Just wanted to bump this thread back up a bit.

I am reading  the new Rinzler book and quite honestly I can't stop thinking about this edit while reading the book.  So much of what they got wrong, well, we all got to see it.  Your fanedit has gone a long way to restoring this movie to something that actually fits in the OT and I actually enjoy watching this movie now.

It is interesting to read how a lot of people at the preproduction phase are pretty much WTF about the ewoks.  Love it that McQuarrie basically said, I'm not abeting this by making art of it and left the work to others.

I am a huge David Lynch fan and I am actually happy that he didn't direct this.  Lucas had a way that he wanted to go with this and hell or high water that was going to happen - cute and Ewoks.  I keep reading the book and it blows me away that as smart as he is that he can't reconcile the serious nature of a movie where a man essentially is told the solution to the universe's problems is to murder his father and his father's boss and the rest of what he did.  Here, let's have a belching toad thinger.  It's not yin and yang, it's two north poles pushing against each other.

I was delighted to read that they considered Peter Weir as I am a huge fan of his film Fearless.  Also am glad that he didn't work on this as his movies tend to be about the interior landscapes of his protagonists and while that would have served the Luke story exceptionally well again the clash with the Ewoks would have eviscerated anything that Mr. Weir's talent brought to the production to elevate it to the quality of say TESB.

Thanks again for your edit. If you ever tinker with it more I'd really like links.  There is only one thing that I would change with your last iteration but it's something that I know you feel strongly about not including as much as possible.

Great post.

I didn't know about Peter Weir being in the running - he would have been a great choice. He's a massively underrated director, IMO, who seems capable of making pretty much any kind of movie he puts his mind to.

Of course Lucas probably didn't want a talented free thinking director after what happened with Kershner.

If/when I make any further changes (I have a list of about 20 things to try out from Bingowings alone) I'll let you know.