logo Sign In

The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 272

Author
Time

Transfer all of Anakin’s anger from Obi-Wan to Mace Windu. For instance, his response to Padme’s “you are more mature now” could easily be edited to “Master Windu manages not to see it”. Cut his rant. This could tie with Windu’s distrust of Anakin in the first film, and would pay off when he gets his hand chopped off. This way you can retain a good friendship with Obi-Wan and frustration with the Council.

Caligula’expanded OST, V2 Released
The Shining’s complete OST
Ghidorah, The Tree-Headed Monster (English dub synched to Toho cut)

Author
Time

IsanRido said:

Transfer all of Anakin’s anger from Obi-Wan to Mace Windu. For instance, his response to Padme’s “you are more mature now” could easily be edited to “Master Windu manages not to see it”. Cut his rant. This could tie with Windu’s distrust of Anakin in the first film, and would pay off when he gets his hand chopped off. This way you can retain a good friendship with Obi-Wan and frustration with the Council.

Very good idea, actually. If you consider TCW to be canon, Anakin has even more reason to dislike Windu.

Author
Time

IsanRido said:

Transfer all of Anakin’s anger from Obi-Wan to Mace Windu. For instance, his response to Padme’s “you are more mature now” could easily be edited to “Master Windu manages not to see it”. Cut his rant. This could tie with Windu’s distrust of Anakin in the first film, and would pay off when he gets his hand chopped off. This way you can retain a good friendship with Obi-Wan and frustration with the Council.

Good example of the line change there, I like it!

Prequel Fan-Edit thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Yet-another-series-of-prequel-edits/id/17329

Author
Time

I really wish it would’ve been done that way. Anakin should be critical of the Jedi. It would’ve been great if Anakin would’ve tried to bring Obi Wan over to the dark side, and when he saw his friend and master wouldn’t leave them, the duel begins. It shouldn’t have been a “I murder children now”. I never got that vibe from Vader in the original trilogy. He felt dignified, even if he was a “bad guy”. Instead, AOTC and ROTS both paint their relationship as rocky. I never once felt like I was watching friends. Hell, Luke and Han don’t share that much screen time together, in all 3 films together…but we know they are friends. We get that vibe from them. Obi Wan and Anakin, not so much.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

Author
Time

An old member named SSWR had some similar ideas years ago - trying to turn Mace Windu into a sort of Snape character, who was a sort of tragic hero. Sadly he closed his youtube account a while back so some of his videos are lost - but there are some here -

AOTC COUNCIL
ROTS WINDU
ROTS ANAKIN’S TURN

A lot was achieved with adding different context to various head turns and grumpy expressions. He had a bunch of other videos, including a brilliant ending to ROTS that was never recovered.

Author
Time

I really miss SSWR and the idea of putting Anakin’s main gripes with Windu is a great idea.

Author
Time

ben_danger said:

He had a bunch of other videos, including a brilliant ending to ROTS that was never recovered.

Just curious ben_danger, but can you describe a rough idea of what he came up with for his ending at the time?

Author
Time

It wouldn’t be hard to re-edit.

As far as I remember -

  • Mustafar duel ends when the gantry collapses, Obi Wan rises to his feet on the lava bank, and just observes Anakin’s burnt crushed body under the gantry wreckage as he walks away.
  • Padme gives birth on Alderaan - but you only see one child.
  • Obi-Wan reluctantly takes the child (I think it was implied he was stealing him), and flies away into space in Grevious’ fighter.

And that’s it - open ended ending. It felt like an actual film, instead of a prequel spoon feeding the audience into IV.

Author
Time

That sounds pretty awesome. I’m really not a fan of edits that remove Darth Vader’s “construction”, as I’ve never seen one that does it in a way where it isn’t still painfully obvious it’s Anakin in the OT, so I’d personally keep that in, but I’d still like to see somebody resurrect that edit idea.

Author
Time

My issue with the construction, is its placement in the film. Other Star Wars films don’t really have ‘destination’ endings like ROTS does - they just conclude the plots of their individual movie, and we have the set up for the following film in the crawl.

It does just come down to what agenda you want you perfect PT to have. For me, I’d like equally ambiguous sequential films that run I-VI, and just pretend they were planned and made in that order. ROTS in reality was created with the Vader payoff in mind.

Author
Time

I don’t know. I guess my problem with removing it is just that it’s a cool scene that’s usually just removed for the sake of trying to preserve the reveal that Vader is Anakin, rather than to actually make ROTS better on its own, but it never really works anyways, since Ben’s dialogue in ANH makes it painfully obvious.

I do see what you’re saying about the ambiguous endings though. It is pretty much the only episodic film that ends in a really obvious shoehorned set up for the next film. Maybe one could leave it so it seems as though Anakin dies, then later (after the twins are born or something) cut back to the Emperor’s ship landing on Mustafar and that close up shot of his robotic hand crawling out of the lava. I think that could be a cool way of alluding to the future without being so ham-fisted with the “birth of vader”.

