Hi all,
I love Hal’s thinking here as I’ve spent the last few days wondering how hard it would be to make one big ‘epic’ MOVIE from TLJ and TROS…at least from a narrative perspective (I’m not initially considering the look and feel of the 2 movies might juxtapose each other considering that RJ and JJ have completely different stylistic approaches to the look, pace and overall cut of their respective movies)
What fuelled this idea, is what I consider to be the problem with TROS.
I’ve said it elsewhere on this forum, but I believe TROS’s biggest issue is not what is in the movie, but what ISN’T…
I assume there’s a 3 hour(ish) cut that existed once before it was edited down to what we ended up getting (whether it was a deliberate move to increase the pace of the movie, or certain plot points just didn’t work at a script level and so the only way to save the movie was cut it all away?..whatever, I digress)
Anyhow, I was upsetting myself at the possibility that Disney will never release any substantial/juicy deleted scenes and how the talented fan editors may never have enough ‘meat’ to make the movie better/more complete.
That left me thinking that the only way TROS may be salvageable is in MORE cutting. Cutting out all the dead-end plot threads and the leaps and holes in logic and plot, which even if that were done successfully, would leave us all with a rather short movie!
So, that potentially being the case, I wondered if on a thematic level it might be possible to combine TLJ and TROS into one mega-movie so that the relentless pace of TROS is offset by the slower burn of TLJ.
Plot elements that have been (or are in the process of being) incorporated into Fan edits of TLJ would serve as some the most effective connective tissue between the two movies, helping them join as one.
It might be that the two projects simply CAN’T be joined cohesively, and if that’s the case then that’s just an unfortunate outcome of not having the right pieces to work with from what Lucasfilm gave us…but if some fairly aggressive cutting/re-working of both movies could enable us to salvage a more satisfying hybrid then that might help us get over some the disappointment we have felt since TROS released.
Initial thoughts:-
As much as I feel it would be less jarring to potentially inter-weave different scenes between the two movies, I can’t see how any MAJOR scenes could be reworked chronologically due to differences in costume, hair etc, so all the main plot lines would pretty much have to run in a linear fashion.
The unfortunate outcome of this, is that at some point you are pretty much forced to consider a ‘1 year later’ splash screen approach, to account for the obvious time jump. This is decidedly ‘un-Star Wars’ but unless it’s better to just ignore it and let the audience do the math, it’s going to be a matter of deciding whether we break from stylistic tradition and look at the project as it’s own entity and accept such compromises.
Anyhow, this is me just jumping on Hal’s bandwagon, and really it’s just an unprocessed idea for a project, rather than something I’ve really thought through in any detail (ie what elements across both movies stay, go, get reworked etc in order to accommodate them being joined cohesively…if they even can be)
I’d love to hear others opinions, especially those with the talent and eye for editing who might be able to be determine whether this is a non-starter , or whether there might be a narrative pathway to making it work?