I suppose I’ll have to be the critic on this, although I will say that I like this idea on paper. My main problem (and the reason it’s never been done before) is that it might make the ending an even bigger headache for the viewer.
Here’s what I mean. I’m gonna look at this from the audience’s perspective. We’ve been following four plotlines throughout the final act of the movie. Already, this is a lot to take in. Now all of a sudden, Anakin’s plotline is being intercut with Maul/Obi-Wan’s plotline, possibly within seconds of each other. This means that the audience now has to figure out four storylines and, in addition, try to connect the dots on two of them within seconds of each other. The biggest problem with Episode I’s ending is in its overcomplications. And my main concern is that having two plotlines happen simultaneously will make that problem even worse.
I hope I’m not sounding too harsh. If there’s a way to simplify these plotlines and keep this idea at the same time, I’ll bite my words. But for now, I’m wondering what can be done to keep the ending simple.
I have altered Lucas’ visions. Pray I don’t alter them any further.
I actually think connecting the plotlines like this would make it feel simpler, not more complicated. Human brains are good at retaining information when it relates to other information; we’re less good at remembering multiple pieces of unrelated information (thus the existence of mnemonics, for instance). Having a moment where the audience goes “ah, that’s why I was being shown four different things” will - in my opinion - make those four endings feel less scattered and narratively chaotic.
“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas
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Plus, getting the Gungans out of that mishmash of storylines should take some mental load out.
I’m with everyone here, brilliant, bloody brilliant idea.
It creates such a beautiful connective tissue. (And for my personal viewing order is chef’s kiss! since I put TPM right after TESB. I don’t think it will make audiences have a harder time watching at all since it does simplify things esp since I do think that the Gungan battle should mostly be done away with. So then you just have 3 plotlines and now two of them wind up connected.
I’m with everyone here, brilliant, bloody brilliant idea.
It creates such a beautiful connective tissue. (And for my personal viewing order is chef’s kiss! since I put TPM right after TESB. I don’t think it will make audiences have a harder time watching at all since it does simplify things esp since I do think that the Gungan battle should mostly be done away with. So then you just have 3 plotlines and now two of them wind up connected.
Okay, that works for me. Carry on!
I have altered Lucas’ visions. Pray I don’t alter them any further.
Right, here’s a quick mockup of just the Gungan scenes from the final battle, aggregated. I’ll follow this up with the remainder.
This is VERY ROUGH, with absolutely minimal audio smoothing, just to get a feel for how it’d play out in isolation and show what shots are available. This is very rough and as far as I can take it with my audio editing skills! I’ve trimmed almost all of Jar Jar’s goofy antics and kept all the rest, though I shifted a couple of shots - (1) we see the Gungans charge on horseback BEFORE we see them fall, and (2) I’ve shifted the shot of the droidekas appearing and firing to immediately before a shot hits the shield generator, as if that was the plan.
The Gungan plan is to present their largest possible army to draw the droid army out, and to hold out as long as possible before losing the shield, at which point they’ll flee to the swamps. (Ideally, they only did all this to enable the sneaking into the city.)
The Droid plan is to test the shield, then when confirmed they can’t bombard it, to send in ground troops as cover for the droidekas, at which point their overwhelming forces can cause some quick chaos and force surrender. (We should really drop the ‘wipe them out’ angle in order to achieve this, since it isn’t what the droids do, though I left those lines in.)
The one thing I think isn’t great about this angle is that the battle ends very quickly. Jar Jar lands on his arse (as he does in the original) and then it’s pretty much done - when we return we see them being rounded up. Cut like this, I think we go from Jar Jar landing on his arse after chaos to them being rounded up a little too quickly.
I think the best solution here is to intercut just a little in order to give that rounding up scene time to get established - and I think the most elegant place to put it would be just after the ships fly out of the hangar and one crashes down on the plains. So it’d flow like this:
I don’t know if this would make sense, but it’s possible to put the gungans battle right after Qui-Gon left Tatooine? My idea with this is to make the conquest of Naboo be the motivation to Padmé abandon the diplomacy and to take action on the separatists, in the third act of the movie.
