The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 307

I know this is the prequel thread but I’m gonna to go ahead and respond to Nev’s post.

You know, a lot of the swampy junkyard planet concept art is very cool and I know a lot of people wish we had gotten that over what we got, but to me, it makes less sense than what we got.

It wouldn’t take long for metal on a swamp planet to become corroded and useless. At least in the desert, it makes sense that even 30 years after all of these vehicles have been abandoned, that their parts have been pretty well preserved enough to still carry some value.

Sure, I know that in Star Wars visuals regularly trump logic (like how it would be impossible to even breathe on a planet like Mustafar, etc etc), this is enough for me to not be heartbroken over not getting a swampy Jakku.

I feel like there could’ve been a nice middle ground though. The locations they filmed at are fine, reals sets practical effects yada yada, but I feel that more CG elements could’ve been added to these worlds to give them more character.
Which, luckily, would still put those possibilities in the realm of fan editors.

Let’s look at three of TFA’s big planets: Jakku, Takodana, and Starkiller Base (D’Qar also briefly).

I feel like certain elements could be added to these worlds to set them more apart.

With Jakku, you could add even more wrecked vehicles, oases in the distance, ‘dust devil’ twisters, or large planets or moons in the sky, similar to what we see in that first piece of concept art. At the very least you could keep adding stuff in the background so we see visible junk in the distance of almost every shot, instead of empty deserts (the visual of the standing, derelict AT-AT’s is a pretty cool idea). Maybe more Star Destroyers, corellian corvettes and Mon Cala ships could be added in too. Or why not fields of dozens of downed TIEs or rebel fighters? It’s a junk planet, let’s see more junk!

With Takodana, Maz’s castle is suggested to be an ancient Jedi temple. The planet itself is said to be the site of a long-forgotten battle between the Jedi and the Sith. So what if you went the Jedha route and added more ancient ruins in the background and in the forests? Almost like the Númenorean ruins from Lord of the Rings. Or you could add more buildings out behind Maz’s castle to suggest there is a small village or town there (or a ruined city, like Valyria in Game of Thrones), and/or have more traffic coming and going over the lake. Maybe more exotic mountains could be added in the background, too.

With Starkiller, it is hinted at that the site of this First Order Base is actually Ilum, the ancient world where Jedi would collect the crystals for their lightsabers. So, maybe you could added distant Jedi ruins, like Takodana, or have large kyber crystals jutting out of the ground in various wide/establishing shots of the planet. You could have glowing crystals hanging from the ceiling of Snoke’s hologram chamber. I could even picture faintly glowing crystals sticking out of the ground here and there during the duel in the forest.

I also think adding a large gas giant somewhere near Starkiller could help downplay its scale, making its construction by the hidden First Order less questionable, while also being an ironic inverse of the fourth moon of Yavin. This time it is a moon, and a battle station!

I don’t have many ideas for D’Qar beyond trying to make its ring visible from the planet surface. Maybe we could recolor the plant life, maybe to yellow or orange, which would then make the planet look a different color from space? Heck, maybe if you could somehow add various autumn colors to either Takodana or D’Qar, it could help differentiate those planets. You could at least recolor D’Qar yellow/orange to help separate it from Takodana and Yavin, perhaps.

But rather than totally replacing or redesigning these planets, we could just lean even more heavily into what makes these planets interesting, in order to make them stand out more in our memories.

I think a big motivation to have the settings be more Earth-like was so that you could film in real locations, which means they will both feel real onscreen and benefit the actors’ performances, since they won’t be completely surrounded by green screen stages.
But, I feel like a good middle ground for the Sequel Trilogy would’ve been to film at real locations, but enhance those locations with CG elements. A nice middle ground between the OT and the PT.

I guess the big question would be how feasible would these ideas be, but I don’t think they’re totally out of the realm of possibility for all the creative people we have here.

Concept art of d’Qar depicts having Dragon Blood Trees (those things in Tabantha, for anyone who’s played Breath of the Wild) (still waiting on Game Freak for a Professor Dragon Blood).

Something I had thought of for Jakku was cacti.

