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Star Wars Episode III: Labyrinth Of Evil (Released) — Page 35

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It’s amazing how things can take different shape after a substantial break.

I noticed for what seems like the first time that the deleted scene at Bail’s apartment is clearly set in the morningtime. So, how does this sound for an order of scenes after the end of the opening escapade?

  • Anakin is told Padme is pregnant, ending with their ‘happy moment’
  • Grievous lands on Utapau and speaks with Sidious, ending with ‘a new apprentice…’
  • Nighttime balcony scene between Anakin and Padme
  • Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan discuss their misgivings about Palpatine
  • Bail’s apartment, first of the seeds of rebellion scenes
  • Anakin is late for the briefing
  • Palpatine appoints Anakin to the Council
  • Council chambers, Anakin is sidelined
  • Anakin gripes to Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan asks him to be a spy
  • Traffic scene
  • Sunset conversation between Anakin and Padme, ending with ‘hold me…’
  • Fade into nightmare sequence
  • Anakin meets with Palpatine at the opera

And continuing on with LOE as it has been after that point. This version retains a few scene transitions original to ROTS and includes the balcony scene more effectively. It seems like the least effective transition of this order will be going from the nighttime balcony scene to the deleted scene with Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

It looks like a very good scene order. I’m in favor of keeping the balcony scene, so I would be fine with any little adjustment to leave it somewhere. And that way you can keep most of the theatrical transitions.

(I hope with another break you’ll even find a way to keep the apartment scene “Not the Jedi I should be” 😄)

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I really don’t feel like the balcony scene serves a purpose unless it’s immediately followed by the nightmare sequence. It’s supposed to be a sort of “calm before the storm”. An idyllic moment before the inciting incident (the nightmare sequence in the original ROTS). I also hope you trim some of the dialogue in that sequence, particularly the “love has blinded you?” bit.

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Yeah, in this scheme of things the balcony scene would represent the ‘calm before’ the following day of political allegiance and personal ambition being stressed and beginning to fracture, including between Anakin and Padme. Not quite the same gut-punch as the nightmare.

Also, I totally forgot until after I made my previous post that the scene in Bail’s apartment must come after the Jedi Council scene because it begins with, “Now that he has taken control of the Jedi Council…” So, that’s why it has always been placed where it is. I might just play with some gentle color correction for it.

It seems like there are (at least) two options for scene order. I welcome thoughts on this.

Order A (including the balcony scene) :
• Anakin is told Padme is pregnant, ending with their ‘happy moment’
• Grievous lands on Utapau and speaks with Sidious, ending with ‘a new apprentice…’
• Nighttime balcony scene between Anakin and Padme
• Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan discuss their misgivings about Palpatine
• Anakin is late for the briefing
• Palpatine appoints Anakin to the Council
• Council chambers, Anakin is sidelined
• Bail’s apartment scene, first of the seeds of rebellion
• Anakin gripes to Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan asks him to be a spy
• Traffic scene
• Sunset conversation between Anakin and Padme, ending with ‘hold me…’
• Fade into nightmare sequence
• Anakin meets with Palpatine at the opera

Order B (excluding balcony scene) :
• Anakin is told Padme is pregnant, ending with their ‘happy moment’
• Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan discuss their misgivings about Palpatine
• Anakin is late for the briefing
• Palpatine appoints Anakin to the Council
• Council chambers, Anakin is sidelined
• Bail’s apartment scene, first of the seeds of rebellion
• Anakin gripes to Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan asks him to be a spy
• Traffic scene
• Sunset conversation between Anakin and Padme, ending with ‘hold me…’
• Grievous lands on Utapau and speaks with Sidious, ending with ‘a new apprentice…’
• Fade into nightmare sequence
• Anakin meets with Palpatine at the opera

Order B is very close to previous versions of LOE. It would be nice to have something to imply that the scenes following the pregnancy reveal take place another day, if not quite a while, later. The balcony scene accomplishes that, setting up a ‘happy evening’ and a ‘tense evening,’ with the nightmare taking place after the kindling of all the political stuff has been laid.
I do like Order A, but the transition between the balcony scene and the following seems anti-dramatic, at least having been familiarized with what follows it in ROTS.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Re: Bail’s apartment, just literally last week I changed where that scene is in my edit to before Palpatine appoints Anakin, and I fixed that error by cutting the line and just having him say “Now the Chancellor has appointed governors…”

One thing that just occurred to me, not that it should have any impact on your edit necessarily, is that Anakin being late to the briefing must have originally been placed after he reunites with Padme (“I’ll meet you at the briefing” being what Obi-wan says when they part, plus this is the only thing that’d actually explain why they had him be late).

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That makes a lot of sense. Grievous receiving orders about moving to Mustafar always felt like it was moved up earlier in the film, since it’s a good while before he actually does.
I feel like LOE reverts the movie to an earlier version, largely, and I’d love to see an older rough cut.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

That makes a lot of sense. Grievous receiving orders about moving to Mustafar always felt like it was moved up earlier in the film, since it’s a good while before he actually does.

Yeah, I was trying to follow the thread there to figure out what the original sequence might have been like but it’s muddied by what is or is not reshoots (if I remember correctly the balcony scene is one, for instance).

I feel like LOE reverts the movie to an earlier version, largely, and I’d love to see an older rough cut.

Same. At the very least I’m going to sit in my corner and hope and pray that at some point they finally release the Obi-wan/Padme deleted scene.

