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Complete Saga Radical Redux Ideas Thread

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The biggest difference between the PT and the ST is how much is borrowed from the OT. To make them feel consistent, we would have to make it consistent how much they borrow from the OT. That means make the PT closer to the OT while distancing the ST from it. Any thoughts on how to do that?

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Anakin Starkiller said:

The biggest difference between the PT and the ST is how much is borrowed from the OT. To make them feel consistent, we would have to make it consistent how much they borrow from the OT. That means make the PT closer to the OT while distancing the ST from it. Any thoughts on how to do that?

Start over.

heil Palpatine!

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For starters, the sequel trilogy needs to be made to be more cohesive on its own.

The Last Jedi is the only one of the three that actually tied back to the original saga (apart from resurrecting the villain in 9), and 7 and 9 should be bent to be more in line with it.

Palpatine should be built up over the entire trilogy. I know that the OT doesn’t have the Emperor until 5, but TFA is too weak to stand on its own without it. If this were done, he would be in every Star Wars except for the original.

Hopefully we get the extended cut of 9, so we have more to cut down from. Really, if we can make 9 into a better sequel to 8, our only problem would be 7.

As for the prequels, they just need to be edited better, cut down to about 2 hours each before credits.

Editing the OT to be more consistent is a good idea as well. Cutting scenes from Jedi where Han is out of character would improve it a lot, and cutting the terrible scene where Leia kisses Luke (which was bad even before Jedi came out) would tie it together well. Some of the SE changes that aren’t terrible would do well being kept, such as Victory Celebration and extended flying bits, though I am not sure about Hayden at the end of Jedi.

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What if we added a brief flashback/catchup scene after “A long time ago…” and before the logo/title?

Return of the Jedi could keep the Yub Nub ending, but The Force Awakens could have the Victory Celebration ending at the beginning (start with Vader’s funeral), showing all the different worlds and trying to tie the movies together. Also it lets George’s vision for the series with the SE be a part of the movies, but doesn’t replace the original ending.

Anakin Starkiller said:
How 'bout adding the Emperor to ANH as well

I have an idea for this as well. Keeping with the pre-crawl scenes, the original ESB emperor scene could be made to be the beginning of ANH, with the redone SE scene staying in 5. They have slightly different dialogue so its not just a repeat, and it adds the earliest version of the Emperor to the original. The original could benefit from a couple added scenes, this one, and the final Biggs scene from the SE.

Here is a full list of possible cold opens for each SW film:

I - No idea.
II - The final scene from III could be put here instead, with Obi-Wan giving Luke to the Berus, as a sort of flash forward. Maybe also a scene from Phantom Menace where Anakin says bye to his mom.
III - The last two scenes of II would work nicely, with the effective birth of the empire and the wedding scene. Also, the scene with Anakin and Yoda could work here. You could also put the battle at the end of Rogue One.
IV - The original Emperor scene from 5, with the SE one in its place in 5
V - The ceremony at the end of IV could be put here, but it’s not necessary
VI - Yoda could be moved here?
VII - Victory Celebration
VIII - Rey finding Luke could work here, or Han Solo’s death. Maybe this would be a good place for Palpatine buildup.
IX - Palpatine buildup, or maybe the extended lightspeed skipping scenes we might get, as a tie in to the Victory Celebration.

Addendum: Title changes

I usually dislike edits that change the titles of the movies, because the alternate titles are usually too serious and not corny enough to be “Star Wars.”

Here, I propose some title changes that would be an improvement, without losing the Star Warsiness.

Episode II - Jar Jar’s Big Adventure
This was the original title for II, and even though Jar Jar’s role was significantly reduced, the title is funny in an ironic way. Jar Jar’s role in this movie is instrumental to Palpatine’s plot, and giving the random comedic sidekick the agency to change the direction of this universe is a great idea.

Episode III - Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith was in my opinion the weakest of the original 6 titles. I like the homage to Return of the Jedi’s alternate title (Return was the original but Revenge was for most of the production) but “Sith” isn’t really a strong word. If it had been established in all of the Star Wars movies it would be good, but the OT just references the Dark Side. Also, Attack of the Clones is a horrifically cheezy name that I think is really funny for a movie as dark as RotS (with child murdering).

Episode VII - Shadows of the Empire
This was considered for TFA but it was already used on some EU thing. I don’t care about the EU and it is a good title, and greatly helps TFA in contextualizing it within the saga.

Episode IX needs a better title as well.

