucas has brilliant concepts, he just fails on the script front (and directing, casting, reliance on CGI for that matter!) The Star Wars prequels could have been amazing. Instead we're left with great little moments in a mess of continuity and special effects. I have high hopes for Episode VII. Am I building myself up for a fall? Perhaps. But it HAS to be better than the prequels...surely?
So there you have it. 12 movie franchises that, for one reason or another, made big miss-steps. And could have been so much better. Take a look at the image above. That's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. You know what it is, aside from a show that was great and cancelled way before it's time? It's also what Terminator 3 should have been. And somewhere, in an alternate reality, Sam Raimi's Spiderman saga went out on a high, the Scream trilogy went out with a tragic bang while the Jurassic Park franchise went from strength to strength. Unbreakable and The Incredibles had amazing sequels. The Star Trek: The Next Generation crew had one more last hurrah, teaming up with the crews of Deep Space Nine and Voyager to make a film as great as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was for the crew of the original Enterprise. Bryan Singer finished his X Men trilogy in style with a fantastic portrayal of the Phoenix saga, making it the best superhero trilogy along with Burton's Batman trilogy. Linda Hamilton made a welcome return in a dark, edgy Terminator 3 and the aliens finally came to Earth in Alien(s) 3. And while George Lazenby proved himself as Bond in the revenge sequel Diamonds Are Forever, the fans got everything they wanted and more in three spectacular Star Wars prequels. And thinking of all that, does that make you a little depressed? I sure am. And if you want to add to the misery, please feel free to add your own alternate film franchises to the comments below!