In an effort to give Phantom Menace a more down-to-earth, cheery vibe:

https://vimeo.com/309797013

A lot of edits cut out this scene, which is a great shame. It’s one of the few times characters genuinely smile.

Something I’m working on with Snooker’s Death Star hologram idea:
https://streamable.com/wn5tm

In the context of that scene it makes sense that the plans are a contribution to the “rebel” cause.
Perhaps the dialog order should be changed so that we view the hologram right after the plans are mentioned.
But you get the idea 😉

I think having the Death Star here ties-in all the movies very well.

snooker said:

In an effort to give Phantom Menace a more down-to-earth, cheery vibe:

https://vimeo.com/309797013

A lot of edits cut out this scene, which is a great shame. It’s one of the few times characters genuinely smile.

Huh, I like what you’ve done with it.

I personally would tone down the grain a little. Maybe try to match the grain of the 4K projects or the 35mm prequel trailers. I don’t know. Maybe black grain wouldn’t stand out as much as white.

Also, did you do something with audio? Like, add room tone and foley? If you did, I really like it.

I think the reason some people cut it is because the decoy Queen orders specifically the real queen to clean the droid, which raises a few
questions.

Honestly, though, you could still keep R2’s intro, but cut the Queen ordering Padmé to clean him. You could splice two shots together to have Padmé still be behind her when she says, “It deserves our gratitude.” Then just use the shot of Padmé walking over to R2, but during that shot have the Queen say, “Continue Captain.” Then it can continue as-is.

I personally don’t think the close up of Padmé cleaning R2 works, but that’s just me.

RogueLeader said:

snooker said:

In an effort to give Phantom Menace a more down-to-earth, cheery vibe:

https://vimeo.com/309797013

A lot of edits cut out this scene, which is a great shame. It’s one of the few times characters genuinely smile.

Also, did you do something with audio? Like, add room tone and foley? If you did, I really like it.

Yup. The roomtone really brings the feeling of the movie back to 1977. The movies aren’t shot too differently either (even though Gilbert Taylor was miles better than David Tattersall)

I actually sourced the grain from the 35mm prequel trailers lol. I’ll try it in black though, just to see what it’s like.

snooker said:

RogueLeader said:

snooker said:

In an effort to give Phantom Menace a more down-to-earth, cheery vibe:

https://vimeo.com/309797013

A lot of edits cut out this scene, which is a great shame. It’s one of the few times characters genuinely smile.

Also, did you do something with audio? Like, add room tone and foley? If you did, I really like it.

Yup. The roomtone really brings the feeling of the movie back to 1977. The movies aren’t shot too differently either (even though Gilbert Taylor was miles better than David Tattersall)

I actually sourced the grain from the 35mm prequel trailers lol. I’ll try it in black though, just to see what it’s like.

Really love what you did to the audio, feels much more grounded. I suggest bringing the room tone down just a bit. Currently it almost feels like watching a deleted scene.

snooker said:

Yup. The roomtone really brings the feeling of the movie back to 1977. The movies aren’t shot too differently either (even though Gilbert Taylor was miles better than David Tattersall)

I actually sourced the grain from the 35mm prequel trailers lol. I’ll try it in black though, just to see what it’s like.

I should’ve figured you did! I dunno, the grain is a little bit different between the trailers, but the white grain doesn’t seem as pronounced as it did in your test. In the Czech one’s, it looks like it is a mix of both, with a little more black grain, but still, it isn’t like grindhouse level grain if you know what I mean.

Yeah, the room tone was a solid idea. Maybe you could also tone it down just a tad like littlev87 also suggested.

4throck said:

Something I’m working on with Snooker’s Death Star hologram idea:
https://streamable.com/wn5tm

In the context of that scene it makes sense that the plans are a contribution to the “rebel” cause.
Perhaps the dialog order should be changed so that we view the hologram right after the plans are mentioned.
But you get the idea 😉

I think having the Death Star here ties-in all the movies very well.

This is pretty cool! It’s cool seeing the Death Star plans floating in the middle like that. The subtitles work to fit it well in that moment, too. Too bad Poggle doesn’t talk at all at this moment, it would be nice to keep the idea that the Geonosian’s were the one’s to design the initial Death Star plans rather than the alien that speaks.

