What if Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was really, really good?

Forget Remake The Last Jedi. There was a time for fans when The Phantom Menace was the biggest Star Wars letdown of all time. What if it was remade? Belated Media’s Michael Barryte did just that…sort of.

One thing we know and can agree on is that Star Wars is everywhere. And, not just limited to big screens and home theaters. Open Twitter and watch bloated opinions invade your feed from the quiet vacuum of space. Walk through a Barnes & Noble or a local bookshop and try not to see the smattering of titles with Star Wars slapped on book covers faster than lumberjacks can decimate the forests to make them. Or, stroll through your regular ol’ department store and lose count of how many lunch boxes and book bags are imprinted with visages of Rey, Darth Maul or Clone Wars Anakin wielding his blue light saber.

It’s always been there, whether you like it or not, outlasting the longevity of the Grateful Dead, even if it could never dream to beat Keith Richards’ eternal lifespan. It may seem like some old man spouting off, misremembering the old days but there was a time when we thought Star Wars was finished, the first time – at least, cinematically.

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So, it’s also easy to forget the anticipation when the prequel trilogy was announced in 1994, the swell of the hype machine hit levels never seen on earth pushed upward and onward by the blitzkrieg of commercials and merchandising that would make Lucasfilm a bazillion dollars before even a single ticket sold.

The most anticipated film of all-time never had a chance to live up to its impossible expectations, but even taking all that into consideration, fans were still left with a film Peter Travers of Rolling Stone explained in his review, “The actors are wallpaper, the jokes are juvenile, there’s no romance, and the dialogue lands with the thud of a computer-instruction manual.”

But this isn’t about whether we were disappointed by the prequels (most people alive for the original trilogy were), it’s about one person, Michael Barryte of Belated Media, and his quest to make the prequels more cohesive, smart and as he says in the video, “really good.”

Barryte takes it from the perspective of an executive, helping guide Lucas and keep him on course – something Lucas never worried much about, surrounding himself with yes men and wielding the same amount of power over the studio as Palpatine over the Senate. In Barryte’s take, we ditch the fan service like Anakin building C3PO because it makes zero sense by the time we reach the OT. Ridding us of questions such as why doesn’t Vader recognize the droid in Empire Strikes Back?

Some of the minor changes help, trading away Jar Jar Binks and poop jokes and making Anakin an older, more sheepish teen, his psyche fragile from years served as a slave. But, the true impact, would be changing the meandering focus of the film that shifts from Qui-Gon to 10-year-old Anakin in Lucas’ version, and placing the story straight on the shoulders of Obi Wan.

Photo Credit: [Star Wars: The Phantom Menace] LucasfilmDon’t misunderstand, Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon and McGregor’s Obi-Wan are bright spots in the film but too much emphasis and pressure is placed on Jake Lloyd, who was in no position to carry a film weighed down by super-fan expectations. Telling the story through Obi-Wan and making him a young, headstrong padawan craving adventure gives the plot a focal point to bounce off. It also, again, lends cohesiveness to the OT when Alec Guinness’ version of Obi-Wan tells Yoda that he wasn’t much different than Luke.

Barryte also suggests correcting what might’ve been the greatest tragedy of The Phantom Menace: killing Darth Maul. Lucas, obviously, realized this, after the fact, by retconning the death in The Clone Wars animated series but for the rest of Barryte’s trilogy, Maul and Obi-Wan will form a bitter feud that pushes the characters in a new surprising way. Craving revenge on Maul for Qui-Gon’s death also gives an interesting angle for Obi-Wan, a possible future path to the darkside.

Some other changes suggested include Palpatine being a liaison between the Senate and The Jedi, being the perfect place to craft his Machiavellian twists and turns. Anakin is brought to the Jedi Temple before the fight on Naboo and Yoda is just a name not to be seen yet. There’s also a mild flirtation between Padme and Obi-Wan, which could be used to set up the fallout with Anakin in the follow-up films.

The updates change the whole demeanor of the prequels and offer a more streamlined story with character development in the forefront. Maybe we are giving Barryte too much credit, though. After all, he had a little over a decade to come up with a story that fits and flows with the originals. Remember, George Lucas only had…wait..sixteen years to get it right.