Here’s an example new introduction to Jar Jar, where he actually has character!
It’s not perfect, but I think it demonstrates the potential of using Clone Wars lines!
That does have promise!
It does seem weird that they would run into such an important person right away, but the rest is reasonable enough.
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Here’s an example new introduction to Jar Jar, where he actually has character!
It’s not perfect, but I think it demonstrates the potential of using Clone Wars lines!
I like it! Introducing Jar Jar as a representative for Naboo makes him an essential piece of the puzzle. It’s a lot better than him just being a humble servant.
I have altered Lucas’ visions. Pray I don’t alter them any further.
Here’s an example new introduction to Jar Jar, where he actually has character!
It’s not perfect, but I think it demonstrates the potential of using Clone Wars lines!
Eddie, you are wrong. It IS perfect. That was simply fantastic!!
I also thought that the Gungan battle was fine. Finally, I want to reiterate my thought about using more footage from the battle at the start of the film for the invasion idea to open it up. Darken it to look like later in the day to kinda cover the fakeness of it a bit, dirty it up, scorches, etc., and do quick cuts, flashes, etc. like almost a montage of a fight.
ETA: > NeverarGreat said:
It does seem weird that they would run into such an important person right away
Hmm, you do have a point there. But maybe could we find dialogue that would fit with Jar-Jar was waiting/looking for the Jedi?
I had this idea based on having TC-14 actually be on the Jedi ship in the scenario where they head to the planet under invasion without intending to meet the Neimoidians, in which case the droid’s dialogue could be something like “We’re setting you down in the swamp near where your contact was last seen” or something.
Regarding Anakin hearing Qui-Gon during the climax, I’m pretty sure there has been an edit that had Anakin hear Qui-Gon’s line, “Your focus determines your reality”, which fits with the moment pretty well I think. It also can be interpreted as Anakin just thinking of what Qui-Gon said, rather than Qui-Gon literally communing with him. But that could confuse people, and this ANH parallel might be a little too on the nose. Maybe not though. Maybe you could actually cut back to the moment to make it clear that Anakin is just recalling what Qui-Gon said rather than Qui-Gon speaking to him through the Force.
Regarding the Gungan Battle, I don’t think the entire battle scenes have to be put back to back. I think the Gungan battle should at least end before the gang splits up in the hangar. That way there is never four plots going at once. I think it would still be good to cut back to the gang making their way into the city to show what the Gungan battle is accomplishing.
Also, is the shot of Jar Jar landing on his arse (lol) even necessary? I mean I guess if you’re wanting to keep up runtime. I’ve seen other edits that just show Jar Jar and Captain Tarpals surrounded (but cutting away before Jar Jar surrenders).
Huh, after twenty years of TPM edits this is probably the first time anyone has ever managed to give Jar Jar new lines like that! Pretty cool.
I had this idea based on having TC-14 actually be on the Jedi ship in the scenario where they head to the planet without intending to meet the Neimoidians, in which case it’s dialogue could be something like “We’re setting you down in the swamp near where your contact was last seen” or something.
Yes, that works perfectly!
Regarding Anakin hearing Qui-Gon during the climax, I’m pretty sure there has been an edit that had Anakin hear Qui-Gon’s line, “Your focus determines your reality”, which fits with the moment pretty well I think. It also can be interpreted as Anakin just thinking of what Qui-Gon said, rather than Qui-Gon literally communing with him. But that could confuse people, and this ANH parallel might be a little too on the nose. Maybe not though.
Personally, I like the idea that Eddie came up with, Qui-Gon just guiding Anakin himself. I don’t think the parallel is too on the nose. I think it’s perfect.
Regarding the Gungan Battle, I don’t think the entire battle scenes have to be put back to back. I think the Gungan battle should at least end before the gang splits up in the hangar. That way there is never four plots going at once. I think it would still be good to cut back to the gang making their way into the city to show what the Gungan battle is accomplishing.
Also, is the shot of Jar Jar landing on his arse (lol) even necessary? I mean I guess if you’re wanting to keep up runtime. I’ve seen other edits that just show Jar Jar and Captain Tarpals surrounded (but cutting away before Jar Jar surrenders).
