The Phantom Menace sucks. We all know it. It was such a disappointment. But the thing is, I think that you could make the movie a lot better with one change and it’s not just get rid of Jar-Jar.

The actual answer is to simply age Anakin up. There’s no reason for him to be a small child and in fact, it makes him a lot more sympathetic to do so.

Okay, so the movie starts as it normally does, invasion of Naboo and everyone flees on the shiny ship. But as the ship is whipping through space and being saved by R2-D2, no one knows who the pilot is but they know he’s very good.

The door opens and a handsome, smiling young man enters the room. It’s Anakin. He’s carefree, he’s joyful and he loves what he does. You can still have the scene where Padme can’t sleep and she speaks with him. He can ask her if she’s an angel and he can talk about how much he loves being out here. How they’re returning to the place that he hates. She says that if she helps him retake her planet, she’ll find a way to free his mother. Suddenly, he has emotional investment.

When we get to Tattooine, Anakin reunites with his mother. He brings up that he has gotten closer to buying her freedom. Watto can still stiff them for the part and he says he’s willing to get back into the podracer to win the part. That’s how he won his freedom the last time but it nearly cost him his life. He survives and he has to leave again.

The rest of the movie plays out the same way with them realizing that he’s powerful with the force and they save Naboo. He has to leave Padme and his mother behind to do the job of becoming a Jedi.

The thing is that having him already grown with his own opinions that are hardwired into him, makes a lot more sense for his eventual fall. Especially if you do something like have him having never killed anyone before. Death comes pretty quickly in the Star Wars universe. Luke kills stormtroopers in the first movie and doesn’t bat an eye at it. It would be interesting to have Anakin be a kind hearted person that doesn’t like violence. He’s suddenly thrust into this world that he doesn’t understand why he has to harm people.

His journey to becoming Darth Vader can become that he wants to end suffering in the galaxy. That he wants to make sure no one can be harmed again. It’ll become a bigger part of him when he has the visions of Padme dying in childbirth. You could also use the idea that Jedi are violent by being the thing he’s trained the most in.

Having him be a child, it just doesn’t make any sense. You can have him be innocent but it turns him into something other than precocious. It makes him annoying. Plus, child actors, for the most part are not that good. It’s like in the Ender’s Game movie where you have to have Ender react to finding out that he killed a whole race. He couldn’t act it out that well because no one could act that out.

Also you have a ten year old hitting on a fourteen year old and it’s so weird. Age him up and they become equals.

You could also play more into the Han and Leia thing. Making him a dashing young pilot, then there could be a thing that oh like mother like daughter when it comes to the men they like.