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Hal 9000 said:

That makes a lot of sense. Grievous receiving orders about moving to Mustafar always felt like it was moved up earlier in the film, since it’s a good while before he actually does.
I feel like LOE reverts the movie to an earlier version, largely, and I’d love to see an older rough cut.

I liked how you removed Palpatine giving Grievous the orders to move the Separatists to Mustafar. I like the idea that Grievous is making the order himself, but the Separatist leaders cannot escape Palpatine because he knows their location due to being a Sith Lord.

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.

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I’m in favor of order A. I think the transition would seem normal to anyone who doesn’t what would follow and I think it’s important to show early in the film that they both seem happy

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Another vote for order A.

Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000

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I’m leaning toward order B right now. Especially with adding the “soon I will have a new apprentice” scene right beforehand, the balcony scene feels out of place without the nightmare following it.

Since I’m putting out an alternate ending version, perhaps I could remove the title ‘Labyrinth of Evil’ altogether and adjust the scene order to go ahead and have the nightmare take place that first night as in ROTS.

The two core ideas behind LOE have been having Padmé go to live on Alderaan and to shift the nightmare to after the other factors for Anakin’s turn have been laid in. An alternate version that forsakes these isn’t LOE anymore, but might be worth doing and publishing for those who would want it. It would have my other sensibilities about the rest of the movie, just not driven by those two ideas.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I think Order B would serve the main Labyrinth of Evil cut the best with its stated intentions.

If you’re willing to make major changes to your hypothetical conservative cut that keeps Padme’s death, I’d revert entirely back to the theatrical sequence aside from sticking “Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan discuss their misgivings about Palpatine” before Grievous lands on Utapau and Bail’s apartment scene in the same place it is in LOE.

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@Dom, we should bump your thread back up and discuss what you’ve done and more on what the original scene order might’ve been. I’m still wondering if Anakin was late for the briefing because he met with Padmé, does that mean the entire nightmare scene was reshoots?

I think I agree with Octorox too. It seems that you’re already leaning that way as well.

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RogueLeader said:

@Dom, we should bump your thread back up and discuss what you’ve done and more on what the original scene order might’ve been. I’m still wondering if Anakin was late for the briefing because he met with Padmé, does that mean the entire nightmare scene was reshoots?

I probably should bump my thread. At this point I’m one quick pass away from putting a pin in ROTS and finally releasing it for real (not just sharing workprint cuts).

As for the nightmare - no, that was definitely done during principal photography. The Making of ROTS book is decently comprehensive in terms of what was shot when (though I couldn’t locate the balcony scene when I was just skimming through it). One of the things though with the reshoots is in many cases it’s unclear if the scenes were written after shooting finished or were written before but just always scheduled to be shot after principal photography (because there’s definitely some of both).

I will say I may be wrong about the briefing, considering looking back in the book the general structure of that act of the film seems to have been in place since an early draft of the script - reunites with Padme > Grievous arrives on Utapau > nightmare > Palpatine appoints Anakin to the council (the briefing is not mentioned but still) - plus Obi-wan does say “you deserve your glorious day with the politicians,” so maybe the briefing is supposed to be the next day after all.

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I always thought he was late for the briefing due to his meeting with Yoda about the nightmare he had the previous night.

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Hal 9000 said:

The two core ideas behind LOE have been having Padmé go to live on Alderaan and to shift the nightmare to after the other factors for Anakin’s turn have been laid in. An alternate version that forsakes these isn’t LOE anymore, but might be worth doing and publishing for those who would want it. It would have my other sensibilities about the rest of the movie, just not driven by those two ideas.

I would welcome a conservative take on EpIII with your changes, like what you did with EpI&II v6. I agree that adding back too much of what you removed would counter balance what you achieved with LoE (which is in fact a “restructured” cut, à la TFA:Restructured). It really depends on how much work it would be for you to put together two cuts.

I however still think that the balcony scene is important to emphasize Anakin and Padmé hapiness before the storm of events strike them. I can’t really picture how anti climatic it would be to keep it in the order you mentioned. Maybe you could move it elsewhere in the movie, after Anakin got appointed by Palpatine and before the 2000 petition.

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I’ve decided to go with Order B, and to have the ‘alternate ending’ version be just that: the same edit up to a point with a different ending. If I shift the nightmare to where it features in ROTS, it’s no longer LOE, and one may as well go for L8wrtr’s, Don’s, or other edits of the movie.

I’ve applied some color correction to Bail’s apartment, to place it in the late afternoon. The only issue with this is it makes that one senator who clearly missed something that was “posted this morning” seem slack.

I also added an easter egg that I doubt anybody will ever find. The only hint I will give us that it had something to do with text.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I look forward to this version Hal, you always do great!

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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Looking forward to this! Love that you’re revisiting your Prequel edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Here’s the color grade for Bail’s apartment. I start out trying to roughly match the hue, though unfortunately not cloud coverage, of the prior scene. As the scene goes on, it gradually crossfades to a rough match of the following scene.

https://vimeo.com/359910083

That looks pretty damn good!

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That’s looking good to me Hal. Very nice.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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I havs a suggestion for you: can you remove Obi-Wan’s cringeworthy “Hello there!” line in your edit?

The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequel and Disney trilogies is that they will always be around. Forever. They will never go away. It can never be undone.

I also prefer to be referred to as “TNT”, not “Freezing”.