Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace — Page 11

Thank you very much, your work on this is invaluable.

jrs81 said:

Peter Pan said:

There is the really dirty option to just trim the reaction shot of maul. Its the only shot the blood is in, you could easily shorten it by a second and skip the blood. You would only need to fix the audio afterwards to get rid of mauls grunt when the saber hits him. That could be a little tricky, but not really time consuming. At worst you would have to redo the saber-slashing sound effect and find a clean recording of the score.

Here was my attempt at getting rid of the blood splatter which I included in my episode edits.
https://youtu.be/wFXkYhRAXRc

That looks great!

I agree that looks really clean. Good work.

Darth Raditz said:

Is there any way to have it so Jar Jar knew that Padme was Queen Amidala the entire time? Looking at Eddie’s tool, I see there’s the line “…but only if Queenie thinks it all right to tell you.” Maybe incorporating that line with Jar Jar & Padme’s first meeting creates a double meaning that’s more apparent on a second viewing, and cutting out Jar Jar’s shocked revelation when Padme reveals herself would seal it?

I cut out Jar Jar and Padme’s first scene together from my edit, which is a big step in the direction you want to go. Remove that scene, then cut out Jar Jar’s reaction to Padme being the queen. I think that’ll eliminate the question from the viewer’s mind.

Opportunity! If you did want to have Anakin somehow actively guided through the force by Qui-Gon near the ending, without having to wait for him to die first, you could do something during the moment where Qui-Gon is meditating during the Maul fight’s pause. This’d add a bit of value to Qui-Gon, showing his awareness of both fronts, and perhaps even hinting that he deliberately led Anakin to the ship because he had a feeling that he’d be valuable there.

Anyway, I just spent some time on the ending, using Snooker’s as a base and exploring some of my other ideas. I found that a few of my thoughts don’t quite work - for example, you can’t have the Gungan plotline finish too early, because it’s just a bit sudden. One of the problems with recutting the ending is that each of those four plotlines has their own peaks and troughs, so there’s risk of whiplash if the energy in one scene differs from the energy in the next.

But I did find some opportunities I liked! The main ones being finding an earlier home for the Gungan surrender, cutting Padmé’s scenes in the palace, and reordering the conclusion a bit more.

As before, I’ve done only light audio smoothing, and alternate scoring in a few places would make this land better. I’ve also slightly reordered the horses/droideka shots but not fixed the audio there.

Here’s my attempt (16 min), based on trying to minimise cognitive load whilst balancing flow and narrative energy levels. (Key highlights in bold.)

The opening here runs like this, setting up all plots and ending with closing off the Gungan one:

1. Gungans and droids face off up to the point where the shields are breached and close combat begins.
2. Padmé’s team and Jedi guard infiltrate the city, Neimoidians show suprise, team makes it into the hangar.
3. Pilots are freed and we follow them up into space and first combat with the droid control ship.
4. Gungan battle turns bad as the droidekas take out horses and the shield, causing them to flee.
5. Padmé’s team restate the plan to get to Gunray in the throne room, and they move to do that.
6. Maul appears and the Jedi step in to deal with him; Padmé’s team must go alone. First plan change
7. Droidekas block Padmé and Anakin activates his ship to deal with that; Padmé’s team run into the palace.
8. Anakin heads into space.
9. Gungans surrender. Now we have one less thing to think about, and jeopardy hangs over the other plots.

Then the middle, where the main focus is dealing with the changes to the plan, and everything goes wrong:

1. Maul/Jedi battle continues from the hangar into the power room.
2. Anakin joins the battle in space, and we see that he’s decent at it.
3. Padmé’s team (running) get captured. Now the pressure (and focus) is on the other two plotlines.
4. Maul/Jedi battle continues into the forcefield gates, they all pause.
5. Anakin enters the droid control ship, his ship fails. This plotline’s in jeopardy.
6. Maul/Jedi battle continues, Qui-Gon is killed. This plotline’s in jeopardy.
7. Padmé’s team are brought to Gunray. “Your little resurrection is at an end.” Mission seems to have failed.
8. Obi-Wan fights Maul, but ends up hanging in the pit.

Then the ending, featuring the turn, and victory:

1. Anakin turns his ship back on, destroys the droid control ship, and escapes. Hope returns.
2. Gungans are freed, and cheer. Brief high for this plotline, but no mission victory yet-
3. Obi-Wan’s being taunted by Maul’s sparks, but jumps up and bisects him. Hope for the Obi-Wan plot
4. Padmé’s team capture Gunray. Mission victory comes LAST, so we don’t get the high while Obi-Wan’s still in trouble.
5. Back to Obi-Wan, for Qui-Gon’s death scene. *Now that the mission is complete, we see the cost of victory."
6. Endings.

I’d still include some tweaks to some of Anakin’s more childish dialogue and actions, make it clearer that Anakin’s deliberately off into space, and tie in Qui-Gon encouraging Anakin through the force, but I think that’s roughly how I’d like to structure it.

EddieDean said:

Here’s my attempt (16 min), based on trying to minimise cognitive load whilst balancing flow and narrative energy levels. (Key highlights in bold.)

