Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 329

I have to agree with muddyknees2000 on this.

Leia remembers her mother because her mother died when she was old enough to remember her (something Lucas forgot), Yoda was the Jedi Master who instructed Obi-Wan not the induction tutor for all Jedi toddlers.

If the PT was altered to make them inline with the original direction laid down by the OT it would make the PT more plausible, less tidy.

Life isn't tidy.

Star Wars is fantasy but it has to follow certain narrative rules if it isn't going to collapse under the weight of it's own implausibility.

Yeah, what I'm trying to say though is that while I thought it was cool to think that Yoda trained Obi Wan, there is only one problem with the fact that Qui Gon trained Obi and that's that it contradicted an OT throwaway line. So I realize why that can be an irritating plot point, the thing is it's not really a bad plot point, when you look at it from a PT perspective, it's a good plot point. So why get rid of that plot point? (I also have to wonder if getting rid of it is even possible.) 

Same goes for Leia's mother dying. Yeah, before the ROTS I thought Leia knew her mother before she died. ROTS shat on that. But you know what? I don't care. Because Padme's death was actually fairly emotional and really helped that film in my opinion. In ROTJ, Leia's mother surviving is, again, just a throwaway line. I liked it before for the sole reason that it made me curious. But does it really add to the film? I don't think it does.

I'd agree with you if you were right... ;-D

it'd be  cool if Adywan somehow superimposed an image of Padme's face onto the queen of Alderaan.

I'd separate visual continuinty, and plot continuity. PT is a total mess in almost every way.

Visually I admit that has some great points, and it wouldn't bother me if some PT elements were re-introduced in the OT. Particularly some republic ships at endor, both for the Empire and the Rebels. Also, the city of Coruscant should have its place at the OT in my view too.

Plot wise, all the PT elements that don't match the OT are in disadvantage, mainly because they don't have a reason to be, leading to a conflict in which one cannon, PT or OT will have to dominate the other. Changing Shaw for Christensen symbolises the thriumph of PT against OT plot, because it means the introduction of a non OT plot element (the force ghost preserving their last "good" appearance) in the very core of the OT.

This said, there are other changes that need to be done to the PT to make the movie watchable and believable. If you want to make a movie believable, even if it has aliens and 1000 stores buildings, you have to make the characters likeable to allow the spectator to identify himself with at least one of them. It doesn't happen (at least to me) with not even one of them, except Palpatine who is the only one that seems to have more than two neurons. Strenghtening the characters doesn't necessarly have to be a process that also comprehends matching the OT plot wise, you can do A, B o AB. Personally I found the whole strenghtening of the character the pivotal point of a good PT fan edit.

It doesn't matter if ObiWan didn't do what he said he did back in the OT, what definetely matters to me is that ObiWan, the wise and tricky old man is the same man in the PT, that is what gives continuity to the saga; and not him being some stupid legalist jedi, pure shell and no content.

Greetings!

I've had a few thoughts on how to NOT kill off Padme AND keep the mystery of Vader's identity until EP V, AND keep the awesome funeral scene in ROTS. BUT before I lay them out here I'd just like to preface this by stating that this is NOT Ady's plan, its just a hypothetical reorganizing of scenes I've come up with. I don't know Ady's full plan for this yet....we're concentrated on ESB right now.

Ok, so, start with the Anakin VS Obi duel as usual. Obi wins, and leaves Anakin to burn. Cut the scenes of the emperor finding the torso formerly known as Anakin (perhaps leave his arrival in, but leave it ambiguous that Anakin is still alive) (or make strong suggestions that he is not...perhaps have Palpy just stand there looking dissapointed with what he sees)

Cut to a secondary plot line, shot, or scene (can you tell I don't remember the film much?)

Next you either have the birth, or the funeral.....if desired, one could skip the birth entirely...leaving even more secrecy and shock value to the later revelation that Luke & Leia are bro & sis. If the birth IS shown, then obviously cut out the death references.

