Star Wars: One Death Star to Rule Them All (6 become 1) (* unfinished project *)

I decided a few days ago that it would be fun (although rather challenging) to attempt editing all 6 Star Wars films (it seems funny referring to AOTC and ROTS af ‘films’ when they were shot digitally 😃 into a single epic movie.

What I’m aiming for is to streamline them and cut out any fluff so as to come in around the 3 hour mark, keeping a “Highlander” style going with the OT as the main story and flashbacks containing the PT story.

Also, 2 Death Stars in one movie would be redundant, so if I can find a way to do it and still make sense, I’d like to have only one Death Star. Of course, this is where I hit a little snag as far as the plot goes. If I leave in the destruction of Alderaan, (and therefore remove any reference in Jedi to the DS not being operational) then why in Bob’s name would the DS go back to Endor and set up a shield around it? But on the other hand, if I cut out the Alderaan boom and leave it so the DS isn’t operational until the end, then how would it make sense for the Falcon to end up aboard the Ds for them to rescue Leia? Any suggestions or comments regarding this dilemma would be appreciated.

I’ll add more info and clips and such later as I progress.

Sounds like a good idea, although I think a linear 3-hour epic would be better.

Not easy to achieve, but interesting idea.

Yeah you would maybe have to create a special effects shot, in which the explosion after Luke's attack on DSI just destroys some parts of the death star. So what's left of DSI looks like DSII...

I was thinking that all the visuals would have to be edited and flipped so that Luke attacks DSII and fails but creates enough problems that Yavin is saved (as astromech described) and Lando and the fleet attack DS1.

Johnny Ringo said:

yes but it can't really appear to be the same DS - unless they decided to strip away a lot of the outer shell for some reason. The DS1 is complete when we see it, the DS 2 is not.

As far as that goes, it would be easy enough to replace any exterior shots of the DS1 with the DS2 (at least most of them) without recompositing anything.

The idea of the first attack only blowing up part of the DS and then going to Endor to make repairs also sounds interesting. I may have to look into that. I'd still rather just have 1 attack on the Death Star, at the very end, but I'm not sure if that will be possible.  (Unless maybe the DS leaves the safety of Endor temporarily to destroy Alderaan, and then goes back again)

This whole idea was something I toyed around with in the Starkiller Ranch thread.

If you really want to have ONLY ONE death star battle (and compress the movies down), here's a VERY ROUGH outline of what you could do with the OT:

1) Start out with regular ol' ANH.

2) Replace the DSI with DSII. The DS is not finished - it only has superlaser capabilities for now. It is shielded and in orbit over Endor (similar in a small way to Adywan's edit).

3) The DS conference will probably need to avoid any references to the DS being completed.

4) The DS leaves the protection of its shield to make an example of Alderaan.

5) In addition to deactivating the tractor beam, Ben sabotages the superlaser. (Maybe use some of the alternate/cut footage of Ben wondering around the DS, combined with one of the two switches Ben turns while deactivating the tractor beam. Notice how the tractor beam controls make the same sound as the superlaser controls that the DS gunners use.)

6) End ANH after the Falcon escapes into hyperspace and Tarkin and Vader discuss the tracking device.

7) Start ESB with the Imperial attack on Hoth. Hoth is the one and only hidden rebel base. The Imperials have tracked the rebels thanks to the tracking device on the Falcon. (The DS is not used since its superlaser is out of comission. Plus, since the Rebels have the DS plans, the imperials have become paranoid and overprotective.)

8) Show Luke training on Dagobah. The elevating X-Wing should come first. Next up, in the cave, the phantom Vader communicates that he is Luke's father. Then Luke parries and decapitates, seeing his own face. This is the last time we see Luke in ESB. He never leaves to rescue anybody because we...

9) End ESB after the Falcon floats away with the garbage. (In some way, the tracking device needs to be deactivated so that the falcon can get away.)

10) Start ROTJ with the emperor's arrival on the DS. The DS has returned to its shield over Endor for completion.

11) Cut to Luke's conversations with the dying Yoda. Han is never frozen, so we never get into the whole Jabba mess.

12)  Next is the Rebel briefing. Luke arrives from Dagobah. (The others haven't seen him since Hoth). Lando is obviously an old friend of Han's.