Author
Time

The crawling hand almost has ‘post-credits’ scene potential really. If an editor was to explore that.

Author
Time

Rogue One had a lot of great imagery that could be pulled from for a prequel edit. I made a mockup of what I think would be a more fitting duel location for ROTS, which would still be able to have the lava injury.

Done rather quickly, but you get the point. I also changed Vader’s saber to red, because he’s a proper sith at that point.
Duel

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Rewatching the duel from ROTS I’ve got an idea of how I would have it play out. Keep in mind I suck at editing, so this is only an idea.

-Duel is much shorter and dialogue is at an absolute minimum
-Anakin has a red saber
-Anakin hardly has any lines, it works better if he says less. He’s got an expressive enough face.
-Music would be replaced…hang me. I love the music from the duel, but I’d like to see the duel with less fanfare. Perhaps even no music. Could be similar to the Empire duel, in that there would be certain cues scattered throughout the sounds of droning machines and wind.
-Obi Wan cuts Anakin legs off, he falls out of frame into the pit scene above.
-Obi Wan says his “You were my brother, I loved you” line and leaves defeated
-We don’t see Anakin after he falls. As far as we are concerned Anakin is dead.
-No Palpatine retrieval scene. No Vader suit scene. No Death Star reveal.
-No Padme death scene. I’d even leave the fate of Luke and Leia ambiguous. We’ll find out their fates in the good films.
-Perhaps end with the birth. Play a music cue (Princess Leia Theme from Star Wars, Brother and Sister from ROTJ" from the OT to end on a positive note. Cut Yoda going to Dagobah. Cut Obi Wan delivering Luke. Less seen, less ruined.
-That way Leia can still kind of remember her mother.

I might come up with other ideas if I watch it again. I just got a quick refresher on Youtube.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

Author
Time

I think if you’re going to have Padme give birth, it should be Luke she gives birth only in ROTS, then edit it to where we see Yoda, Bail and Obi-wan sitting down talking, but have them mention just the boy.

If you wanted too, you could do a flashback to Padme giving birth to Leia, when Luke finds out from Obi-wan that Leia is his sister, with a voice over by Sir Alec Guinness.

[Showing Leia being born] "The other, Yoda spoke of, is your twin sister…to protect you both from the Emperor…you were hidden… [showing Bail Organa with his wife on Alderaan.] “That’s why your sister remains safely anonymous.”

I also wouldn’t show her death in ROTS, I would have left her in a coma and sent her to Alderaan with Bail Organa and Leia. She could be like sleeping beauty in a chamber and her daughter could see her, but that’s it.

I would like to see somebody do this in a edit for Return of the Jedi, or at least just that scene.

Author
Time

Well%2C if I was going by a definitive version of the saga%2C I wouldn%27t have Leia be Luke%27s sister at all. It felt like a cheap moment for George to be like %22Oh%2C you liked the twist of Darth Vader being Luke%27s dad%3F…ummmmmm Oh yeah%2C Leia%27s his sister%21%21%22 %0D%0A%0D%0AI just think Vader would%27ve seen something in Leia. Luke was a given%2C because he had his name. I don%27t think Leia was intended to be his sister.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

Author
Time
 (Edited)

No in several places you could use imagery My only beef with Rogue One was the fact that the movie didnt let me care it was still a very well shot movie

forgive my grammar I cannot use punctuation

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

Author
Time

Bingowings said:

Yoda isn’t interested in Luke confronting Vader as a military target.
He wan’ts Luke to confront his fear and conquer it. His fear is he will become Vader and he almost does by following Ben’s line of thinking. Instead (going by the sequels) he becomes Ben which is a bit of a shame.

Again, what does that mean? If he’s just confronting his fear of becoming Vader then that does not require any actual confrontation with Vader himself.

Author
Time

The Episode 3 Mustafar duel is one of the best sequences in the prequels and is already competently made when edited, as several people have already done. If there’s anything left to be done, I agree that removing even more of Anakin’s dialogue would be nice.
I think resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Author
Time

The idea of the Duel taking place on Vaders Castle and using Rogue One as a source for scenarios is one that I like a lot, but I would rather preffer a place more in the outside of the world than the castle, for example, some shots around 0:50 on the next video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84zsjLvOfk

More like mountains, rocks and that stuff, less of a big show for VFX and the Mustafar facility, Vaders Castle would be awesome tho, we could go even further and make it like an Anakin base where he is and stuff, but for the Duel, I would preffer the land rather than a building

I don’t really care if it’s in the shape of a movie, or a cartoon tv-series, or if it’s on videogames and books. Neither if it’s canon or legends; I love all my Star Wars (yes, even the prequels).

“Laugh it up, Fuzz ball.”

Oh wait, no, not all of it, don’t count the Holiday Special on it.

Author
Time

I’m for anything that takes them out of the cartoon that we got. The whole time I was watching the duel, I was thinking that they would’ve burned alive just being that close to the lava. A place with that much lava, you’d need protection. They’re skiing on it like rednecks at Myrtle Beach.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>