Fuck’s sake, you guys! I said I didn’t want to revisit my prequel edits!

Yeah, I think that the end of the Obi-wan/Maul fight would work better with as few cuts as possible.

The concept that Padme wins because of the destruction of the control ship is a really nice touch.

NeverarGreat said:

Yeah, I think that the end of the Obi-wan/Maul fight would work better with as few cuts as possible.

I think I agree with you guys that this change should be reverted. Even though ideally the ultimate success should come last, if doesn’t work here . Sirius, you’re right, 3/5/4 is the original ordering. Edit: No wait! 2/4/3/5 is the original order.

The concept that Padme wins because of the destruction of the control ship is a really nice touch.

I can’t take any credit for that, it was at least Snooker, Hal, and probably a lot of other editors before, if memory serves.

This is so good.

I just noticed that, in this ordering, you could make a small change to the brief scene where Nute Gunray sees the footage of the fighting in the streets and says that he wasn’t expecting fighting here: You could conclude that scene with the line “Send in the droidekas!” (from the movie’s early scenes on the droid control ship). Droidekas are what stop the Gungan cavalry advance and shut down the Gungan shields (when cut this way), what nearly slows Padmé before Anakin shoots them, and then what ultimately captures Padmé. It makes the droidekas more of a badass tool that helps turn the tables, that Gunray was keeping in reserve, and makes Gunray active and villainous in turning the tide almost to his victory.

(Besides, I’d argue that the line doesn’t belong at the start, because the droidekas in the opening lead to the force speed escape, which I really dislike because it’s not used at the ending when it should have been. I’d cut the lot!)

Cute little thing I hadn’t noticed before: Panaka addresses Padmé’s two squads as “red group, blue group”, which is the colour of the laser pointers they use to silently communicate with each other during the street fight.

–

Anyway, I did another pass on my ending test, again built on Snooker’s recently shared version, mostly with some dialogue switching. (Hope that’s OK, Snook!)

• Added Gunray’s “I want droidekas up here at once!” from the opening scenes. Droidekas are the only things we’ve seen the Jedi having trouble with, and it helps sell Gunray as both fearful and resourceful, among the other reasons I mentioned above.
• Added Jar Jar (offscreen, so it could be any Gungan) shouting “Retreat! Retreat!” after Tarpals whistles and starts the retreat, to make it more explicit that’s what’s happening.
• Moved Anakin’s “Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, so that’s what I’m going to do” (from when R2 in space tells him to turn back) to the hangar, to show him making the decision to actively help and exploit a loophole (classic Anakin). This also helps smooth over both Snooker’s and Hal’s version, where his lips move a little as he’s starting to pilot the ship, but no dialogue is heard.
• Added Anakin’s “we have to do something” (from the earlier hangar scene) to turn it into his response to R2 in space telling him to turn back - now he’s clearly stating that he’s actively decided to help in space.
• Removed Anakin’s “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick”, and instead moved his actions in that scene (of turning the controls then his ship spinning) to be the thing he does when he’s got enemies on his tail and after he says “I know we’re in trouble, hang on!” This makes him a bit more of a natural pilot, and gets rid of the silly voice line.
• Put the ending back to Anakin destroys ship > Gungans celebrate > Padmé captures Gunray > Obi-Wan defeats Maul > Qui-Gon’s death scene, so you guys can see how it works compared to the earlier version.

I’m sure others have made these edits before, but I haven’t seen every fan version!

(This version slightly offsets the audio in Qui-Gon’s death scene by mistake, but it’s the last scene in this clip so it doesn’t interrupt your emotional flow for the sake of this test, so I’ll leave it for now.)

–

Now I’m looking at it in a bit more detail, I’m not sure if having Qui-Gon pull a “use the force, Luke” on Anakin would quite work. You could only really do it when Qui-Gon is meditating, dying (a bit of a stretch), or dead. And practically he’d intervene to either encourage Anakin to fly up to space or to focus while he’s up there.

He can’t really encourage Anakin to get started since it seems like it’s against his earlier instructions, and it’s stronger for Anakin if that decision is his own. And when Qui-Gon’s meditating, Anakin’s in the middle of combat and I don’t think he really has any footage we could use as a ‘focus’ moment.

The only real option, I think, would be to have Qui-Gon meditating tie in with Anakin when he’s powerless in the hangar. But ideally it wouldn’t lead right into Anakin then blowing up the ship, because that triggers the cascading happy endings and splitting them around the long sequence of [Qui-Gon fight, Qui-Gon defeat, Obi-Wan victory, and Qui-Gon death scene] would mean you had far too much Maul combat to get through to hit all those highs at the right audience energy level.

That said, probably your best Qui-Gon lines would be those from Tartakovsky Clone Wars:
“Anakin, it calls to you. Control your fear. Trust in the force.”

• “Anakin, it calls to you” can be taken as Qui-Gon noticing in this moment quite how connected to the force Anakin is, and helps show why Qui-Gon is now supporting his actions.
• “Control your fear” is a key lesson for Anakin, and helps show why the council might now accept his training despite sensing much fear in him earlier.
• “Trust in the force” is his “use the force, Luke” instruction.