Cut to more secondary stuff (this is just to allow for passage of time in the viewer's mind)

Now the funeral (and here it gets more complicated). The levitating bed with Padme's body on it would need to be reshot and re-inserted into the shots of it traveling down the walkway. Instead of Padme's body on the floating gurney, have some Jedi robes, possibly resembling Anakin's...or just a standard, more ceremonial, Jedi robe, and Anakin's lightsaber laying on top of it. Film a body double for Natalie Portman walking slowly behind the floaty body carrier thing and just overlay some appropriate Padme face...perhaps even her face from her funeral scene...tilted down, following solemly behind the robes and lightsaber of her dead lover. A tear could be animated running down her face (and this would be the last time we see her, leading very well (I think) into Leia's reference to her mother being sad). As for the lightsaber, you can either insert a shot of Obi picking it up, or leave it to the imagination because we clearly know that he does so as he later gifts it to Luke. Additionally this scene could either be left on Naboo (Anakin had no ties to his home planet after his mother died), OR could be moved to Coruscant...maybe more of a Jedi temple kind of setting or some such....

At some later point one could then show the knighting ceremony of Vader....who at this point would just be another random apprentice (as Palpy has had several already (though I would suggest removing Grievous as he's just bloody terrible....how you decide to replace Christopher Lee with a coughing CG robot is just a complete mystery to me). I don't have access to it at the moment, but I've posted the photo several times of Vader down on one knee, and Palpy force lifting Vader's helmet down onto his head. Personally I run the scene in my head with no real sound, only music...perhaps a muffled "Rise my new apprentice" line thrown into the background just to really sell the idea that this is just apprentice #whatever.

So theres the bulk of my idea. Obviously the scenes would need to be reordered in the film so that this all makes sense...but I think it would be easily achievable with little trouble...even the more difficult scenes are quite short, thereby requiring some greater work, but not much of it.

muddyknees2000 said:

I've had a few thoughts on how to NOT kill off Padme AND keep the mystery of Vader's identity until EP V, AND keep the awesome funeral scene in ROTS. BUT before I lay them out here I'd just like to preface this by stating that this is NOT Ady's plan, its just a hypothetical reorganizing of scenes I've come up with. I don't know Ady's full plan for this yet....we're concentrated on ESB right now.

Ok, so, start with the Anakin VS Obi duel as usual. Obi wins, and leaves Anakin to burn. Cut the scenes of the emperor finding the torso formerly known as Anakin (perhaps leave his arrival in, but leave it ambiguous that Anakin is still alive) (or make strong suggestions that he is not...perhaps have Palpy just stand there looking dissapointed with what he sees)

Cut to a secondary plot line, shot, or scene (can you tell I don't remember the film much?)

Next you either have the birth, or the funeral.....if desired, one could skip the birth entirely...leaving even more secrecy and shock value to the later revelation that Luke & Leia are bro & sis. If the birth IS shown, then obviously cut out the death references.

Cut to more secondary stuff (this is just to allow for passage of time in the viewer's mind)

Now the funeral (and here it gets more complicated). The levitating bed with Padme's body on it would need to be reshot and re-inserted into the shots of it traveling down the walkway. Instead of Padme's body on the floating gurney, have some Jedi robes, possibly resembling Anakin's...or just a standard, more ceremonial, Jedi robe, and Anakin's lightsaber laying on top of it. Film a body double for Natalie Portman walking slowly behind the floaty body carrier thing and just overlay some appropriate Padme face...perhaps even her face from her funeral scene...tilted down, following solemly behind the robes and lightsaber of her dead lover. A tear could be animated running down her face (and this would be the last time we see her, leading very well (I think) into Leia's reference to her mother being sad). As for the lightsaber, you can either insert a shot of Obi picking it up, or leave it to the imagination because we clearly know that he does so as he later gifts it to Luke. Additionally this scene could either be left on Naboo (Anakin had no ties to his home planet after his mother died), OR could be moved to Coruscant...maybe more of a Jedi temple kind of setting or some such....