13) Movie ends as usual.

EDIT: I forgot to add, between 7 and 8, Ben needs to communicate to Luke that he should head to Dagobah. Maybe via voice only, while Luke is in his X-Wing leaving Hoth.

some cool ideas here.  I would love to see something come of all of this.  keep at it!!

Those are some great ideas. I'll have to do some hardcore pondering over them to figure things out. I was originally planning on cutting the reference to a homing beacon, and just having them escape the Death Star in ANH, flee to Hoth, and then be discovered by the probe droid.

Although the homing beacon could also be used as the reason the Imperials know they're going to Bespin, thus allowing me to disregard any and all bounty hunters if I did leave out Han being frozen.

So far I just have the first 40 min of ANH and 35 min of TPM condensed into about 35 min or thereabouts, so I'll have a little time before I get too much into that quagmire.

astromech said:

Perhaps intercut some of the ANH DS battle with the ROTJ DS battle...after all, it is supposed to be the mother of all battles - especially if you're fighting to destroy 'the ultimate power in the universe.' The DS conference does mention that 'until this station is fully operational, we are vunerable' so that might be enough of a rider to assume or imply that the DSII is, in fact, the same one as in ANH...?

Good idea. And I forgot about that "we are vulnerable" line.  That implies that not everything is finished, so they could still need the shield on Endor while the construction is completed, even if they take a hiatus to run off to Alderaan and blow it up. I'd just need to cut out the lines in Jedi stating the weapons aren't operational.

When do you think this will be released?

Too early to say right now. I'm hoping no more than a couple months. I'm kept pretty busy between work and my 1 1/2 year old daughter, but I've gotten through about 45 minutes of hopefully finished video.

I'm not doing anything too wild on the sound side: I'm not replacing much for music or anything (although since I'm doing my editing at night when the daughter's sleeping, the volume is kept kinda low on the puter so I'll need to sit down and watch the rough cut with the sound cranked to make sure there are no jarring audio jumps during any cuts)

Right now I have about 27 min of ANH (which I may need to trim a bit more if this gets too long) which then transitions into a flashback of TPM: I'm about halfway through TPM and have it cut down to around 20 min.

So far the opening crawl is gone (I could leave the one from ANH intact, but I really don't think it's necessary as all the story is explained within the films,) the trip to Otoh Gunga and the podrace are cut from TPM, along with most of Jar-Jar's antics (bet no one saw THAT coming.) I really do like TPM as a whole, but these parts just weren't important. I'll leave Anakin's involvement in the final battle of TPM intact to show that the force is truly with him and that he was already a great pilot (however he will not be saying "oops" - in my cut he knows what he's doing), but the Gungan involvement will be gone. It will be a battle in the city, and the pilots go to take out the Nemoidian ship. Also, Anakin is not a slave. He works in Watto's shop, and when the Jedi come to Tatooine they just happen to stop there, Anakin offers them shelter from the storm and, feeling his strength in the force, offer him a place among the Jedi. I wanted to cut either the podrace or the space battle at the end, and it seems to me the podrace is less important and it will be easier to remove.

I'm not sure exactly what from other movies will be cut yet, but I've made up my mind on the Death Star battle.

I want to post a clip soon showing the first part of the TPM flashback and its transition from ANH. I just need to convert and upload it.

(had a clip posted, but something went wrong, will repost later)

pittrek said:

OK I was playing some time ago that "what if Luke didn't destroy the Death Star, just damaged it and what if in E6 they were only repairing it ? ".

I'm curious to see your final product

 That sounds like a good and interesting idea; I'd probably try that if I was going for a trilogy or something like that.

However, since I'm aiming for just one movie in the end I only want one Death Star battle (otherwise it may seem redundant and also just too long of a movie.) I may use some of the awesome dogfight footage from Adywan's ANH Revisited as long as it doesn't look too out of place intercutting with ROTJ footage.

In a multiple movie setup a second DS battle makes sense, because if you have an awesome weapon of doom and it gets destroyed or damaged, what would you do? Look for flaws in the original design and then rebuild/repair it, of course! But that just doesn't fit with my aim in this particular project.

I briefly thought about skipping Alderaan altogether, but I couldn't think of any way to make it work.