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Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace — Page 5

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Especially if the shot of Qui-Gon changing his expression is reused as him wordlessly communicating with Shmi, I think it lets the theoretical viewer connect the dots.

Something unrelated from my rewatch: when Duel of the Fates starts playing, it punctuates the doors opening with Maul standing there, making for a really cool moment. But then the music stops matching what’s happening on screen for the rest of the hangar scene - it meaninglessly spikes at a shot of the side of the Naboo starfighter, and an equally meaningless shot of some droideikas rolling around, and has some of the frenetic part play while Padme and the others are calmly talking and leaving. I’m not sure how you’d do it with the coverage available in the scene let alone separating the music from the audio, but man, it would be really nice to rework the score there a bit so it doesn’t use the first appearances of those big musical moments on nothing. It all starts syncing up with the action as soon as the fight starts.

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

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EddieDean said:

Respectfully, Vladius, that definitely was intentional. Both George Lucas and Dave Filoni have said in interviews that the Jedi dogma seen in the Prequels was deliberately intended to be taken as a negative, and a factor in Anakin’s, the Galaxy’s, and the Jedi’s fall. (Whether or not that idea successfully landed for audiences is up for debate.) Dave’s explicitly said something along the lines of “that’s why they live in a literal ivory tower”. And the elements of TLJ where Luke criticises the dogmatic past of the Jedi order were apparently a feature of George’s original ideas for the sequel trilogy which he sold to Disney.

That said, whether or not we choose to emphasise or retain those intentions in a fan edit is of course entirely up to the editors.

I’m not posting that for conflict, just for information.

Speculating now, I think he intended that Qui-Gon was supposed to represent the first challenge to that dogma (hence his lower standing in the order), Yoda to represent entrenched dogma fading as he realises its flaws near the end of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan’s and Yoda’s meditations (in life and as force spirits) to represent their coming to understand an alternative existence within the light side of the force, and Luke as the intended inheritor of the new order.

Anakin would have been the first inheritor of the new Jedi if Qui-Gon hadn’t been killed, causing the tragic cascade that led to Vader, delaying the light’s revival. Luke was the new hope, delayed in his path by the presence of Vader. After Return of the Jedi, Luke sought to rebuild the order - already a better one based on the limited information he had, and under the guidance of the force spirits - but in his attempt to rebuild what was lost he still incorporated some of the old dogma, as we’ve seen recently. The tragedy he caused his own family with Kylo Ren and the failiure of his new/rebuilt order sent him, like Yoda and Obi-Wan, into doubt and exile, before the discovery of Rey (and his reconnection with Yoda) helped her forge what will follow.

The only force spirits we’ve seen have been those Jedi that challenged or questioned the order’s dogma, which seems deliberate. (And, for me, makes the final moments of Rise of Skywalker Ascendent all the more powerful, continuing that thread into Rey.)

Can you point me to those Lucas interviews? I’m still skeptical of that. I don’t think it landed for audiences at all until people came in after the fact to be contrarian and say that the prequels were underrated (“secretly genius”), and Filoni is a good example of that.
People are going to do the same post-facto rehabilitation of the sequels and have already started.

Like I said, I think his personal religious and political philosophy includes those Buddhist and ascetic elements and he felt that those were genuinely good things for the Jedi. He’s also said that attachment, fear of loss, and pleasure-seeking are what can lead you down to evil and that that’s what happened to Anakin.

It’s also unclear what people mean by dogmatism. Do they mean that instead of “no attachment” there should be “some attachment but not too much?” Or do they mean no rules on attachment at all?

In any case, whether it was Lucas’s idea or not, I just find the new Jedi he made incredibly uninteresting and completely different from what we saw in the original trilogy and all the material before the prequels, which Lucas also signed off on.

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The only quote out of those that was a direct Lucas criticism of the Jedi was

[The Jedi] sort of persuade people into doing the right thing but their job really isn’t to go around fighting people yet there are now used as generals and they are fighting a war and they are doing something they really weren’t meant to do. They are being corrupted by this war, by being forced to be generals instead of peacemakers. – George Lucas for E! Behind the Scenes - Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith

This makes sense and is true, and they were sort of placed into that situation by Palpatine. They could have done a more thorough job to investigate where the clone army came from in episode 2, and you can argue that that was because they were getting seduced by the power of having an army, but in the movie it just looks foolish. Yoda is already aware that the war is a bad thing, and all throughout episode 3 they are trying to end the war as quickly as possible and not drag it out forever.

