Well, it took me a little more than two months, but this thread directly lead to my storyboard-based reconstruction: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Reconstructing-the-end-of-ROTJ-with-Storyboards/id/92274
Both this thread and yours are truly fascinating to me. Thank you. I’m going to go read my old Storyboards book for the Original Trilogy right now.
Do you think we’ll find more about on “Black Friday” and the missing Storyboards? I hope we’ll see some interviews, articles and documentaries on this for the 40th anniversary of Return Of The Jedi, as has been done on the official website for Star Wars and Empire for their 40th anniversaries.
I have found more storyboards that aren’t on the site yet, just haven’t had the time to update it. It really does seem like it was a combination of
- The early versions of shots weren’t good enough (in Lucas’s judgment, and we ought to trust him on that)
- The movie had to be done by a certain date
- Everyone was entirely overworked and burning out just trying to get something done before the deadline
- Thus, some things had to be cut
and hey, maybe it really was too long too
Wow. I look forward to seeing those updates.
I hope someday we’ll see some talented editors or fans put together a short video based on those scenes lost or cut for Black Friday, and other scenes for Jedi: either animated or model based. It’d be cool to see.
I love the “what could have been” aspects for Jedi, the deleted scenes we know about, and even the different fan edits of ROTJ since. I’m really looking forward to adywan’s ROTJ:Revisited to see what magic he comes up with again.