About 4 years too late to be relevant, but Connor has watched the "Clone Wars" animated movie recently and it's stirred up the mud.
10. Don't try to be scientific. This is Star Wars, not Star Trek. There is absolutely no reason to have midichlorians; the Jedi can simply sense when one is really, really strong with the Force. Anakin should draw the attention of the Force-sensitive like a lighthouse, which should cause the Jedi to question: even with him living on a backwater like Tatooine, how did we miss this kid? Answer: the Sith were cloaking his presence (again, no need to go into details of how, it's just something the Sith can do).
9. The movies need to stand on their own. When watching Episodes 4-6, it was clear there was a larger story with lots of details we weren't seeing ("that bounty hunter we ran into at Ord Mantell changed my mind"), but everything we needed to understand character motivations within the movies was provided within the movies. Reading the ancillary material should only be necessary to get your fix, not to understand why Dooku particularly dislikes Anakin, or why Anakin mistrusts Master Windu (and see below).
8. Less stupid sidekicks; more Mace Windu. If, god help us, the Gungans are really necessary, don't refer to them as "primitives" when they have forcefield technology that allows a living being through while keeping the water out.
7. Make the Jedi/Sith philosophies more coherent. The kernels are there, but the "only 2 Sith" rule is weak at best as currently explained, and the "Jedi cannot love/marry" rule is a nonsensical plot contrivance at best. If lamas can marry and still try to achieve Nirvana, why can't Jedi? If you want a reason why Padme doesn't want her marriage known to the world, make it that all Jedi spouses are kept on the Jedi planet for safekeeping so that they can't be taken hostage. Padme doesn't want that, so she refuses to "officially" marry Anakin. Anakin can of course take this the wrong way and believes the real reason she doesn't want to officially marry him is because she doesn't really love him and is hoping for someone better to come along (or around, see below).
6. Sorry, George, you can't write. Lucas has wonderful ideas, but needed to hire a scriptwriter with experience in political thriller/intrigue movies so the dialogue doesn't fall flat. In fact, before that, hire a novelist in advance to smooth out the rough patches in the plotting. Terry Brooks did a great job with the novelization of Episode 1; is there any reason he couldn't have done that in 1995?
5. Introduce the droids in a sensible manner. Anakin is a slave boy grease monkey, so naturally in his spare time he builds... a protocol droid?! What?! Please, if Anakin is going to build one of the droids, let it be one that actually makes sense for him to want to build, like an astromech droid! Padme is the queen of Naboo. It's easy to introduce C3PO as part of her entourage to Coruscant. And that way you save us some of the embarrassment of Anakin not recognizing C3PO on Bespin -- "Hey, isn't that the droid I *built* who was one of the *witnesses* at my illicit wedding and was always hanging around my long-dead wife?" Even after 18 years, I think he'd remember Threepio. Anakin never sees R2D2 in Episodes 4-6, except through the crosshairs of his TIE Fighter gunsights.
4. Steal even more from Empire Strikes Back. ESB has a split middle section with the action alternating between Luke training on Dagobah (relatively mild action-wise but important to setting the table for his confrontations with Vader) and Han and Leia being chased by the Empire and realizing that they love one another (sniping at each other the whole time in wonderful fashion). Attack of the Clones has a split middle section with the action alternating between Obi-Wan doing some detective work (important to advancing the plot) and Anakin and Padme gadding about on Naboo and finally realizing they love one another, topped by Anakin faking his own death by trampling as a show of his affection. Uh, say what? Look, Anakin and Padme go off on their little vacation to Naboo because of fears for Padme's safety. Instead of having them spend the whole time on Naboo with nothing to do, let them get chased across the galaxy by would-be assassins, let them save each other a couple of times (sniping at each other the whole way in true Star Wars fashion), and finally realize they love one another! The scenes on Tatooine could then be a necessary stop for ship repairs *on the way* to Naboo instead of... whatever it ended up being.
3. One less Darth. I hate to say it because Darth Maul looked cool, but the character was ultimately frustrating because he dies before we know anything about him. Dooku (suitably masked) could be the "mystery Sith" in Episode I; he'd fight Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on Naboo because Qui-Gon openly defies the Jedi Council and plans to train Anakin (see below). Episodes I-II then become at least partly about Dooku's fall and presage Anakin's fall. Have Dooku kill him off and try to turn Obi-Wan to the Dark Side (for the first time, and keep trying).
2. Introduce important characters sooner. Dooku's past includes a stint on the Jedi Council, and he doesn't like Anakin, so he should definitely have been on the Council during Episode I and speaking eloquently in favor of having Anakin not be trained as a Jedi! (see "Hire a novelist to smooth out the plotting" above... and more Christopher Lee never hurts, either. He actually knows how to hold a sword.) Likewise, whatever is inside General Grievous needs to be introduced in Episode II at the latest. You can't be telling us about these characters for the first time in the title text; that only worked in Episode 4 when we didn't know *anything* going in (see "Movies must stand on their own" above).
1. Give Anakin a believable reason to turn. Let me get this straight: he's afraid that Padme will die in childbirth in a society that has medical technology that can replace his arm, and so when he implicates himself in the death of Mace Windu, the next semi-logical step is to murder all the children at Jedi school. Hunh? Let's try again:
a. the Jedi Council never takes a shine to Anakin and do not allow Ben to take him on as a Padawan (see "Dooku speaking against it" above) at the end of Episode 1 -- Anakin is not to be trained as a Jedi, and will instead be sent to a Jedi-controlled planet to receive training in meditation to control his anger (this is effectively a prison sentence). Obi-Wan pleads Anakin's case and they eventually allow Obi-Wan to take on Anakin as a valet/pilot, and Obi-Wan will take personal charge of Anakin's meditation training. Of course, he secretly teaches Anakin everything, and their "cover" is blown sometime in Episode 2 when Anakin has to save someone important (say Palpatine, in an event staged by Palpatine) in a gratuitous display of his prowess. The Council is angry with Obi-Wan, but are in need of Jedi with Anakin's talents to fight the Clone Wars, so he is allowed to continue under Obi-Wan's supervision but is *never* officially recognized as a Jedi Knight. Anakin has real reason to mistrust the Jedi Council, and Palpatine works this in Episodes II and III. Obi-Wan's statements about "thinking he could do just as well as Yoda" in training Anakin then also make more sense -- right now, the Council consents to Obi-Wan training Anakin.
b. in Episode I, Ben and Padme have a natural kinship and become good friends who are always able to talk to each other (in general, Ben should have a way with people of all walks of life; we get tastes of this in Episode II when they go into the seedy bar and later when he visits the diner, but it's not developed further). We see that there is no sexual element to the relationship; they're just really good friends, but in Episode II Anakin is jealous of the easy way Ben communicates with Padme, in contrast to his own fumblings. Palpatine works the jealousy angle hard in Episodes II and III, until Anakin is paranoid that the twins might be Ben's, and confronts Padme with, "You love him, don't you?" but of course with much darker undertones than Han's question of Leia in Episode 6.
