Was thinking about more edit ideas for ROTJ. For a hypothetical edit where you restructured Han’s rescue so Leia’s rescue attempt before the droids show up, how would you handle the continuity of Leia not being there when the droids arrive, and also 3PO already being there when Boushh/Leia shows up? I attempted to do this in my very first edit (which was ROTJ), but I remember having to awkwardly edit/crop around 3PO, or add Leia into the droid scene. I feel like other editors have probably attempted this with much better results.

But going back through this thread gave me a few more ideas.

The scene at Jabba’s palace would be the Lapti Nek scene and Oola’s demise. During this scene, you could create an insert shot of Boushh somewhere in the room. So, Leia in disguise has already infiltrated the palace. (I would also cut the Boba shots from this scene, and insert the SE shots of Boba with the dancers) So, Oola dies, cut to the sunset shot, and transition to nighttime when everyone is asleep. Boushh sneaks around and let’s Han out.

The continuity issue arises when Jabba is revealed and C3PO is standing right behind them. So, instead of Jabba and basically everyone else at the palace being wide awake and hiding behind literal curtains, what if Han and Leia stand up, turn around, and Boba is standing there waiting for them, gun drawn? You could take his shots from the Wookie bounty scene (which have been cut from this hypothetical version), and flip/recolor them to match the palace at night. You could lay it out like this:

Han and Leia stand up and face camera.
Boba quickly raises his blaster.
Han and Leia (mostly Leia) reaction shot. They’re caught.
Boba lowers his blaster.

Then you show Han being thrown in the cells, and you could possibly keep Leia being brought before Jabba and Jabba being all gross and licking his non-existent lips, if you can crop/cut around 3PO. I think it’s be about 3 shots total.

Later, whenever 3PO and R2 come to try and give Jabba a message, Oola is dead at this point, Leia has been enslaved (off-screen) so it would be a pain to try to avoid these continuity issues when 3PO and R2 show him Luke’s message. So, an older idea I had would be for them to enter the palace, but when they encounter Bib Fortuna, he just tells them that Jabba will not bargain, and sends them directly to the dungeons. An added benefit to this is we also would lose Luke’s hologram, so our true first glimpse of Luke would be when he walks into the palace.

I know this would cut a lot of the palace sequence, and I do enjoy most of it, but I think it would be interesting to try this sequence of events and see if it livens the pace of the first act a little. I do feel like this part of the film meanders when I go back and watch it.

I also had another idea for all of the Ewok antics later on in the film. I don’t know know if I would cut all the stuff about the Ewoks thinking 3PO is a god, but I would like to make it where the reason the Ewoks don’t eat the guys be because of Leia. In the film, Leia gains Wicket’s trust and takes her back to his village, she protests their capture, but they don’t listen to her, nor even 3PO, until Luke uses the Force to trick them into thinking 3PO really is a magical god.

I think it would be great for Leia’s character (and give her something to do), if she was able to use her politics skill to gain the Ewok’s trust and have enough influence to save the everyone herself. It also makes the Ewoks seem a little less gullible.

Basically, you would just restructure the scene a little bit to where they are about to cook them, then Leia comes out. You could the shot of them aggressively pointing spears in her face, and when she says they’re her friends (and maybe asks 3PO to tell them to let them go), the Ewoks listen immediately. So no levitating 3PO or anything like that. It is Leia’s kindness that gains the Ewok’s trust, not 3PO’s “divine influence”.