Here’s the alternate structure I posted in Ady’s thread:
Ideally, for me, the sequence of events would be:
- Opening crawl, establishing that Luke is finishing his training while Leia and Lando make plans for Han’s rescue upon Luke’s return.
- Vader arrives at DS2, meets Jerjerrod.
- Leia as Boushh sells Chewbacca; edit out Threepio or recolor and redub him.
- Luke and Yoda; Yoda dies.
- Leia rescues Han and is captured herself; Han in jail with Chewie
- Luke and Ben convo, probably shortened; Luke leaves Dagobah
- The Emperor arrives at DS2
- Reinstate deleted scene of Vader communicating with Luke and Luke building his lightsaber
- Droids go to Jabba’s, deliver Luke’s message (shortened, add Leia reactions, no “favorite decoration” Han on the wall)
- Droids conscripted into Jabba’s service
- Luke arrives at Jabba’s
And the rest of the sequence of events play out more or less as normal.
I also like the proposed idea of moving the Luke/Ben convo to Endor, which might help with the pacing here.
But the big problem with all of this for me is the rebel briefing scene. I’ll play around with that a little this weekend when I do my half-assed proof-of-concept cut.