But the central “dogma” of renouncing attachment is something Lucas always said was a good thing, and fear was always what led you down. He’s said that as recently as last year. https://youtu.be/V7LhwO0EGi4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi#Influences

"Lucas explained, the Jedi are trained, allowed and expected to love people, even their enemies, the Sith, but they are not supposed to form attachments and that’s because attachment led to the dark side of the Force.[9] When one was owning, having, possessing, getting or wanting and attaching to things, one become afraid to lose them, whether it to be pleasure, a person or experience. The fear of loss feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, thus, an attached person is selfish and unable to let go. The fear of loss turns into anger, which will lead to hate, and hate will lead into suffering, mostly on the part of the one who is selfish, because then one will spend their lives being afraid rather than actually living. Whereas compassion, the light side is caring and giving and thus it is love, and the opposite of attachment - it is everlasting joy, devoid of fear of loss and the pain of loss. “As long as you love other people and treat them kindly, you won’t be afraid.”[10]

Lucas, identifying himself as “Buddhist Methodist” or “Methodist Buddhist” stated that his philosophy of non-attachment, depicted in his movies was influenced by the fact that he was from San Francisco, the “Zen Buddhism capital of the United States”.[10] In 2020, he indicated that the Jedi were “designed to be a Buddhist monk who happened to be very good at fighting.”[3]"

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I liked this quote from Dave:
“And at the end of the day, one of the questions that I guess I pose is, is that really a good thing? Is Anakin’s way of being so compassionate wrong? Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong. There’s something they’re doing that doesn’t work and that the dark side is exploiting. If anything, it’s Luke’s overwhelming compassion and love for his father that in the end overthrows the Emperor because it’s something that he doesn’t understand. So as far back as Anakin, there is a seed of an idea of love and compassion, which admittedly in Attack of the Clones, the Jedi say they’re lacking because they’ve become arrogant and very sure of themselves.”

I think that demonstrates a good middle ground viewpoint. Either way, I think there’s a valid interpretation in either direction, and as you say, it hasn’t been particularly emphasised in the movies, so I don’t think we need to wrestle over the details.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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I think the important distinction to draw, as Lucas and Filoni do in those snippets, is between compassionate selfless love and possessive selfish “love”. Lucas is very much about selflessness vs selfishness.

In the PT, we see Anakin’s selfish, possessive love of Padme cause issues. He wants to keep her alive more for himself than for her: it’s “I won’t lose you Padme”, “I can’t live without her”, “you will not take her from me!”; he never asks her what she wants or thinks, even when she’s literally begging him to stop. And in the OT we see selfless, compassionate love: Anakin gives up his own life so Luke can live. He’s doing it for Luke, not so that he can keep Luke for himself or recruit Luke as an apprentice or whatever.

Where the idea of ‘attachment’ and the PT Jedi come into it, IMO, is that in order to avoid the risks associated with “selfish” love, the PT Jedi opt to forego all love entirely (on a personal level, they still supposedly maintain a general compassion/unconditional love towards all things, as Anakin mentions in AOTC), including the good, selfless parts. But that winds up being just as unhealthy. It leads to them being unable to appreciate the potential positive effect that Luke and Anakin’s bond could have, and instead write Anakin off as so far gone that he just has to be killed - a belief which Luke proves wrong.

This is one thing that I think TROS nailed. As a general rule, stopping people from dying (or even resurrecting the recently-deceased) is a Good Thing - here in the real world we call it medicine - so Yoda’s insistence in ROTS that Anakin not even bother trying to save Padme at all comes across as callous and heartless. By the end of the original six movies, the only people we’ve seen show any interest in using the Force to heal people are, bizzarely, the Sith. But then ROTJ is pretty unambiguous in its messaging that Vader opting to save his son was a Good Thing, a “light-side” choice that redeems him and allows him to become one with the Force and manifest as a spirit and all that. So we’ve seen that the old Jedi thought that trying to use the Force to save people from death was bad (even though it seems like it should be good), but also that selflessly saving people from dying definitely is good according to, essentially, the Force itself. Ben sacrificing his own life to resurrect Rey manages to combine these ideas while respecting the selfish/selfless love dichotomy: you can resurrect people from death on the “light-side”, but it can’t be done selfishly or possessively, only selflessly, because it kills you.

Sorry, this is not relevant to TPM lol.

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sade1212 said:

Sorry, this is not relevant to TPM lol.