At some later point one could then show the knighting ceremony of Vader....who at this point would just be another random apprentice (as Palpy has had several already (though I would suggest removing Grievous as he's just bloody terrible....how you decide to replace Christopher Lee with a coughing CG robot is just a complete mystery to me). I don't have access to it at the moment, but I've posted the photo several times of Vader down on one knee, and Palpy force lifting Vader's helmet down onto his head. Personally I run the scene in my head with no real sound, only music...perhaps a muffled "Rise my new apprentice" line thrown into the background just to really sell the idea that this is just apprentice #whatever.

So theres the bulk of my idea. Obviously the scenes would need to be reordered in the film so that this all makes sense...but I think it would be easily achievable with little trouble...even the more difficult scenes are quite short, thereby requiring some greater work, but not much of it.

I think it's a worthy idea.  I too would like some way to work in the shot that you suggest with the knighting of Vader.  Probably the biggest problem I see is that people would be too confused without any other reference to whoever this new guy is.  Somehow there would need to be allusions throughout the film that Palpatine may even have a backup apprentice, just in case.

It's more a Prequel idea thread thing and just about every idea has been tried out there.

I just think Leia's line should stay and PT editors should try to make sense of it rather than the other way around.

I've always liked the idea of Leia seeing her mother's ghost from childhood.

At the end of ROTJ we have a time/space montage showing the celebrations.

At the end of ROTS we could have a montage showing what happened to everyone including Padme dying when Leia is about 2 or 3 and still having her funeral.

Leia could see her mother's ghost like the little girl in Curse Of The Cat People.

It would be more meaningful whole saga wise to see Padme and Anakin reunited rather than Luke's teachers lining up (that's fine as the end of the OT but as the end of all six films not so much). 

darth_ender said:

Somehow there would need to be allusions throughout the film that Palpatine may even have a backup apprentice, just in case.

A great reason to remove the "Always 2 there are" line.......I hated that they limited themselves that way. Would have been much cooler if Vader, while not only wiping out the Jedi, also had to wipe out the Sith they happened to be fighting, or just other random Sith in different parts of the galaxy. Imagine a Jedi VS Sith lightsaber battle going on, and all of a sudden Vader shows up to carry out order 66. You'd have feeble alliances between Jedi & Sith while trying to defeat Vader.....then turning on eachother again when opportunity is sensed.....and of course Vader ultimately wins the day. Scenes of Vader killing other less powerful Sith in an effort to be the only one left (an early start on balancing the force)...etc etc....

Or have Sidious tell Nute Gunray, Darth Vader will be joining them before Palpatine has his run in with Mace (he gives Anakin his new name so he would probably know it before Anakin switches sides).

It can be done but only from the PT end which isn't really what this thread is for.

If I could just stay off for a little bit, I don't think "killing Anakin" is a good idea at all. I think it goes to the root of the prequel concept. If you make it seem like you've really killed Anakin, sure it would be a big twist that Vader is Luke father, but there will be two major problems.

One - "wait, what? Anakin was definitely dead. There's no way Vader's telling the truth. Well I guess I'll have to turn on ROTJ and find out what happened..... hmm, I just watched ROTJ and they didn't explain it at all. I'm very confused."

Two - one of the reasons why the twist in ESB was such a shocker was because we were lead to believe that Anakin was a great jedi. We desperately want Luke to be as good. Then we find out Anakin was not a good jedi, and we are completely blown away. But if we already knew that Anakin turned to the dark side, the twist is diluted.

My solution for these - fixing number one is simple. Show that Anakin turned into Vader! I think it should be shown in full in ROTS. But, and here is how this post is on topic, you could, if you wanted to, have a flashback to Anakin being saved and turned into Vader in ROTJ. 