For the Sequel Trilogy, since they fail to connect themselves to the original saga, perhaps they could benefit from changing to Arabic numerals (Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9).

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That deleted conversation bothers me a lot because it should be in the movie. I can’t figure out why they added “maclunkey” but not this bit of dialog…

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I’ve recently come to realize I have two contradictory ideas for how RoS should end. One is with the Victory Celebration music and montage from RotJ, and the other is a fade to black from the Tatooine scene with more subtle music. I could put the montage before Tatooine, sure, but that wouldn’t really work with the end of Victory Celebration, which transitions very suddenly into the end credits music. Then I had an idea: rhyming endings.

TPM and ANH both end on a glorious celebration. What if TFA did the same, with Victory Celebration playing as Rey walks through a crowd of cheering Resistance members towards the Falcon. Granted, this would probably require an unfeasible amount of additional footage, but it’s worth putting out there.

On a similar note, RotJ would end with Vader’s funeral pyre on Tatooine, mirroring the ends of RotS and RoS. And of course, since the footage of the celebration is used for RoS and the music for TFA, we would reinstate Yub Nub in their place.

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Interesting ideas, but way too ambitious. Unless Adywan’s ROTJ edit proves me otherwise, there’s no way newly filmed elements can be seamlessly integrated with movie footage.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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The editdroid Laserdisc’s alternate take with “Obi-Wan would have told you, had I let him” would help make the saga more consistent, but would require using the Special Widescreen Edition LD for the OT to blend in better.

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What if we added Shmi’s tombstone, along with the other two, to ANH and RoS? Just a small detail that doesn’t really change anything, but makes the films a tiny bit more cohesive. Then again, it’s likely no one will notice. Really, though, I think you’d only to add them to a few shots in the binary sunset scenes.

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This may be a dumb meme, but it may actually have a point, and a sequel hook!

What if in Vader’s dying moments, he tells Luke to find Exegol. Here’s how I envision the conversation:

Vader: Just for once, let me look at you with my own eyes.

Luke removes the mask.

Vader: There isn’t much time. cough The contingency. Find Exegol. Go, my son. Leave me.

Luke: No, you’re coming with me.

Maybe not exactly that, but something along those lines. Admittedly, I’m sidestepping the question of why Vader doesn’t mention the wayfinders, but that can’t be too big of a plothole, right? Obviously, this would mean redubbing unmasked Vader, but given he’s only one scene, just redubbing the whole thing seems reasonable at this point.

Anyway, this scene as a whole gives us a Sequel hook, and presumed reason for Luke’s disappearance in the next film: he’s looking for Exegol.

On a related note, anybody notice how Luke is crying in the mid shots but his face is dry in the close ups?

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Why ruin a strong, emotional character moment with a hint to a dumb mcguffin chase three films down the road?

If anything, why not just recolor the Mustafar scenes in 9 and just make it a totally different planet, unrelated to Vader? It would definitely be easier to just regrade those scenes and make it Corvus, or some other random planet. I’m surprised you weren’t going to make this suggestion, since you’re more enthusiastic about recoloring different planets.

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RogueLeader said:

Why ruin a strong, emotional character moment with a hint to a dumb mcguffin chase three films down the road?

If anything, why not just recolor the Mustafar scenes in 9 and just make it a totally different planet, unrelated to Vader? It would definitely be easier to just regrade those scenes and make it Corvus, or some other random planet. I’m surprised you weren’t going to make this suggestion, since you’re more enthusiastic about recoloring different planets.

Yeah, JJ’s idea of it being Mustafar is very odd since it has zero relevance, thematically or plotline wise.

May as well make it a new video game quest planet for Kylo.

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Right, especially considering they didn’t even spotlight the most interesting feature of the planet at this point: Vader’s Castle.

When everyone speculated about Kylo going to Mustafar, most people assumed it would feature him at his grandfather’s fortress. Instead, we see him fighting in a forest, something we didn’t know existed on Mustafar, and we don’t even get a glimpse of the castle. Instead, we have to learn in books that it is some kind of garden of iron trees outside of the castle? Very weird.

Especially considering much of the “Mustafar” concept art seems to be more bleak and grey, rather than red, I honestly think this planet wasn’t meant to be Mustafar, and it was changed to Mustafar later on during post-production. The fact there was also supposed to be a lake with a giant psychic creature residing inside further makes me think this was meant to be its own unique planet.

So then content like Vader Immortal and the Vader comics added elements to explain this apparent continuity discrepancy.

