Originally Posted by
Totoro Man
everything about it was handled so poorly that just about ANYTHING different would have been an improvement.
in real life, the age difference is frequently a big deal - especially as it seems like with young adults they can perceive even a slight age gap as being significant. and, in some cases, it IS a tremendously big deal from a legal standpoint. if somebody is 19 and they get romantically involved with somebody who is 14 then.... yeah, there could be issues if they do anything against the law.
perhaps the bigger problem is that nobody else in the universe appears to have noticed what was going on. I mean, I guess you could argue that Obi Wan kept it a secret - but mostly he appears to have been completely oblivious.
honestly, I would have kept Anakin's mother around longer. instead of having him kill the younglings maybe Palpatine convinces him that he has to murder his own mother... or something. killing off a bunch of nameless kids just didn't seem that bad compared to how casually Jedi and Sith kill people in other contexts. you had no reason to really care about the kids apart from the fact that they were, y'know, just little kids.
make Qui Gon Jin into Anakin's biological father: it improves the story, gets rid of a lot of prep-work and set-up.... it would have been simpler if Qui Gon Jin forsook the Jedi order because he married Shmi and that Anakin is his child.
Qui Gonn doesn't want Anakin to become a jedi. however, Anakin finds it appealing, and one of Qui Gon's former students, Obi Wan, sees potential in young Anakin. to make matters worse, Qui Gonn belives that Anakin is tempermentally unsuited to be a Jedi: he has too much ambition and has trouble controlling his emotions. so the former teacher and student are in a debate over the future of the child. (Anakin and Padme could both be older teenagers... or, heck, just make their age on screen the age of the actors playing them. it's not really a huge deal)
so, er, moving on... Count Dooku, a former comrade of Qui Gon, has also secretly forsaken the order, but stays involved because he sees the promising young Anakin as a new Sith acolyte. Dooku has his apprentice, Darth Maul, kill Qui Gonn in hopes of compelling Anakin to join the order... knowing that respect for his father was the only thing holding Anakin back from joining.
save the Palpatine was the REAL Sith Lord for much, much later in the film. the fact that Dooku also had an apprentice and has been secretly trying to murder Palpatine (his secret master) the whole time could help explain why there is that silly "Rule of Two" thing to begin with.
yes, I realize that doesn't immediately touch upon the whole romance thing directly - but at least it would set up some more interesting conflict/character dynamics. Shmi could be upset that the Sith murdered Qui Gon and wants Anakin to avenge his father's death... but that very fact goes against Jedi principles... so lots of Jedi really, REALLY don't trust Anakin. Dooku, fully aware of this conflict, uses that to bring out the Dark Side in young Anakin in a way that Qui Gon had always feared would come true.
it also sets up how Obi Wan seriously thinks that he can teach Anakin - but that he naively supposes that there aren't other people in the Jedi order who are working against him. Dooku revealing that he's a Sith traitor could be saved for the second film... and it might be in that film where Anakin finally gets to kill Darth Maul.
eh, I know, it's not all about romance... but I feel like these sorts of romantic relationships never exist in a vacuum. maybe Shmi wants Anakin to avenge his father, her husband's death, but Padme is opposed to it. maybe Palpatine convinces Anakin that Shmi is the one standing in the way of him developing into a more powerful Force user.
I dunno… I'm just throwing random crap out there, but I think ANYTHING would have been an improvement over the "romance" story that we were actually given.