No no, I think you both raise perspectives which are valuable to shaping a focus for TPM! I don’t think we need to take it further, perhaps, as we’ve covered what’s explicit and what’s open to personal interpretation, but I think this discussion is still valuable to a potential editor. Here we should be thinking about themes we’d like to emphasise or downplay. I think your analysis of selfish versus selfless love, and forbidding personal connection versus permitting healthy connection, is spot on.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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Alright. About to take one for the team and work my way through all the Clone Wars episodes with Jar Jar to transcribe his lines. Wish me good luck.

edit: So far I’ve got up to (and including) S04E04 Shadow Warrior. Hopefully there’s some useful lines/sounds that can be used. I’m using Disney+ to make my notes so I can’t actually rip the BR and isolate dialogue etc. but at least this should provide a resource for those that can.

Here is the spreadsheet I’ve created.

Just have the season 6 two-parter to go. But I’m calling it quits for the night. I’m Jar Jar’d out!

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That looks great! It might even be easier to film a new lightsaber roll with a Maul prop lightsaber than to mess around with doing it digitally.

Where did the new lightsaber shot come from?

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

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evansj1983 said:

Alright. About to take one for the team and work my way through all the Clone Wars episodes with Jar Jar to transcribe his lines. Wish me good luck.

edit: So far I’ve got up to (and including) S04E04 Shadow Warrior. Hopefully there’s some useful lines/sounds that can be used. I’m using Disney+ to make my notes so I can’t actually rip the BR and isolate dialogue etc. but at least this should provide a resource for those that can.

Here is the spreadsheet I’ve created.

Just have the season 6 two-parter to go. But I’m calling it quits for the night. I’m Jar Jar’d out!

This is a heroic effort! Thanks so much! I’ll add it to the spreadsheet, and cut those lines into the video too so they’re all in the same place and on hand.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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Just for organisational purposes, to list the current concepts being worked on in some capacity:

  • Redubbing Jar Jar with his own voice to alleviate some of his more distracting vocal quirks
  • Qui-Gon freeing both Anakin and Shmi
  • Obi-Wan bisects Maul with Maul’s own lightsaber

Apologies if I’ve forgotten any!

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

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CaptainFaraday said:

Where did the new lightsaber shot come from?

It’s from the lightsaber duel in AOTC, where Pbi-Wan is pulling his saber to give it to Anakin.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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The red Maul saber is a nice addition, and well done, but I feel like there’s important symbolism in Obi-Wan taking up Qui-Gon’s saber (and metaphorically his quest) at that point. They’ve had their disagreement and made up about training Anakin. Obi-Wan the padawan falls, and Obi-Wan the knight rises, inheritor of Qui-Gon’s ideals.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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EddieDean said:

The red Maul saber is a nice addition, and well done, but I feel like there’s important symbolism in Obi-Wan taking up Qui-Gon’s saber (and metaphorically his quest) at that point. They’ve had their disagreement and made up about training Anakin. Obi-Wan the padawan falls, and Obi-Wan the knight rises, inheritor of Qui-Gon’s ideals.

Interesting interpretation, I never thought of it this way. I guess there are arguments for both keeping the saber qui-gon’s or changing it to maul’s. I think making it maul’s is a classic example of a Chekhov’s gun, it’s cut in two so that Obi can use it later on. Also visually I like it, it’s symbolizing that revenge is not the Jedi way and to me Obi using his master’s blade to kill Maul always felt a little like him taking revenge for him.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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I like it both ways as well. Qui-Gon’s saber has the symbolism so nicely explained by Eddie, but Maul’s saber has a nice thematic turn by showing that the raw power which Sith believe gives them true strength (two blades! It must be twice as good!) always ends up being their downfall when it’s challenged by hope (Obi-Wan is at the worst disadvantage possible, and turns it into what lets him win instead). That “raw strength fails compared to hope” theme runs throughout the Saga, eg. an unstoppable Empire’s might ends up being no match for a small band of Rebels with hope.

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

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One other thing that has me tending away from the Maul’s saber idea (and not to criticise the idea or your work, PeterPan), is that there’s a risk that we take away from the power of a couple of other ‘good guy uses red saber during an emotional time’ moments. Off the top of my head, we have:

  • In ROTS, when Anakin wields a blue and red saber to decapitate Dooku, illustrative of him making the transition to the dark.
  • In Tartakovsky’s 2003 Clone Wars miniseries, when Anakin uses Ventress’ saber in anger against her, in a moment that’s shot a lot like Luke hammering Vader at the end of ROTJ, showing an early tending toward the dark.
  • In the Clone Wars CG series’ episode Revenge, where Obi-Wan uses Ventress’ saber in anger against a resurrected Maul, in a moment where Maul’s really goading him about the fact he killed his master, illustrative of Obi-Wan really feeling the pain of that loss.

(I compare the last one, about Obi-Wan, to his behaviour in TPM, where really he wins because he’s just had that slow, meditative moment in the pit, rather than acted in anger at the loss of Qui-Gon. In TPM, when he acts, it’s more peaceful and Jedi-like.)