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JJ likely rewrote everything rushed last minute under orders from Bob Iger/Kathleen Kennedy. When they fired Colin Trevorrow, it fell on JJ to pull together all his scribbled unused ideas from TFA. This is why ROS doesn’t really feel like a story and just a string of random ideas–that’s exactly what it was. It almost seems like JJ was told NOT to use anything from the Colin script.

We can reasonably guess that JJ had “–Kylo Visit Mustafar” in his idea list and just slapped it onto the wayfinder quest footage when it didn’t fit anywhere else.

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thebluefrog said:

JJ likely rewrote everything rushed last minute under orders from Bob Iger/Kathleen Kennedy. When they fired Colin Trevorrow, it fell on JJ to pull together all his scribbled unused ideas from TFA. This is why ROS doesn’t really feel like a story and just a string of random ideas–that’s exactly what it was. It almost seems like JJ was told NOT to use anything from the Colin script.

But he actually did use a lot of stuff from the Trevorrow script. A nebula leading to a secret planet, Rey’s parents being killed by a Sith, Kylo sacrificing himself to heal Rey, and Lando showing up with a huge fleet to save the day were all ideas taken from Trevorrow. So that line of thinking is clearly incorrect.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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I’m surprised you weren’t going to make this suggestion, since you’re more enthusiastic about recoloring different planets.

Because I haven’t yet seen Season 2 of The Mandalorian.

Why ruin a strong, emotional character moment with a hint to a dumb mcguffin chase three films down the road?

Well it is kinda strange how he tells Luke to go immediately after taking the helmet off.

It almost seems like JJ was told NOT to use anything from the Colin script.

Except him and Terrio clearly used enough of it that the screenwriter’s guild felt it necessary to credit Trevorrow and Connolly.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Why ruin a strong, emotional character moment with a hint to a dumb mcguffin chase three films down the road?

Well it is kinda strange how he tells Luke to go immediately after taking the helmet off.

That was because he knew he was going to die. He only had a few seconds of life left, so he didn’t have time for a melodramatic goodbye. Either way, it’s certainly no reason to add a forced reference to some dumb McGuffin that was in a movie made 35 years later.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

thebluefrog said:

JJ likely rewrote everything rushed last minute under orders from Bob Iger/Kathleen Kennedy. When they fired Colin Trevorrow, it fell on JJ to pull together all his scribbled unused ideas from TFA. This is why ROS doesn’t really feel like a story and just a string of random ideas–that’s exactly what it was. It almost seems like JJ was told NOT to use anything from the Colin script.

But he actually did use a lot of stuff from the Trevorrow script. A nebula leading to a secret planet, Rey’s parents being killed by a Sith, Kylo sacrificing himself to heal Rey, and Lando showing up with a huge fleet to save the day were all ideas taken from Trevorrow. So that line of thinking is clearly incorrect.

A nebula with a secret planet is hardly limited to Trevorrow. Star Trek: Beyond had used it 2 years earlier, and JJ DEFINITELY knew about that. No one remembers Ochi as a Sith (or a “loyalist”) because he was an unmemorable alien. Trevorrow actually had Kylo do it, which is a HUGELY different plot point than a random forgettable alien; they’re not remotely comparable. That’s like saying Kylo killing Han was the same idea as Starkiller killing Han a few years before.

Sure, you could argue Kylo sacrificing himself was a borrowed idea, but, really, how else would the story have ended under Disney? Other than like 3 ideas, the scripts are lightyears apart. No Coruscant, no Eclipse, no Star Destroyer theft, no Hux suicide, no mutilated Kylo, no Rey/Poe kissing, no stormtrooper rebellion, no double Jedi blade for Rey, no Chewie vs Knights of Ren, no Sith training for Kylo, no Tor Valum at all, no blind Rey, no new Jedi school at the end, no Luke training Rey, no Luke confronting Kylo, no Darksaber, etcetera…so for the 2-3 ideas JJ used, there’s 27 others that were not.

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If only I knew before about this thread before posting my ideas in separate threads…
So anyway, I guess that you could at least try to hide the plot twists of the OT in both the PT and the OT itself to make the saga feel more consistent with what it wants to be (despite everyone in the entire world knows about them)
I mean, think about it
If you watch the PT and then the OT, you know every single twist in the trilogy
But if you watch the OT and then the ST, it doesn’t really matter since the twists don’t relay on the fact that you watched the previous films
(And trying to hide the twists in the OT and PT is way easier than trying to plant the seeds of the twists from the ST in the previous trilogies)