An idea I would like to eventually play around with is to reuse the footage of Luke getting his hand shot, but have Boba be the one to shoot his hand instead of some random guard on the sail barge.
Basically, a summary of changes I’ve thought of making:
- Make the jet pack sound effect sound a little beefier (sort of how they made it sound in Mando 201)
- Have Boba immediately fire when he lands on the skiff, and the shot whizzes past Luke’s head. (You could potentially have him take a shot or two off while he is flying, but you might not want him to miss too much)
- Rotoscope a yellow electric energy onto the cable wire Boba shoots around Luke. Although we see this cable wire without this effect in Mando, other media have depicted the wire with the energy, like here in Rebels (at the 1:25 mark), and it could add some nice visual flare to the scene that could make Boba cooler.
- When the sail barge turret shot that knocks Boba down fires, we don’t really see it, just where it impacts. So maybe we could add a blaster deflection sound effect to imply that Luke managed to deflect it while he was tied up. You could also add a blaster shot that passes by camera when Luke flicks his lightsaber. I think this scene may have been trying to imply this, but it could be made clearer.
- When Boba lands on the floor of the skiff, add some spark sound/visual effects coming from out of frame, emanating from his now-damaged jet pack.
- As Boba is starting to aim his shot at Luke, you could add a some more brief sparks to help set up his new vulnerability more.
- When Han says, “Boba Fett? Boba Fett? Where?” have him say this quicker, then add a Chewbacca growl, as if he is telling Han where he is, then Han swings based off where Chewbacca said he was. Han isn’t saying “Where?” as he is swinging.
- Boba shot does not miss Luke, but makes contact.
- Rotoscope Luke’s hand getting shot and his quick reaction shot and put them at this moment. (If there is trouble with making his reaction shot fit, maybe we could just put Luke shouting in pain over the hand insert)
- Remove Boba’s scream (which many people have already done)
- After Boba falls in, replace the Sarlaac burping with the sound of muffled blaster shots. It could imply he survives, or he still dies, but it depicts Boba as tough despite the circumstances.
And of course, you would remove his hand getting shot later on since we have placed it sooner.
You could make an argument that you might need to add Luke’s hand injury to any shots where we might see it, but we actually don’t see his injury on his hand after it gets shot even in the theatrical, so I wouldn’t say it is priority.
I would try and make any new blaster shots or any other new effects fit with the 1983 look. Nothing super modern looking.It is still goofy that he goes in close range when he could’ve taken him out from a distance, but that’s Star Wars for you. If you wanted to rationalize it, you could perhaps give Boba a line or two during this scene. Maybe he could say something like, “He’s worth a lot” (that way you could use both the original and new dubs), implying that Boba might use the chaos to claim the bounty, that certainly must exist on Luke, for himself. This also makes Boba appear more self-serving rather just a Jabba lackey.
If that didn’t work, you could maybe reuse “He’s no good to me dead” or make it “He’s good to me dead” or just “He’s dead”. Boba works better when he says little, but these are just some ideas.Building off of Boba ideas, I also had the idea of Boba being the one to catch Han and Leia trying to escape, rather than Jabba and literally everyone else in the entire palace hiding behind currents. When Han and Leia turn around to leave, you could reuse a shot of Boba standing in the palace, and point his gun at them, then cut back and show him raising his gun back up, knowing that he has them where he wants them. You would lose a minute of footage from this change though, and any runtime worth keeping may be crucial to keep one’s edit from being too short.
I may try to make Boba’s “death scene” my next project, whenever I have the time. Even though ROTJ is sort of the black sheep of the Original Trilogy, I still feel like there isn’t a definitive edit for this film that does a better job at putting it as close as possible to Star Wars and Empire in terms of quality.
Nothing valuable to add here other than approval. I especially like the idea of muted blaster shots once he’s in.