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Feedback Wanted: Alternate Mustafar climax for ROTS

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 (Edited)

This concerns the ROTS portion of my Ep1-3 mashup (https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Reedit-Super-Series/id/59213/page/1); here’s chapter 20 of Rise of the Empire. Both duels on Mustafar and Coruscant are present, of course, but severely trimmed. The ending is the most important because I’ve changed the circumstance under which Obi-Wan finally leaves Mustafar.

https://vimeo.com/268402238
(Password: empire)

I’d really love some feedback as to how you think this turned out. My problem with the original version is that I just found it stupid that Obi-Wan leaves Anakin slowly dying on the edge of the lava flow. Why wouldn’t he kill him outright - or perhaps even try to save Anakin since at that point he’d already defeated him?

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This cut has pros and cons. I agree that it makes Obi-Wan’s abandonment of Anakin more believable. It places the reveal of Vader onto RO, imo the shadow is far more epic.

At the same time, you’d be losing arguably the best performance in the trilogy. Also, how does Obi-Wan get Anakin’s light saber? If you recolored the lightsaber red for Mustafar you could write it off as a new one but if it’s blue that might be seen as a plot hole. Lastly, this cut makes Anakin’s defeat purely misfortune, instead of his recklessness causing his burns.

Both this and the original have their pros and cons. Personally I prefer the original, though this is a cool alternate take that could still work.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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This is unique as far as I’ve seen. The only real issue I see is that Anakin’s lightsaber went over the lava fall with him.

I personally have an issue with the fact that they would have died from being that close to lava period. Ridiculous decision by Lucas, imho.

digmodification.wordpress.com

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What if they switched lightsabers at some point? There’s actually a few shots during the table fight where Obi-wan is holding Anakin’s lightsaber, but then there’s a shot in between where he’s holding his own so right now it’s a continuity goof. You could re-edit that section of the fight so that they lose their lightsabers, and show Obi-wan Force-calling Anakin’s saber to him. The next you see of them they’re fighting on the bridge where it’s too hard to see which lightsaber each one has. Then it’s just a matter of cropping a few shots or re-editing.

Sure, it still ends with Obi-wan’s lightsaber going over the edge with Anakin, but there’s enough of a difference in sabers between ROTS and ANH that you could chalk it up to Obi-wan making a new one.

Finally, you could include part of the shot right after Obi-wan picks up Anakin’s lightsaber, as he’s walking up the hill and starts to turn around. Then cut to a reaction of the lava streaming by, perhaps part of the shot before he says ‘you were my brother’, then the final shot of him walking away, though you’d have to crop it or paint out Anakin’s flaming body.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Great feedback - thanks, guys. Just what I needed.

OutboundFlight said:
This cut has pros and cons. I agree that it makes Obi-Wan’s abandonment of Anakin more believable.

That was my primary goal.

At the same time, you’d be losing arguably the best performance in the trilogy.

True also. What if I made it seem as if Palpatine’s shuttle was already descending, so that Obi-Wan simply had to get out of there? This was actually my original plan; I only thought of the other idea in the midst of editing that chapter.

Also, how does Obi-Wan get Anakin’s light saber?

Crap, I hadn’t even thought of that! :-\

On the other hand . . . we already know that Ben lied to Luke about his father’s identity. What if he lied about the lightsaber as well? Maybe he gave Luke a saber that was modeled after Anakin’s - so it was Anakin’s “from a certain point of view.”

Lastly, this cut makes Anakin’s defeat purely misfortune, instead of his recklessness causing his burns.

Also a good consideration.

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DigMod said:
This is unique as far as I’ve seen.

Wow, something unique among all the prequel reedits out there! I guess that by itself’s an accomplishment, so thanks!

The only real issue I see is that Anakin’s lightsaber went over the lava fall with him.

Yeah, good catch - shoulda caught that myself.

I personally have an issue with the fact that they would have died from being that close to lava period. Ridiculous decision by Lucas, imho.

Great point. In scenes like that - in the context of a Star Wars film - I just chalk it up to them using the Force to do what others couldn’t.

I also think Lucas made a mistake - especially since at that time no further SW movies were expected - not having Vader as Vader in the suit for the third act of the film. Anakin should have been Luke’s age in Episode I, and his downfall better developed from Ep1 through the second act of Ep3. In that second act Anakin could have sustained serious injury (not from dueling Obi-Wan) requiring the Vader suit, and then in the suit he does all the stuff we saw him do in the third act of Ep3.

