I would really, really like to see an attempt at a communitywide saga edit, where we consider the franchise holistically.
It’s too big for one person - everything would hinge on the collaborative approach. You’ll always have the bottom-up approach, where people generate ideas for scenes, then test them with an audience and tweak them to make them work. But like RogueLeader says, for a project like this you’d need to have a really heavy top-down approach too, establishing the thesis statement/objectives first. The order things were tackled would be vital, and I don’t mean like ‘which movie first?’, but things like how those goals are established, how they are validated, how changes are judged against them?
I’d suggest putting some serious time into polling and discussion there to establish those objectives. For example:
- Open discussion of what needs to be discussed, all of the possible considerations, questions that need to be asked
- A mammoth (non-binding) poll to cover everything that a consensus feeling is needed for: What should be canon? How far should can canon be deviated from? Aesthetic concerns? Sources? Themes?
- On those results, more open discussion, treating them as a guide but not final. Was anything missed that needs to be asked again? Are there any valid challenges to the consensus? Points should be justified, preferences should be argued for.
- Some form of locking-in of ideas. I’d suggest approval by a council of veterans - you three above would certainly not be a bad starting point.
- Present those goals. Justify them in writing, so others can get on board. Leave room for challenge and refinement.
- Then, granularity. Against those goals, probably another poll (again via open discussion of what questions belong), outlining character arcs (Anakin lied to by Obi-Wan?), key elements (Midichlorians? Chosen one?), overall flow of the saga (Palpatine returned?), etc etc. Again, discussion of results, approval by some authority that can thumb-up or thumb-down ideas (Like Hal’s role in Ascendent).
Essentially, democracy beneath some benevolent dictators!
THEN, the bottom-up approach can begin in earnest. Ideation. Realisation of those ideas. Testing against the goals. Impact for the wider saga.
And to support those who will inevitably prefer to deviate from that core, it’d be relatively straightforward to maintain a library of edited individual scenes, LUTs, etc, so that people could pick and choose. It’s always made sense to me that resources like this should be made available to the community as a whole.
Anyway, maybe that’s me taking it too far, but that’s how I’d approach it. I don’t do anything (Star Wars or work-related - I’m a business analyst/change consultant) without ideation, audience polling, approval groups, or a massive fucking spreadsheet.