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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EddieDean said:

  • In ROTS, when Anakin wields a blue and red saber to decapitate Dooku, illustrative of him making the transition to the dark.

It actually funny that you mention this scene specifically, because I was thinking of it as well in comparison to my edit, yet I saw it as a nice parallel. But to be fair I’m a sucker for parallels, I love movies like hot fuzz, that you can watch 20 times and each time you will notice another tiny parallel between two scenes.
But people have different taste and opinions, that’s the point of a forum, isn’t it?
I can see your arguments against the change and I understand them. And rest assured I am neither trying to change your opinion and start a big fuzz over it nor do I feel attacked by your criticism of the idea. Quite the opposite it show’s me that people engage with what I was putting in the hour between 2 and 3 in the morning instead of going to bed. (sleep is for the weak) And I think we can all agree that engagement is generally our preference to radio silence.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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CaptainFaraday said:

Just for organisational purposes, to list the current concepts being worked on in some capacity:

  • Redubbing Jar Jar with his own voice to alleviate some of his more distracting vocal quirks
  • Qui-Gon freeing both Anakin and Shmi
  • Obi-Wan bisects Maul with Maul’s own lightsaber

Apologies if I’ve forgotten any!

I also remember one of Eddie’s initial ideas was to start with the invasion already underway, and have the Jedi’s mission be to rescue the Queen. I don’t think it’s actively being worked on, but I do have some ideas for how it could be pulled off.

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

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CaptainFaraday said:

That would strengthen the “Queen Amidala is the equivalent of the Death Star plans” concept. What are your ideas?

My concept for the opening structure was something like this:

  • Open the movie with Eddie’s crawl concept: the Queen is a vocal champion against corruption, the Trade Feds have invaded her planet in order to bend her to their will, the Jedi have been dispatched to bring her to Coruscant.
  • Pan down to the theatrical opening shot of the Jedi transport approaching Naboo, then immediately cut to the scene of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon talking in the conference room. The shot would be flipped, and the droid’s dialogue would be changed, in order to have the scene take place on the Jedi transport.
  • After Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan to be mindful of the Force, cut to the Trade Fed flagship, and the second conversation between Gunray and Sidious. Most edits cut this scene due to being unnecessary with the theatrical plot, but it fits this altered plot like a glove due to its focus on galactic corruption and the Queen’s resistance.
  • After Sidious signs out of the hologram, cut to the montage of Trade Fed ships landing on Naboo, followed by Qui-Gon meeting Jar-Jar for the first time. The audience will assume that the Jedi’s transport landed near the outskirts of the city, but the Jedi encountered resistance from the invasion army (which is why they’re split up in this scene).
  • After the Jedi decide to leave before more droids show up (cutting the underwater city completely), cut to the Trade Fed army making it to Naboo. The Queen gets lectured by Gunray about the treaty she has to sign (another previously unnecessary scene that fits like a glove in the new plot), and then she gets rescued by the Jedi and Jar-Jar.
  • Qui-Gon’s conversation with the Queen’s cabinet has been shortened to fit his new mission: He just says “We’re ambassadors for the Supreme Chancellor. It’s urgent that we make contact with the Republic. Do you have transports?” He then convinces the Queen to come to Coruscant with them, and the movie continues as normal.

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

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 (Edited)

That structure feels really compelling to me. We’re focused on Padme rather than having the Jedi stumble into the plot while expecting to negotiate.

I’d maybe shift the invasion even earlier, perhaps even the first shots (after a pan down to the planet?) A landing army, troops and tanks deployed and moving into the city, [ideally extra shots of damage/oppression], a Queen sadly and silently watching, until we hear she’s been captured.

If Amidala is the Death Star plans, that opening is the Tantive 4 being captured by the Star Destroyer.

Edit: One thing you might want to do to smooth out a couple of your changes would be to have TC-14 say something like “We’ll be dropping you off soon in the swamps not far from the city.” And if you’re going with the Jar Jar as native guide/ambassador, you could reference that there too. Even “We’ve just received a distress call from our contact” if you wanted to help explain the transition into the action.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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I have been talking briefly about this idea in the prequel ideas thread, but I think associating the separatist with slavers could really benefit the story, making the whole conflict feel a lot more personal to Anakin.
So what if the gungan are the reason the federation chose Naboo? This could be explained with them wanting slaves that can operate under water or something.
It would both connect Anakin’s story to the overarching story of TPM and add a lot of emotion to the battle between the gungan and the federation army to a point that it would almost exactly parallel the battle in Spartacus, which it optically already does.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”