G&G-Fan said:

Since you’re editing the films for better cohesion, were the Prequel duels toned down to be more like the OT duels? And/or were the OT duels edited?

First, I prefer the style of the Vader/Luke duels. Their fighting feels more powerful, it has more weight and tension. I find the Prequel ones often overstimulating and hollow.

Second, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, and eventually Luke Skywalker are (and should be) incredibly powerful Force users and skilled dualists.
They were supposed to be in the 70s/80s, and are again, canonically.
Vader and Ben in ANH should be beyond their prior selves, hence their boasts to each other. The script even describes their battle as “masterful”, “powerful”, even “lightning”.

Vader is the terrifying, powerful villain of the trilogy, the Empire’s ultimate enforcer who slayed the Jedi. The pathos relies on viewing him as imposing.
Vader is 80% as powerful as the Emperor in Lucas-Canon and Legends, and even more powerful then the Emperor in Disney-Canon (he has contingencies to ensure Vader’s loyalty).
Originally lightsabers were meant to be heavy, so Vader fighting with just one hand for part of the ESB duel showed great of a warrior he is.
Vader should be more powerful as a cyborg, not less. Also, Grievous proves cybernetics shouldn’t hamper lightsaber skills.

Obi-Wan is the enlightened, experienced mentor figure Luke, and thus the audience, looks up to and aspires to be. He’s a Master Jedi Knight, a relic of that golden age, and his skills should reflect that. Again, the pathos relies on it.
Ben canonically easily kills Maul a few years before ANH. Also, Dooku and Yoda prove old age shouldn’t hamper lightsaber skills.

This is why it’s impactful when Vader kills Luke’s mentor in-front of him. The whole trilogy builds to Luke being able to fight and beat him.
Luke’s journey is becoming a complete Jedi Knight, just as great of a Jedi as the one’s of old, as Ben. Part of that is his saber skills and Force power. It’s even stressed he has to be that, in order to face the mighty Vader. Reinforcing Vader > the Prequel duelists; the only one who can beat him is his son, his own blood.
Luke should be incredibly powerful and skilled, not lesser then the Prequel dualists, both in ESB and especially ROTJ. Vader even says his skills are "complete” in ROTJ, and in ESB, says they’re “most impressive”.
While Vader is mostly just toying with Luke in ESB, the power disparity isn’t as much as ppl think (Jedi training didn’t used to take decades). And Luke contending with Vader in ROTJ should be a mighty feat. He wins he’s become Vader’s equal in power and skill, but Vader is conflicted and Luke gets a dark side boost at the end.

Basically, the OT films were fundamentally built so Vader, Ben, and Luke are great warriors, so they shouldn’t be undermined by the Prequels.

Also, I hope none of Darth Vader’s scenes were cut from your version of ESB. That’d be blasphemy (joking… or am I).

JoyOfEditing said:

After a long battle with YouTube’s Copyright Goblins, the next two episodes are now live!

They both cover the recut of the Utapau Duel, and I hope y’all enjoy them!

Part 1: https://youtu.be/foXKzbzaaXc

Part 2: https://youtu.be/DN6BpdJQJ-g

Good videos.

One thing though, when you talk about how Grievous shouldn’t feel pain: first, droids feel pain in Star Wars. Multiple times. For example, 3PO in ESB, when Chewie doesn’t crouch low enough entering the Falcon in the escape from Bespin.
Second, so do cyborgs. The very first thing we see when Luke gets his cyborg hand is testing pain receptors. Vader yells in pain when his hand gets cut off.

Anybody with CIPA will tell you, pain is very important. You want to know what’s happening with your own body (recommend the House MD episode “Insensitive”, if you want to know how ppl who can’t feel pain live).

Star Wars droids/cyborgs are advanced enough to have artificial pain receptors. And therefore it makes sense that they should. You don’t want to accidentally put your hand on a stove for a half-hour without even noticing.

Goodness Gracious, that’s a lot of questions, lol! I’ll do my best to address them all, but if I miss one gimme a shout.

How did you bring the Prequel Duels into alignment with the Duels in the OT? - There’s two pronged answer to that. On the technical side the OT Duels are cut on the wrong frames which makes them feel slow. If you use the same cutting techniques that Ben Burtt used in the Prequels, they can hit with the same speed/force (except the famous SC38, but I came up with an unorthodox way to fix that problem).

On the other hand, the Prequel Duels suffer from sequencing issues (that’s why they feel “overstimulating and hollow” as you correctly pointed out), but if you resequence them to match the sequencing of the OT Duels, they also line up nicely. That’s exactly what I did to make the Grievous Duel more engaging.

How did you address the “power levels” of the duelists across the SAGA? - I made a single story decision, and then recut all the duels to serve that decision. Basically, there’s a story problem when it comes to the duels. The visual symbolism is telling one story, and the dialogue is telling another. The dialogue says that Luke must train hard enough to tear down Darth Vader in a death match, whereas the visuals say he must stay his hand to break the cycle of violence.

Watch the Visuals: Maul cuts down Qui-Gon, so Obi-Wan retaliates by cutting Maul in Half. Dooku cuts off Anakin’s arm, so Anakin cuts off his hands and kills him. Obi-Wan de-limbs Anakin, so Anakin kills Obi-Wan out of revenge. Vader cuts off Luke’s hand, so Luke cuts off Vader’s hand, BUT!!! in that moment Luke stops and looks at his own hand. The reason he does that is because he finally understood the meaning of his vision in the Cave of Evil. If he cuts off Vader’s head, he becomes Darth Vader, and the cycle of violence and revenge continues. That is why Luke throws away his lightsaber and says he’s a Jedi like his father before him. The Jedi in the Prequels had become like the Sith, engaged in the never-ending cycle of revenge. That circle must be broken for balance to return to the Force. Obi-Wan’s sacrifice in A New Hope is actually his most important lesson to Luke. He is showing Luke the way to bring balance: lower your guard and sacrifice yourself. If you recut the OT so that Obi-Wan and Yoda tell Luke he must “face” Vader but cut all mentions of them telling Luke to kill him, the whole SAGA suddenly makes thematic sense.

Did you cut any Vader scenes out of Empire Strikes Back? - Yes. Several. But cutting out those scenes, massively improves the Vader scenes that remain, so you ironically end up with more iconic Vader scenes instead of less. I’m not gonna tell you which Vader scenes I cut here, cause you’ll have to wait for the episode where I address that part of the recut 😉.
Grievous can feel pain in his robot arms, why did you goof that up in your recent episode? - First, you’re absolutely right that cyborgs (like Luke Skywalker) can feel pain in their artificial limbs. Second, I cut most of the “Droid Pain” out of my version of the SAGA (Threepio doesn’t bonk his head on Bespin, the Droid Torture Scene has been cut from Return of the Jedi, The Battle Droids don’t scream when they’re killed, ect. . .) My thinking is that Droids can “express” pain as part of their self-preservation programming, but do not “feel pain” the way a human or a cyborg would. When it comes to General Grievous, I’m sure he “feels pain” in his organic bits, but I cannot imagine there would be a tactical advantage to him “feeling pain” in his limbs. In Grievous’ fighting style his “limbs” are used like “tools” (think the Buzz-Saw-Arm-Move). If one arm goes down, the other three need to keep spinning to finish the kill shot. If you’ve ever watched Robot Wars, the robot that generally wins isn’t the one that doesn’t get hit, but rather the one that follows through with it’s own hit as it’s being hit. In my view pain receptors would get in the way of that particular fighting style, so I recut the scene as if Grievous had 4 “weapons”, not 4 “hands”. Does that make sense?