adywan said:
ROTJ: REVISITED – PRODUCTION BEGINS & DONATION DRIVE
After a very short break (well, almost) from completing ESB:R, I will now be starting work on ROTJ:R . Although the full list of fixes and changes will still take time to compile, here are some of the things I have planned so far :- ( A full list will be updated in this post at a later date)
Add more B-Wings/ Pilots to Endor Space battle
Replace the lower quality matte painting with miniatures/ digitally enhanced versions
Remove the slapstick Ewok moments during the battle.
Add more rebel troop action to Endor ground battle
Remove the 2011 addition of Vader saying “No” during the climactic scene.
Remove “Jedi Rocks” and the additions of the Special Edition in that scene
Remove the Sarlaac SE beak
Add female pilots
Replace the Tydirium shuttle with a more cargo based shuttle (new design)
Re-rotoscope the lightsabers
Larger ground and space battle
New super-stardestroyer destruction.
Complete new colour grade
Remove Jabba’s “giant palace gate” added for the Blu-Ray and return it to the original version
Remove the new Ewok eyes
Remove Chewie’s Tarzan yell
Sebastian Shaw restored as Anakin for the ghost scene
Remove all of the Special Edition planet celebrations
Fix the “Force kick” shot where its obvious Luke’s kick misses by miles on the skiff
reorganise the space battle and fix the problems with call signs being given for the wrong pilots
New Boba Fett death
Remove many of C-3P0’s “Ric Olie/ captain obvious” lines
Maybe alter some of R2’s new beeps in which he sounds nothing like he does in the rest of the saga
Remove cartoonish vocalisation during droid torture in Jabba’s Palace
Fix Leia’s “I’m here” line in Jabba’s palace, which is pitched way too high and sounds nothing like her
Try to fix the ridiculous way Vader falls against the rail during the saber duel
Fix the error of the saber blade coming from the bottom of the saber when Vader throws it at Luke
Fix the badly tracked & the wrong focus stars seen out of the throne room window
Remove the added Dug walking around when everyone else is asleep in Jabba’s palace
Restore R2’s appendages, when he gets shot on Endor, becak to its pre-Blu-ray state ( no badly done CG bits)
Stabilise the shaky composited speeder bikes during the chase
Fix the error of the Imperial officer begin to fall back over the railing before the object that Han throws actually hits him
Fix Boba Fett flipped shots in the palace
Add Han’s arm restraints that were seen in ESB, but missing in ROTJ during the thawing process
And more…
Thanks to all the things I learned doing ESB:R, with the miniatures etc., I now know what can and can’t be done, so things can now move faster.
The first part of the production will be the live action shoots. This includes the B-Wing pilots and the Endor ground action. While we’re pretty much covered for costumes for the California shoot for Endor (apart from some props) , the B-wing pilots costumes and Cockpits need to be made from scratch. This will include 4 costumes and the same number of helmets and 1 full size cockpit, with interchangeable parts that can swapped around so that it doesn’t look like the same set used for all 4 pilots. Auditions for the needed pilots will be opening up shortly, but more on that once the time comes. Although there are costumers already out there with B-wing costumes that people have made themselves, It would be impossible to utilise what’s already out there because I need to have them identical and also because It would be a logistical nightmare to find people close to where I live that have the costume and can also act. So the only course of action is to create them myself. Another thing is the helmets. The original B-wing helmets are probably the worse helmet in the entire series. They’re not even helmets, just ear muffs. So these are getting a tweak. And, as we don;'t see the original helmets close up in the film anyway, redesigning them is no problem.
There are also a few props that will need to be made for the Endor shoot and ship them to California.
The second part will be the Miniatures. The main Matte paintings being replaced are the Home One Hangar scenes. The paintings just don’t hold up well and the scenes with Lando and Han have never looked any good. So a 1/48 scale miniature is being created for these shots. Luckily there are some X-wing, Y-wing and B-wing kits available in that scale, but the A-wings will need to be made from scratch by the looks of things. For the Falcon I will be using the 1/48 scale Hasbro hero play-set. That thing is a great little toy. Very close to the 32” inch studio model in terms of size, but perfect to be in scale with the other ships for the miniature. We will be 3D printing parts and scratch building other bits to kit out this Falcon to make it fit for filming. People that have already modified this toy know just how amazing this can look.
Now the shuttle Tydirium is going to be changed. One thing that has always bugged me is that the same model ship that is used for dignitaries, is also being used to transport cargo and troops. This ship needs to be a different model. More in line with a cargo shuttle, similar to what was seen in Rogue One and the troop transport in the SE ANH. So a 1/48 scale ship needs to be built and then it’s digital double for the flying scenes.
Now this unfortunately isn’t going to be cheap, so I really need your help. There will be some items that was used for ESB:R coming up for sale soon (Hangar set pieces, model ships etc.) , but this will only cover a small percentage of what is needed to accomplish this. (The Blueprints book posted earlier on the page is our 3rd unity directors own personally purchased copy that was used for reference until I managed to pick up a copy myself, so the funds he raises from the sale of that won’t be going towards Revisited as there may only be need to the first and second units this time around). While I have a small amount of materials left over from ESB:R, I don;t have anywhere near enough to be able to start.
The things I will need the funds for will include:
Lot’s of silicone and various resins, wood, electrics for the cockpit, material for costumes, vaccum-formed helmet goggles, fibreglass, set dressings, lots of various styrene sheets and pieces etc. etc. Now every penny raised goes into the cost of the materials. None of it ever goes to anything other than this. Everything ranging from travel expenses to the added cost of electric bills etc. comes out of our own pockets. We do not take a penny of donations for personal use or for anything outside of the cost of materials. Never have, never will.
So the ROTJ Donation Drive is now officially open…
If you can donate then you can donate through Paypal. You can visit the wordpress site and follow the links on the right of the page to the paypal donations page from there :
https://swrevisited.wordpress.com/
So it all starts now. On Force Friday…
ROTJ:R & ANH:R HD are now in production. Let’s hope this time things go more smoothly…
And now onto the last thing…
This will be my last edit. It’s obvious to me now that it is likely not possible to do all of the things I wanted to do to the prequels. Not without a huge budget. I don;t have the funds myself to do these projects, and I don’t want to keep having to rely on the generosity of others. I also just don’t have the love for those films, that I have with the OT, for me to spend years working on. So the Revisited saga will be episodes 4-6. These edits take up so much of my life as it is. To end up working on 3 more after this one (and recreating ANH in HD too) would take me another decade at least. It’s time for me to know when to stop. And that time is as soon as ROTJ:R & ANH:R HD are complete and all formats released.
EDIT: Work won’t fully begin until ANH:RHD has been completed
Good luck. You’re gonna need it.
