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Star Wars prequel film noir (* unfinished project *) — Page 2

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I haven't read through this whole board, so I'm sorry if someone else has posted this.

I think it would be very dramatic if the fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin was there, with lots of narration over it, showing exactly what was going on in his head as he fought with Obi-Wan. During this fight, we would have numerous flashbacks, some to times with Padme, some of times with the emporer, and some with Obi-Wan, showing thier friendship. As we look at Anakin burning on the ground at the end of the fight, and him screaming in agony, we hear more narration from Anakin, and this leads in to one more, final flashback that defines the whole movie and his overall motive, making us ultimately sympathyze with him. Then we would see Obi-Wan, standing there as he delivers his last lines, and walks off. Anakin sits there burning, in agony, and delivers one or two last lines of narration, and then there are a few silent seconds of him writhing in agony before it fades to the credits. I think this would be a very powerful way to end the film. One thing that would be important in this scene is to never show Anakin being rescued by the emperor, so we don't really know what happens to him, but we see that he thinks he was doing the right thing all along. His last lines of narration would be creepy and disturbing, showing he was truly crazy, but his final flashback makes us sympathyze with him.
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Anakin shouldn't be truly crazy. It's important that he makes a decision to turn to the Dark Side, so the example of Luke can prod him into deciding to reform. Being crazy just shields him from culpability and makes his turn to the Light Side capricious.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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I didn't really mean whacko insane crazy. I meant that we should see he is very tormented inside and that he still feels that even as Dart Vader, who never showed any of it. He did it willingly, but there was a lot of torment in the turn.
Watch DarthEvil's Who Framed Darth Vader? video on YouTube!

You can also access the entire Horriffic Violence Theater Series from my Channel Page.
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Here's a little bit of work i did, just a couple of pages. Very rough, but I think it's going in the right direction. I tried to incorporate some of the stuff you guys were talking about with a couple things of my own. I liked the idea of the Jedi being the police of the planet, with Mustafar being like a prison. However, to keep continuity, the Clone Wars had to have happened, so I figure why not just make them have occured in the past. Maybe Anakin having some 'Nam-esque flashbacks could add to his confusion and ultimately to his downfall. It also gives the Jedi a little bit more of a hypocritical side, which i thought was an interesting idea Lucas didn't really push enough. Perhaps the Jedi set up the war to get themselves more power, to gain popularity with the people. This betrayal could make Anakin turn on the Jedi, especially if he has awful memories of the war, and decide that the Sith and their freedom, their unrestrained power, is the better path to go down.

Anyway, let me know what you think.


FADE IN:

EXT. HAD ABADDON PRISON, NIGHT

A volcanic wasteland, lava flowing from many directions. The
camera eventually finds the burning body of Anakin Skywalker,
charred and black, he moans in pain.

ANAKIN (VO)
I never expected to end up here.
Taken convicts to this joint dozens
of times, never thought it'd be the
end of the line for me. These
volcanic spots are too unstable to
build on, not to mention how
unpleasant it is to be here anyway.
The Jedi stick their prisoners here.
Sure, we can't kill the bad guys,
but we can stick them in this hell
hole until they eventually take a
wrong step and end up in the hot
stuff. Just like I did. I ended up
just like everyone else the Jedi
think are "scum". No one else saw
what I saw. How I got here is a
long story, but it's one worth
telling. And it's looking like I
got all the time in the world.

EXT. HAD ABADDON CITY, DAY

A sprawling, huge city filled with bustling streets. The
highways reach far up into the skies. Ships and planes fly by.

ANAKIN (V0)
Had Abaddon. City of the Republic.
Policed by the Jedi Knights. Here
live the rich, the aristocrats, the
politicians. Since the Clone Wars
ended, Had Abaddon has become a
planet of peace and prosperity, the
main source of democracy in this
galaxy.

We now see flashes of battles and destruction, scenes from
various media involving The Clone Wars.

