Plus, personally speaking I feel that the idea of a partially destroyed death star that still hangs around is not any better than the idea of a second , more powerful, one being built through the film timeline. Like people have stated before, if the death star in ANH only has it's ass blown off at the bottom, then there is no celebration at the end, the empire is just going to finish up some damage, and to me would feel very anticlimatic. This needs to represent the first major defeat of the empire of the war with the rebels. Since episode III we will see the empire taking over, all the jedi dying, the galaxy has lost their republic rights, haha the set designs and spaceships are turning to crap and the death star is a new super weapon that would only spell immediate doom for the rebellion to succeed. However, the destruction of the first DS makes it like the galaxy has some hope (A New Hope) and that the rebellion will continue fighting with their new rush of victory. Everybody new , even when ANH originally came out, that they didn't destroy the entire empire, or that all the bad guys were now defeated and it's celebration all over the galaxy. So there is nothing wrong at all with blowing it up entirely and creating the "second DS" out of ESB.
After the DS 1 explodes, following that with the emp/vader chat from ESB is the best way to keep a "saga" flow to the plot and retain the idea of the original. I feel this is a great idea anyway because this specific chat with vader/palps doesn't feel right in the spot it is in for ESB. WHy would they now be talking about Luke and the death star? ALl this time later, it's obvious to the audience already. Then the emperor would be missing from ESB, which is a good idea. Considering that there are no plot movements that specifically involve palps you can't even notice he isn't there. There are focused plots on almost every character and makes a better build for his appearnce in ROTJ.
The very last shot of ESB would include lukes line from ROTJ "I'll meet you back at the fleet.............I have a promise to keep, for an old friend".........then ESB ends. ROTJ could open with Luke on Dagobah (using the planetary view from the ROTS deleted scene of yoda flying to dagobah) and ending with the line from obiwan "they do you credit, but may be used to serve the emperor".....then we swipe to the Emperor arriving on DS II and the first appearnce from vader for the movie. CC has laid out MANY different oppurtunitys of sequencing for the first half of ROTJ. They are all so good that i'm hoping we'll have time to do every version and decide the best flow from the mix.
As far as how mustafar could blend in with the OT movies. I understand that it could be useful considering that the DS 1 was shown being constructed next to the planet in ep.III. This doesn't mean that we have to include Mustafar in the movies however, and if it was to be anywhere then perhaps at the alternate ESB opening of the DSII we could see the planet mustafar in the corner. However I think it would be better to introduce the planet Endor while we're at it. Plus endor is the planet operating the deflector shields , which seems so important a mission to destroy in ROTJ. But i'm just not sure that this idea of changing the Luke/emp/vader scenes to coruscant can be seamless at all. Not only are you guys talking about repainting the windows to include a nighttime coruscant, but you would also have to create several shots of this building they are in (areal like shots to we can understand where they are, like the tower shots on DS II), plus you'll need shots of the different ships approaching and landing through the orbit of the planet and into the city. Once again we're not talking small effects, we're talking huge CGI and/or models. It is a fansastic "idea" , but there is really no way we are going to get that kind of f/x work on these edits............we havn't even had any volunteers to help us rotoscope lightsabers yet.
As far as writing down the ideas to all the movies that we are set in stone on..........that is a good idea, a very ambitions idea but a good one. This chat has been going on for soo long that I myself have forgotten a few directions to which we're going. Considering that we are still planning to edit Episode one first (am I right CC?) then we will need to discuss a few things in particular that have altered our original intentions of the edit. I don't mean to get off topic of ROTJ alterations, however here are thing things that CC laid out a few pages ago, but we havn't really had a good discussion on how to fix these problems, or how it will effect the overall plot if they cannot be fixed..
Commander Courage wrote:
Due to various constraints, we've had to cut a couple of plot points we were hoping to change: Qui-Gon talking to Anakin through the Force, and Nute going back to the control ship and dying in the explosion. There are simply no quiet shots of Anakin in the cockpit which could be used for him listening to Qui-Gon. He's always talking or looking around very fast. A "flying back to Naboo" shot also proved nearly impossible to create, and that would also be necessary for the Force-talk. Maybe in the inevitable Special Edition we can work out a way to accomplish that, but for nw unfortunately it's a no-go. Also, the killing of Nute required a couple of SFX shots that could have been completed, but we could never resolve Padme's plot line to our satisfaction. Ideally there would be a shot of her and her group entering an empty throne room and a line "We're too late. They're gone," but it just doesn't exist. Without some kind of major reworking of the Padme/Nute throneroom scene, which is beyond our ability, this would end Padme's plotline at "Put down your weapons. They win this round." That's just not a satisfactory conclusion. So Nute will live an be captured as per the original version (which will make subtle things in II and III work much better).
Going back to the alien dialogue, InfoDroid had planned to use voice actors. I suppose we could still go this route, but personally I think we'd be much safer using a foriegn language track. Japanese would be the preferable language, as it's almost unrecognizeable. That would work for the Nemoidians anyway. The Gungans are a huge dilemma, any thoughts on them would be welcome. The idea behind using a foriegn language track and not dialogue from say, "The Passion of the Christ" (which I thought worked great in the clips ID posted), is that we could use proper nouns like "Jedi," "Sith," "Amidala," etc. This is also possible of course with voice actors, but again, I'm hesitant to use fan voices. Grievous/Maul being the only exception, and yes, that IS happening in this edit. He has only two lines in this Episode I, both coming in the hologram report scene.
As for special effects shots that are necessary:
-Possible new opening shot, something other than a pan down to the Republic cruiser (suggestions welcome).
-Grievous's Shuttle from Episode III, serving as Nute's shuttle here, approaching Theed. This will serve as a transition to Nute and Rune departing the shuttle (which has been moved to later in the movie).
-I'd LOVE to have to shot of the Royal Starship IN hyperspace. I'm not sure if this can be accomplished (suggestions welcome).
-The Royal Starship approaching Tatooine. An example of this shot can be seen in a screenshot posted by TJ. This utilizes the first shot of ANH flipped upside down, though I think it best if the moons were painted out so it's not instantly recognizeable as been cut-and-paste from ANH.
-Grievous/Maul talking to the Nemoidians via hologram. G/M would be sitting in the chair, matted over Sidious, with his original hologram painted out. TJ completed an early test of this which looked promising and was very effective.
And Info Droid and TJ never have contacted us past the moment they made their departure known, so we're still left with alot of material to gather or find on our own. But everyone is coming up with very good ideas and the brainstorming is getting better. If anyone has any suggestion on the points listed above, now would be a good time to suggest.