Agreed, I don’t think we need Jar Jar landing on his arse. And the battle scenes don’t have to be back to back.
Again posted here more for collective thought rather than anything else, here’s a VERY ROUGH cut of the ending if you take out the Gungan plotline and put it up front. All I’ve done here is very lightly smoothed the audio (but it’s not perfect), and removed the scene of Padmé getting the upper hand (since it takes away from Anakin’s victory). I haven’t removed any of Anakin’s annoying bits or the autopilot, or added any of the other ideas for here. It’s just presented this way to give a feel for the cognitive load of the ending without Gungans.
Here’s an example of how Jar Jar could care about and be more actively involved in the Queen’s rescue. This’d be more for the scenario where we skip Otoh Gungah because Jar Jar is their guide - albeit a bumbling junior politician who’s uncomfortable in dangerous situations. And Qui-Gon is initially hesitant to trust someone who’s clearly a bit out of their depth, ultimately accepting his value given his local/political knowledge. At the end of this clip, Jar Jar tries to big up his contribution as he realises he wants to be a part of this group and that the Jedi are competent protectors.
Again, it’s rough, but should illustrate some of our options!
And last one for now-
A quick, even rougher example (I had less time for this one) of more of Jar Jar having a personality, this time while Padmé cleans R2 (of her own volition, ideally!)
I think this makes a decent argument that there’s room for Jar Jar to still be a bit of an idiot and a tag-along, so long as he actually has things that he clearly cares about, that motivate him.
I encourage you all to play with the tool - the video has all of Jar Jar’s lines, indexed back to the spreadsheet, so it’s really quick and easy to find alternative lines and see how they work.
Honestly it is kind of crazy how the Clone Wars dialogue can be utilized in such a relevant way to totally alter Jar Jar’s background and motivation.
I like the new version of the final battle, especially since it only runs 15 minutes. Really streamlines the climax.
Also, really digging the new Jar Jar lines. I agree that there need to be adjustments made, but it’s a step in the right direction. I notice in the the first clip that the old lines have a slight echo to them as well as the crunching of leaves under Jar Jar & Qui-Gon’s footsteps, while the new clips are comparatively quiet, no echo, and no ambient noises. Jar Jar also cuts himself off saying he’s “Representative of the Republic Senat-Oooo & mesa be big help with the negotiations,” which I do have ideas on how to smooth out.
Similar issues of ambience exist in clip 2, but the lines help paint an entirely different picture of Jar Jar. My only other complaint is moving the “not rushing in line” up a second or so to hide the fact that he speaks without moving his mouth.
The last clip is the second best, with Jar Jar sounding a bit like a robot at the end where he introduces himself to Padme as “Representative Biiinkss,” but again, it’s nice to see Jar Jar caring about things outside of himself. There just needs to a bit of smoothing out to make the lines flow naturally, maybe toy around with changing lines slightly. As a shot in the dark:
“Thatsa lookin’ like a Jedi robe” -> “That looks like a Jedi robe”
“Oooo & Mesa be big help…” -> “Mesa/Wesa be big help…”
“Mesa thinkin’ Queenie would help us…” -> “Mesa thinkin Queenie’d help us…”
If anyone skilled in audio editing wants to give it a shot, let us know how it goes.
A few weeks ago I edited something together but never posted it. Here’s my take on the final act. I would make a few changes to this but I think this gets an idea of how the climax could feel. This was heavily based on one of RogueLeader’s posts.
Notes: Some of the audio transitions are very rough and I’m not happy with the transitions after the Gungan retreat and after the Queen is brought to Nute.
And here’s a slightly outdated chart of the edits:
Words!
Yep! And just to be clear, I’m not necessarily proposing that we use these exact alternate lines. An editor would want to decide on their intentions with the character first. For example, Jar Jar already in his role as Junior Representative, or as their deliberate contact on Naboo, or as some guy they stumbled across who decides to help, all have different implications to wider context.
