Excellent idea ! Someone was working on an edit that implements Dooku in TPM, observing Qui-Gon funerals from a distant spot and looking angry about the situation. If you add him during the previous Jedi Council scenes (with the possibility to get a close up on him and a montage to make Qui-Gon and him nodding at each other, somehow) it would just be perfect. Had the PT got a “master plan”, Lucas would have thought about it himself 😉
I think it was Sheepish, right? I know he made a version where Dooku was at his funeral (from a distance) and walked away. I just really don’t care for Yaddle, so even if we just saw Dooku and no focus was put on him (save for maybe a close up) I wouldn’t mind. Maybe a good moment for a close up would be when Qui-Gon says that they encounter a Sith Lord, or after Windu says something about finding the indenting of their attacker. I kind of think it would be nice if he could have one line, since it would just be weird to cut to a close up of a random Jedi, but I think an inquisitive or surprised look from him after Qui-Gon first mentions the Sith wouldn’t be too out of place. The only bad thing is you would have to add him to every Council scene, which could be a real pain.
The deception plot with Obi-Wan is fine with me, I think if we trim the odd bit or inconsistency, like not knowing R2 and the “point of view” bit then it should be okay. Manipulating Luke to kill his father is a bit extreme, but the stakes are high, and I think Yoda and Obi-Wan would’ve told Luke eventually, if he hadn’t run off in ep5 before his training was complete.
I agree that they would’ve told him the truth eventually. I like to think that the main reason they couldn’t tell Luke is because if he knew, he couldn’t “hide” that knowledge in his mind, and Vader or the Emperor would immediately sense it if they ever encountered him. ROTJ proves that with Leia. Luke is a Jedi, and he still couldn’t hide the truth from Vader that he had a twin sister.
I personally think both R2 and 3PO should be given memory wipes at the end of ROTS. To me, it just raises a lot of questions, and changing it solves a lot of them since we don’t have to ask, “Well why didn’t R2 tell Luke this or that?” Though you could argue R2 doesn’t know Anakin is Vader, he probably doesn’t, and he might have initially thought Luke was Owen and Beru’s kid. ROTS doesn’t really tell us if R2 knew where they were taking Padme’s other child.
Actually now that I think of it, R2 was there when she gave birth to the twins, and she named them. So R2 would have known their names, so he should have known who Luke was as soon as he met him. I mean, they had C3PO’s memory wiped because of what he knew, so why wouldn’t they do the same to R2?
Logically, I don’t know why Bail really wouldn’t wipe both their memories just to be safe. Did he just trust R2 with that information, he’s not as talkative as 3PO? Anyone could just take him apart and download his memories.
And even R2 didn’t know Anakin was Vader, wouldn’t R2 know that Obi-Wan didn’t have another pupil besides Anakin? And he knew who Yoda was, so why didn’t he just tell Luke THAT was Yoda?
See? It just raises a lot of questions. Sure, you could explain it off and say R2 just felt it wasn’t his place as a droid to reveal this information to Luke, but R2’s actions make a lot more sense if you assume R2 doesn’t know anything, and it would also explain why Obi-Wan wouldn’t say anything to R2 or 3PO, because what’s the point? They don’t remember him.
I think the big reason they didn’t have R2’s memories wiped because there’s this idea that all of these movies are stories that R2 has told to a Keeper of the Journal of the Whills, so R2 has to remember everything. But there are ways to restore deleted information on a computer, right? They could’ve just explained R2 getting his memories back somehow after the end of the OT or something. I would’ve been okay with that. I know I’m overthinking this, and this stuff really doesn’t bother me. I’m just trying to logic my way through these kind of questions and determine how they should be handled. Yeah, the new canon can hand wave these things, but the point of the edits we make is to try and make edits to the saga that improve continuity, and these kind of issues just make the continuity more convoluted.
I also think people would rather keep changes to the OT, or at least Star Wars and Empire, to a minimum. So I think we can help lessen those changes by focusing on fixing these continuity issues by making changes to the prequels and Return of the Jedi.
Looking forward to seeing your take on those scenes Imhotep!
Jarbear, I like your thought on the “before you were born” line. That’s a good point. I think I agree with you. Though it would be interesting to see how an edit of that line would look just to have it as a resource, if it is seamless.
Personally still on the fence about the “owning a droid” bit, while true (you could just never have him refer to R4 by name to help that), if he knew that was R2, he would know that he didn’t own him. The way he says it now is like, “Did I own this droid? Twenty years was so long ago.” He could acting coy, but what’s the point?
Maybe he is worried if he just denied owning a droid, Luke would just take him back to the homestead. It’s like he’s saying “I don’t think I owned this droid, but let’s go back to my house and double check just in case.”
I think that makes sense. Would also like to see an edit of this line though just to see if it is seamless and to have it just in case.
I do think at least having “I wanted you to have this” could still work. It really is the main one that I feel is a flat out lie, even if his father hypothetically would have wanted him to have it (he doesn’t “would have wanted” either, just wanted, like Anakin at some point said as much). Even the Vader lie could be true, metaphorically I guess. Certain point of view. And Obi-Wan saying, “I wanted you to have this-“ hints at Obi-Wan’s motivation as well. I think it is worth discussing still.
It’ll be interesting to tackle the ROTJ Dagobah sequence with this angle. I like your thoughts on this Imhotep!
Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts Imhotep and Jarbear. I think even if we go back and forth on ideas, it helps us be more sure of why we do or don’t make a change. The discussion is important, and fun!
I would really love any more opinions on Obi-Wan, R2 and these lines as well if anyone has any!
A little off topic, but I also found some audio of James Earl Jones saying “your” and “mother” in the Bible audio books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSGFmVsI6Uk&index=5&list=PL0l0DjlwvRA4Kg2ipRKwfCZY4c7JF3G-a
Instances of “mother”
18:32
18:51
22:08
22:10
22:16
22:22
I think the latter lines around 22 minutes might be better because it is a repitition of the whole “honor your father and mother” bit, so the ‘mother’ might fit better with the ‘your’. The only thing I’m worried about is his tone and pace might not fit with the rest of the line.
I don’t think one would need to recreate ambience and music for the scene, either. Vader has a long pause before he says “Obi-Wan once thought as you do.” So you could just cut ‘Obi-Wan’ and insert ‘your mother’ a little earlier during that pause. If anyone would like to have a go at making JEJ’s voice sound like Vader, and/or inserting it into that scene, I’d love to see it!