My solution to number two - actually there isn't really one from an editing stand point. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution. I firmly believe the saga should be viewed 4-5-6-1-2-3 (though 4-5-1-2-3-6 works to). I think a prequel is intended to show what came before. These prequels were made to show how Anakin became Vader. If you take that out, there's not much of a point.

(And to just bring it back to Padme dying for a sec, what I'm trying to say is, why would you take one of the better aspects out of a film that you are trying to make better? When you could easily take out a small line from another film (a change that would not hurt that film I would like to point out)?

DominicCobb said:

...why would you take one of the better aspects out of a film that you are trying to make better? When you could easily take out a small line from another film...

Because the PT SHOULD have been made to fit with what came before it. Revisited is being made along that guideline....but not all edits have to follow that path.

The obvious thing would be to end Anakin's story with him taking a swing at with Palpatine or Mace (we never see which).

The audience can then assume he died defending Mace from the Sith Lord or begin to speculate as to the nature of the man behind the mask.

But as I said earlier this isn't something that can be fixed in ESB or ROTJ so maybe it should be moved to the Radical Prequel Redux Thread.

DominicCobb said:

 

One - "wait, what? Anakin was definitely dead. There's no way Vader's telling the truth. Well I guess I'll have to turn on ROTJ and find out what happened..... hmm, I just watched ROTJ and they didn't explain it at all. I'm very confused."

My solution for these - fixing number one is simple. Show that Anakin turned into Vader! I think it should be shown in full in ROTS. But, and here is how this post is on topic, you could, if you wanted to, have a flashback to Anakin being saved and turned into Vader in ROTJ.

I would almost say have the ROTS "flashback" of anakin becoming vader happen during Empire... the "search your feelings you know it to be true" line then luke gets hit with the vision of him transforming, and doesn't want to believe it..... then both luke and the audience questions if vader is the one putting the images in his head... but ultimately can believe and be shocked that it is the truth.

Nah because you are supposed to think Vader is playing with Luke's noodles.

Luke (and therefore the audience) should only know for sure that Vader is Anakin on Yoda's deathbed which in my opinion should be turned and laid upon before Luke goes to Tatooine and not after.

What Bingo said.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but it would be great to somehow have Luke doubt the future of the Jedi, now knowing the truth of his heritage. An ending where he decides to bury his lightsaber, and trust the galaxy to continue without the Jedi or Sith might be interesting.

For single trilogy/non-definitive, one off edit, flashbacks in ROTJ could be interesting to explore aswell. Generally ROTJ edits leave it quite lean at 1.30 or less, so maybe this could bulk it up.

Luke being the final Jedi/Sith and burying both has a lot going for it.

Palpatine in ROTS makes a big thing about people in power not wanting to give it up (the power not the funk).

Luke could bring true balance to the Force by putting it away, losing it rather than abusing it.

Maybe not tossing the sabre into the fire, that would suggest giving up. Burying a sabre in the dirt (yoda's green bladed crystal, and a pyre on tatooine), would suggest something completely different. Maybe finishing what Yoda should have done years before. The prequels should set up this great mistake the Jedi made. Rivalry and infighting (EP1), Rogue Dooku (EP2), creating Vader (EP3) etc.

Palpatine's speech could link brilliantly. Would be great if it that theme could be brought back into ROTJ more.

The Last of the Jedi thing might also tie in with Kurtz's original idea for Luke going it alone after 6. Maybe just leaving the galaxy behind. He suggested episodes 7-9 would concern Luke's relationship with his 'sister' (not Leia!).

What if by this point, years and years later, the force potent sister (or perhaps the sister's child) is running wild with powers she cannot control, maybe as a dangerous self educated Jedi to combat a new threat. Luke reluctantly comes out of retirement, much like Obi-wan, to train her and passes on his sabre to her to start the order afresh.... Dark Knight Skywalker Rises.