Star Wars Episode III: Labyrinth Of Evil (Released) — Page 45

CaptainFaraday said:

What was the reason to cut Grievous’ line “I’ve been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku”? (Sorry if this has been discussed long ago, I had a look but couldn’t see it.)

I always thought that was a great line - it reminds me of Lao Che in Temple of Doom telling a very confident Indiana Jones “…to the poison you just drank!” and watching him have this “oh shit” moment.

Obi-Wan has dropped down to take Grievous by surprise, quipping and joking because he thinks he has the upper hand, then Grievous pulls out not one but four lightsabers and tells him he’s been trained by the guy Obi-Wan couldn’t defeat twice, and Obi-Wan is thrown into a difficult fight.

I think Matthew Wood’s line read is so good on it, and I always miss it whenever I watch LOE (which has otherwise completely replaced the theatrical cut as my preferred version to watch).

Hasn’t Obi-Wan battled Grevious numerous times by this point though? I know Hal’s edits aren’t super concerned with the extra-filmic stuff but I never got the impression, even before watching Clone Wars, that Obi-Wan was unfamiliar with the fact that Grievous is adept at lightsaber combat.

CaptainFaraday said:

Obi-Wan has dropped down to take Grievous by surprise, quipping and joking because he thinks he has the upper hand, then Grievous pulls out not one but four lightsabers and tells him he’s been trained by the guy Obi-Wan couldn’t defeat twice, and Obi-Wan is thrown into a difficult fight.

The problem is that it really isn’t a difficult fight. Just on the basic math of having one blade to block four simultaneous ones, Grievous should have been able to chop Obi down even with zero training, let alone with training from Dooku. But that nerdy nitpicking aside, even in the scene Grievous is clearly incompetent and Obi-Wan never seems to act threatened, smiling and treating it like a game until the fist fight later on.

In Hal’s commentary on the movie, he talks about how his editing of Grievous leans heavier into the reality of Grievous being the opportunistic coward that he is, rather than pretending he’s still the badass killing machine of the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon. Removing that line here appears to be part of that philosophy, with Grievous just briefly trying to defend himself before running away almost as soon as he’s losing.

I think the best example of that approach, one of my favorite subtler edits in Hal’s version, is in Grievous’ first encounter with the jedi. In the original movie, when he shatters the window and flies out into space, he says “You lose, Jedi!” Then when he’s escaping in the pod, he says to himself “Time to abandon ship.” Both of these are pretty lame lines; the first because obviously Anakin and Obi aren’t in any real danger in the opening sequence of the movie, and the latter because it’s just stating what’s happening on screen. In this edit, however, the former line is now replaced by the second, so that he says “Time to abandon ship” as he shatters the window and flies out. This is a huge improvement, not only because it’s now actually kind of a clever one-liner, but also because it’s playing up Grievous as a sort of “Starscream” character who is perfectly aware and even proud of what a weaselly “survive at all costs” villain he is.

What was the additional clone line?

Fantastic work as always Hal.

Question for you or the group: If I was going to put music under the opening fight between Grevious and the crew, are there suggestions? To me that has to be the single most boring fight in all of the movies. Im wondering if throwing more rousing music on it might be a simple solve.

Ill look through the official soundtrack and see if any of them work.

I also had a silly idea to try to make it seem like Palps helped slow the ship on crash landing, unbeknownst to Anakin or Obi-Wan. It would require finding some footage of Palpatine extending his hand or something, but it could be interesting.

Hal 9000 said:

There was another ROTS edit that added music to that scene using a SW video game, but I don’t remember which. I do know it was listed in the changelog on IFDB, if you want to search for it.

Gracias! Will track it down.

Master Lawdog said:

I believe it was Spence’s edit that used music from Knights of the Old Republic.

I was able to see how a few versions did it. I ended up just putting the General Grievous track from the Episode 3 soundtrack behind the scene and it worked out great.

Thanks for the help to both of you.

Not worth its own thread, but I made a few edits if anyones interested. PM if so.

I kinda combined both endings.

Leia still gets to spend time with Padme, but we also get the beautiful funeral procession. At first I thought it was maybe not logical since shes probably an enemy of the empire now. But those kinds of empires like to pretend they love people after they die, to show they arent intimated by them, so I figure she could have an open funeral.

• I took the line from Padme about “Obi-wan, I know there still good in him” and cut it into the birth scene.
• I put the funeral as a mid credits scene

Felt like putting Padmes line back in made it clear to me that she hadnt given up on him, and it’s a nice tie in to Luke later… has a bit of his mother in him.

Other minor tweaks

• put music under early Grevious fight
• removed C3POs line towards the end about feeling helpless
• turned down the volume on Quigons message to yoda

Anyway, wanted to say great work to Hal and all for this edit. I watched all the prequels in their most completed form and I think it may be my favorite trilogy of the bunch now.