This version flows a lot better than before, I like it!

One thing that still feels odd is how short the scene of Padme and Nute is before the droids are disabled. Obviously you can’t include more from after that point, so the only other way I can see it working is to cut right from the surrender of the queen to the scene with Nute.

Love the idea of Anakin saying ‘we’ve gotta do something’ while in space, it really sells that he’s there for a purpose. It has always bugged me, however, to have his ship get hit in what appears a superficial manner, then to have him freak out and spin the ship into the hangar. What if he gets shot earlier in the battle and then R2 advises turning back, only for Anakin to refuse. At that point he knows the stakes. Then he could be further chased by ships and do the spin maneuver, even keeping the line, which goes out of his control a bit and lands him in the hangar.

JEDIT: Crazy idea, but what if we could use an idea from BOBF with Mando’s supercharge button on the Naboo fighter? Perhaps this is something that a few of the fighters have pre-installed in this era, and Anakin accidentally/purposefully uses it to boost through the shield into the hangar? That would explain why he’s having a hard time stopping the ship, why it’s overheated, and also how he could get through the shield while the other ships apparently never thought of that. Maybe if we pulled a shot of him pressing some important button from earlier or later, coupled with a boost sound effect and a bit of added engine flare.

Anakin Starkiller said:

EddieDean said:

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
QUEEN AMIDALA, elected ruler of the
planet Naboo, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy TRADE
FEDERATION have invaded her home system,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Jedi Order, mystical wielders of
THE FORCE and defenders of the Republic,
have dispatched Jedi Knight QUI-GON JINN
and his apprentice to bring the Queen to
safety on the capital planet of Coruscant.

This crawl is excellent! I’m gonna use it, but swapping the last paragraph for the one in the official cut. The Jedi don’t know they’re going to rescue the Queen yet (at least in my cut and the official one), so it wouldn’t make sense to mention and I feel like this takes too much time elaborating on what a Jedi is. I’d rather use that time to say the chancellor sent them.

If you were going to drop the invasion angle, and remove some of the capitalisation that a few have objected to, you could end up something like-

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
Queen Amidala, elected ruler of the
planet Naboo, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy Trade
Federation have blockaded her home system,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Republic Chancellor has commanded
the JEDI ORDER, mystical wielders of
The Force, to dispatch Jedi Knight
Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice to
negotiate for peace…

This retains the highlight on Qui-Gon (rather than both Jedi) and explains the role of the Jedi within the Republic, whilst setting up the plotline of the Jedi being too close to Republic politics.

The concept that Padme wins because of the destruction of the control ship is a really nice touch.

Wait, that isn’t how it happens in the actual film?

In the original film, long before the battle is won, Padmé’s aide appears when Padmé is captured. The Neimoidians think they’ve been tricked and that the aide is the Queen (when really it’s a double bluff) but it’s enough of a distraction that Padmé and her guards get hidden weapons out of the furniture and win the gunfight, capturing Gunray. The problem with that is that it’s the aide who saves the day (or kind of Padmé through having the idea?), so it’s not exactly a good character moment for a main character, and that the other major victories are less necessary in scoring the overall win. It also means that victory comes early in the plot, further splitting the relevance of the four plots from each other.

A lot of edits have cut those scenes, for this reason!

Oh, and I agree with you that it’d be nice to OT-ify some of the screen graphics.

NeverarGreat said:

This version flows a lot better than before, I like it!

One thing that still feels odd is how short the scene of Padme and Nute is before the droids are disabled. Obviously you can’t include more from after that point, so the only other way I can see it working is to cut right from the surrender of the queen to the scene with Nute.

I just gave this a try, but it doesn’t really work. Cutting straight from Padmé’s capture to Padmé being taken before Nute just felt really off. And then it made the Qui-Gon/Maul/Obi-Wan scene feel like it lasted for ages. You could maybe expand the Padmé/Nute scene a little, and bastardise some dialogue: “Your little insurrection is at an end, your highness. Time for you to end this pointless debate.” But that doesn’t make much sense, or is a bit of a weird insult. (Maybe there are other options elsewhere?) You could end on the spare shot of Padmé staring blankly at Nute, but she’s got such a neutral face that you’d probably have to really spice up the music there to convey some emotion, which might also feel odd since we’re then cutting to the Maul/Obi-Wan fight, which has no music.

I do feel like it works as is though, even though it’s short. It’s a nice little gut punch that reminds us of why Maul needs to be stopped, that breaks the fight scenes nicely. In terms of our energy levels and interest, we want to get back to that tense fight quickly, I think?

On your other ideas, I think you should give them a shot! It’d be nice if Anakin flies into the control ship more deliberately.

Here’s a little thing.
I think it’s a little too fan-edity though, because Anakin doesn’t really react.

EddieDean said:

Here’s a little thing.
I think it’s a little too fan-edity though, because Anakin doesn’t really react.

I do agree. It does feel sort of fan-edity. I think a simple solution would be to insert a shot of Qui-Gon while he’s communicating to Anakin, giving the moment a more organic feel.