A related issue is that Anakin’s turn to the dark side is way too quick. He basically goes from arrogant whiner to child-killer overnight - and mainly because of fears for his wife’s survival??? So one of the changes I’ve made in my mashup is to portray Anakin as a bad seed right from the start: he doesn’t generally make jokes, he doesn’t whine, and he doesn’t generally have “fun” (Ep3: “Here’s where the fun begins”). He mostly broods (e.g., in my version he doesn’t whine about not being deemed a master; he just gives Windu a staredown). Therefore when he goes full-dark it’s not as much of a contrast to what he already was.

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NeverarGreat said:
What if they switched lightsabers at some point? There’s actually a few shots during the table fight where Obi-wan is holding Anakin’s lightsaber, but then there’s a shot in between where he’s holding his own so right now it’s a continuity goof.

Holy crap, how does anyone even catch that??? You just marked yourself as a major geek. 😉
(Nothing wrong with that!)

You could re-edit that section of the fight so that they lose their lightsabers, and show Obi-wan Force-calling Anakin’s saber to him.

Not a bad idea!

Or . . . what if I have Obi-Wan going back to Mustafar later on, and finding Anakin’s saber along the shoreline? That would not only explain how he got the saber, but also how he finds out “Darth Vader” is alive. Even the original ROTS implied that Obi-Wan assumed Anakin had died on Mustafar, so I guess we’re left to assume that as reports of the emperor’s righthand man “Darth Vader” began floating throughout the galaxy, Obi-Wan eventually heard about it.

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Another approach: In Return of the Jedi, when Obi-Wan finally tells Luke the truth, I could flash back to the brief ROTS clip of Obi calling the lightsaber to him with the Force, and Anakin doing the same; followed immediately by another flashback to ANH where Ben says, “This is your father’s lightsaber.” Cut back to the ROTJ conversation. It’s therefore implied that when they fought, Obi-Wan got ahold of Anakin’s saber and that’s why he could give it to Luke, accompanied by a lie.

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The jump from the lava fall to the ship departure is too soon to me. I wonder if you could imply your idea of him going down to the shore line and retrieving Anakin’s lightsaber and show him chared and seemingly dead on the shore. Then you could salvage the sad look he has. I think you could rotoscope the emperor out of the scene where he finds Anakin and use that?

digmodification.wordpress.com

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DigMod said:
The jump from the lava fall to the ship departure is too soon to me.

I kinda suspected that myself. I’d still be willing to go with it, but I sure can’t say you’re wrong.

I wonder if you could imply your idea of him going down to the shore line and retrieving Anakin’s lightsaber and show him chared and seemingly dead on the shore.

Superb idea; thanks. I could even include a couple of Obi’s lines, as if he’s just thinking aloud.

I think you could rotoscope the emperor out of the scene where he finds Anakin and use that?

How is that done?

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There’s some deleted and unfinished FX footage of the Mustafar fight that I’ve never seen anyone use. Could be something to look into for some alternate angles and shots.

Some of them are used here:

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

Like Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting on a cliff instead.

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thebluefrog said:
There’s some deleted and unfinished FX footage of the Mustafar fight that I’ve never seen anyone use. Could be something to look into for some alternate angles and shots.

Thanks! I’d never seen that before.

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DigMod said:
Using a paint program such as Gimp or Photoshop to digitally paint out or mask the other shot on top of another.

Thanks. That sort of thing in new to me. I also googled how to rotoscope in Sony Vegas.

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thebluefrog said:

There’s some deleted and unfinished FX footage of the Mustafar fight that I’ve never seen anyone use. Could be something to look into for some alternate angles and shots.

Some of them are used here:

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

Like Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting on a cliff instead.

Where did these scenes come from? Were they compiled from trailers or elsewhere beacuse I’ve never seen these before

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In some EPIII Docs and Web Docs, there are some very small clips and bits that could be useful, But i think their in 480p, not sure

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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I’m currently adding a short scene that I believe will solve my dilemma: Obi-Wan returns to Mustafar and finds Anakin’s saber on the shore of the lava river.

This is part of an approximately 2-minute montage of different scenes with a few sound effects, accompanied by this:
https://bit.ly/2wErDbF

The montage will include shots from Ewan McGregor’s Last Days in the Desert, and the final shot will be Tatooine’s setting suns.

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That’s really interesting take. Not what I would do, but totally a valid option.

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@Anakin Starkiller: Thanks. We’ll see how it pans out though. 😃

I’m convinced it’ll work, but selecting just the right clips for a 2-minute montage is proving quite difficult!