That clip also reminded me of how poor quality in comparison that first Padme deleted scene is, which is a shame, because it is the only time we really see her being a senator in this film. I mean, it isn’t awful, just noticeable, you know?

That clip gave me another idea, which I think may have been suggested before. But when we cut to that first scene with Palpatine and the Jedi, it would be interesting if it started off with them watching a hologram of Dooku speaking to Separatist senators. You could use dialogue from the deleted scene where he says, “The Republic cannot be fixed… it is time to start over” then followed by the sounds of a cheering audience, then it cuts away. Then they could go into their conversation as is.
I always felt that was a dull scene, so getting a little glimpse of this mysterious Count Dooku would be interesting. Although not sure how feasible that idea is.

I didn’t even notice the Death Star hologram was an addition. I guess that’s a sign you did a good job, but I’d expect no less.

Thanks for the nice comments!

The hologram is a simple overlay with some color tweaking of the Death Star plans with no extra effects.
Less is more 😉 But I was really just following Snooker and his execution is very good!

I like the idea of the Dooku hologram, and it’s somehow doable.
But it would reduce mystery a bit and perhaps confuse the Jango sub-plot.

Another idea would be to show Jango on Coruscant receiving a hologram from Dooku or the trade federation dude.
It would improve Obi-Wan vs Jango confrontation.
Creating extra scenes from scratch is very difficult, but let’s see what I can do.

The deleted scenes are DVD sourced and up-scaled the best I can… It’s a shame they are not in HD but I guess the source is really SD. Basically those scenes are mock-ups for Lucas to play with editing 😉

Just some ideas to better connect the PT with the ST trilogies.

We could have Anakin react to a mask or to a masked figure. It would connect to Kylo Ren.
Another option would be force communication between Anakin and Padmee, like Rey and Kylo. No need for extended dialog, Anakin only needs to “see” Padme.

Well we already have that seen of Anakin and Padme looking longingly into the distance on Coruscant but I’m worried making that a Force call would make it less powerful.

But really, those are concepts that I don’t feel would really tie anything together.

Was it inspired by my post on the Sequel Radical Redux thread?

Yes, it was related to your post. I feel it’s best to connect the PT to the sequels, not the other way around.

An example:
You could have Anakin cover his face when he tries to save his mother.
The garage scene with Padme is cut, so the killing becomes his secret.

That would establish his conflict visually and give dramatic tension to all his future scenes.

Of course you could do the same later, when he his killing the younglings, etc, etc.
Ideally Anaking should welcome the Vader mask, not scream “nnoooooo”…

For me the connection with Kylo Ren’s conflict is obvious.

I feel like the connection’s obvious as is.

Taking a page from Jakku and the ST, what if Anakin’s home planet wasn’t Tatooine. It feels weird having Jakku as the protagonist’s home desert planet without it being Tatooine, but with Anakin from a different planet as well as making Tatooine feel less like some special place where lead Jedi come from. This would only affect Episode I, as Shmi would still on Tatooine in Episode II because of the Lars. Watto having sold her, it’s easy to imagine she might’ve been taken offworld.

It’s a way of saying “this planet is the most uninteresting thing in the Galaxy; there are hundreds just like it”. But yeah, I would like to give each desert planet personality. Or maybe just stick to all three being Tatooine. Regardless, I’m not gonna leave it as lopsided as it currently is with 2/3 being Tatooine. Learn poetry, damn it.

Don’t think you’d need to explain Shmi changing planets.
Anakin has a vision, so he knows where she is, and that’s it. Works well if you cut Watto on EP2 and go straight for Lars home.

But I agree that there’s no problem with repetition.
Star Wars IS repetition. You always have the super-weapon, a bar, plans, hidden villain, etc.

Repetition can be a problem, as in the case of superweapons, but with Tatooine, all it does is make a supposedly backwater planet more important than it should be. It doesn’t make the audience feel cheated like with the superweapons.

Solution: Make Tatooine a superweapon.

snooker said:

Solution: Make Tatooine a superweapon.

It’s so bad it just might work!