I’m working on what I hope will be, and intend as, the final update to this project.
[Hold for laughter.]
Here’s what I’m planning, including a few ideas from redditor HighGroundIsOP.
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Given the Kenobi show, I’m relenting on youngling stuff. (The Ep2 scene with Yoda will remain out, though.) Since Kenobi makes a meal out of Anakin unambiguously killing kids in a more graphic, direct onscreen manner than ROTS, I’m going to reinstate the scene itself as well as two other uses of the term. Also, since the child actor himself lent his voice for Ascendant, that’s an additional factor.
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For the main version, but not for the alternate ‘Padme dies’ version, I’m removing dialogue during Anakin’s Sith knighting about working together to cheat death. Given TROS, omitting this smooths out one’s thought process in the world of fridge logic. And, it sets Anakin up as someone who is loyal and believes he’s aligned with the right person. Even leaves open an old-school headcanon about Vader’s prolonged existence literally depending on Palpatine. This does, however, require losing the line, “Just help me save Padme’s life.” This reverts to an earlier version of LOE basically. (I left these lines in the alternate version because even though they wrinkle TROS, the touchpoint about Anakin’s ironic obsession with saving Padme is too valuable to cut.)
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Taking the redditor’s suggestion about Anakin and Padme on Mustafar. The idea is to have Anakin consistently respond to Padme’s pleas by highlighting his power.
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I’d like to see Anakin offer his thoughts to Padme about feeling lost and wanting more, but because I don’t have a nice segue into the scene without the nightmare, it’d likely be an awkwardly short scene with nowhere to be placed.
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One of the big ideas of LOE to begin with was to marry Q2’s use of ‘Other Boleyn Girl’ footage to depict Padme surviving on Alderaan and Corigar’s restructure to defer Anakin’s nightmare until after political motives have been established. However, I wonder if the order of scenes I am using for the updated alternate version would be better for the main version also. We’d get the nightmare first as in ROTS, then the opera scene, then Yoda’s counseling session along with the rest of the string of talking scenes about political factors. Really not sure, as it’d be a big change to LOE but I feel it’d help the movie. Seems like I’m leaning toward it, though.
JEDIT: Here’s the order of scenes again, for reference:
Anakin learns Padme is pregnant
Greivous arrives on Utupau and speaks with Sidious
Nightmare, Anakin walks out of bedroom
Opera scene (excised mention of Greivous intel, since it’s not followed up with for a while)
Yoda’s counseling session
Anakin misses briefing and Obi-Wan warns him of Palpatine
Palpatine appoints Anakin to Jedi Council
Council doesn’t like this
Bail’s apartment deleted scene
Anakin is asked to spy on Palpatine
Jedi traffic scene
Anakin and Padme talk about their political views and have a bad time
Troops setting up on Khshyyyk, and LOE continues more or less the same from here until the ending (same as current alternate version ending)