I’m not going to take these particular examples further (mainly because I have to focus on TCW:R, and I’m not great at the music/foley side of things). But I’m really hoping that the takeaway here is showing that the tool makes playing around with Jar Jar very easy for anyone to do, and that there are lots of good alternate lines in there.
I think the video file on your Jar Jar voice library is broken, only the first ten minutes or so have sound, everything else is muted.
“Vader! Hologram, now!”
A few weeks ago I edited something together but never posted it. Here’s my take on the final act. I would make a few changes to this but I think this gets an idea of how the climax could feel. This was heavily based on one of RogueLeader’s posts.
Notes: Some of the audio transitions are very rough and I’m not happy with the transitions after the Gungan retreat and after the Queen is brought to Nute.
And here’s a slightly outdated chart of the edits:
I really liked this. It flowed much more naturally for me. I like how you had the low points of all four plotlines at the same time, for the viewer’s emotional flow to dip as one, before the high points of each.
(As an aside, I remember an interview with Michael Arndt back when he was writing TFA, where he talked about how one of the big successes of ANH’s editing was that it put all of the story and character arc high points within quick succession when things seemed at their lowest - Obi-Wan’s ghost gives Luke hope, Han returns after rejecting the rebellion to get Vader off Luke’s tail so he has the clear shot, Luke takes the shot, Death Star explodes, Obi-Wan’s ghost confirms Luke’s belonging on the Jedi path, rebels celebrate, C-3PO shows how much he cares for R2, medals all round.)
Having just delved into it, I think you used all of the right shots form the Gungan plotline. You could show the horseback charge before the riders get shot down - that one just made a bit more sense to me logically in the moment. I think you cut to the street fight and Neimoidian suprise at exactly the right moment to sell the purpose of the Gungan battle, and the point where you cut back to the Gungan fight felt right too - at that point you’re just intercutting between the Gungans and the hangar so it’s just two plots. I’d still probably prefer to pull the Gungan surrender to far earlier (like your graphic implies) just to get it out of the way, because while it was nice to have the four low points together, it did feel like a bit of mental juggling to still need to stay aware of this plotline during the other three. (Back to the Arndt example, you don’t necessarily need to drop all the low points at the same time as much as deliver all the highs at the same time). It did also feel a bit long to wait to return to that plotline.
Maybe this section could run as:
On the Padmé plotline, yesterday I was thinking about trimming that too - I feel like the ascension cables part doesn’t add much tension, and just slows down the plot when it needs to be fast. We don’t know the internal geography of the palace, so I feel like cutting away during the gunfight and then cutting back to Padmé’s team getting captured should be OK. Or you could maybe even show Padmé’s team leaving the hangar (running), then rejoin them onscreen when they get captured (whilst running). I don’t think it necessarily weakens their plan to have not accounted for resistance in the higher levels, with the chaos they’ve been causing (and the Jedi they expected to be accompanied by). As much as Padmé doesn’t have much character in this movie, all these scenes really add is showing her holding her own in a gunfight (which we’ve already seen in the hangar) and a bit of creativity (which we’ve seen with her decoys, Gungan diplomacy, and planning this whole assault). If the palace combat plotline is minimised - and ends early - then we’re mainly just following our main characters: Anakin in space trying to help take down the droid control ship, and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon (who’d be able to help the Queen) being tied up with Maul. It also makes it clearer that they really needed the Jedi for this section, and that Maul was a good counter to that.
I think the video file on your Jar Jar voice library is broken, only the first ten minutes or so have sound, everything else is muted.
Goddammit you’re right. I’m on it.
Edit: Fuck, it’s rendered that way again. It’s not identifying the peaks, even though the audio work fine in my editing software. I’ll have to investigate further. Balls.
Edit 2: Now the video’s cutting out early too! Oh noooooooo! I think it’s struggling since there are so many sources, I might need to cut it into multiple chunks.
Edit 3: Looks like it should be fine. I’ve split the source video into a TPM one and a TCW one, and they’ve both rendered fine. They’re uploading now.
OK, the Jar Jar voice tool’s video file is now fixed. It’s now two files, TPM and TCW, but it’ll work just the same.