ANAKIN (V0)
The clone wars are forgotten much
too quickly. While the nation, the
Jedi, they all move on, I can't
help but remember the horrors I
witnessed. It was only a few years
ago after all.
2.


We now see Anakin with his wife, Padme.

ANAKIN (VO)
I've tried to move on, just like
everyone else. I have a wife now,
and a kid on the way.

Shots of Anakin fighting various bad guys, and various
villainous looking guys getting slammed behind bars.

ANAKIN (VO)
I police the city, take down the
criminals, the low lives, lock 'em
up in the joint. Protect the
citizens, preserve the peace.

Now we're showing Anakin doing various things involving the
force.

ANAKIN (VO)
When I'm not taking down who the
Jedi tell me to, Master Obi-Wan has
got me training, practicing,
improving my power over the force.
Apparently, I've got more potential
than any of the other Jedi. I'm
like their little science experiment,
their lab rat. Their secret weapon.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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Some really great stuff there, Spence. I'll give more detailed feedback when I get the chance...

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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This project is my favourite fan edit idea.

I'm not sure you can go too far with making the Jedi power hungry etc. though, as otherwise they are darksiders aren't they?
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what i thought might be a cool idea is that the Jedi themselves, at this point in time, are corrupt, but their teachings and philosophies are still pure and light. Anakin could kind of confuse the whole thing as being corrupt, and go to the darkside, which does not try to restrain him ("unlimited power!!") whereas obi-wan wants him to realize the jedi teachings have value. or something.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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I get where you are coming from, but can you be a Jedi and be corrupt without being eaten by the 'Dark Side'.

You could view it like the Church where they can teach one thing and be the polar opposite, but I'm not sure you can do that with 'the force' or can you?
I haven't really read any of the surrounding Star Wars mythology, so I'm not sure how that all works. Of course you can take it anywhere you want really.

But if the Jedi are actually corrupt then you do get a different dynamic, you get a film with no good guys, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is more difficult
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that doesnt necessarily make them bad guys, they're just also manipulative. And if Anakin can draw enough parallels between the jedi and the sith, the dark side may appeal to him even more.

plus, it adds some depth to the later episodes. perhaps the jedi kind of needed to be wiped out, to balance everything out, so that Luke could begin a sort of Jedi renaissance.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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This point I was also a little unsure on. Obviously there's a lot of directions one could take this in, but I don't know about making the Jedi bad guys. Certainly they can be portrayed that way by Anakin (and Palpatine, of course). But listening to the narration, by the end we should know that Anakin's thinking is off base.

This goes back to the point of... is Anakin the victim? I don't think so, and I don't think his turn needs to be justified by his love for his wife, or the evil corrupt Jedi. If it was built on such a foundation, we wonder why he is so devoted to the Dark Side twenty years later, throughout the OT. Personally, I would like to portray that Anakin learned the Dark Side because of 1. Palpatine, whom he trusts very much, 2. Power unlike any he had ever seen, and 3.

"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will."
-Yoda, TESB

The dark path is like a drug- you don't turn around and go back to how you were before you started. Kind of like the Mafia. It is compulsive, he is drawn into it, and he is unable to get out, partly because Palpatine wouldn't let him, and partly because he doesn't want to, because it's fun and he's becoming extremely powerful.

Remember that quote in ROTJ? "You don't know the power of the Dark Side. I must obey my master." Now we know what that means. After giving Darth all of his secrets, there's no way Palpatine's going to let him defect to the Jedi, or change his mind. He'd kill him in some cruel and unusual way, which he has the power to do. Or at least he could make that threat. Who knows- we could even have a short scene with closeups of Palpatine doing his electricity routine (maybe from ROTJ) as Anakin explains: "He got angry sometimes. I didn't do some things the way he liked. But I learned. I learned how to do what he wanted. "

These are angles I'd personally like to see explored in this type of movie. I don't know what other people's thoughts are.

So a neat thing that could be included (but I don't know if it's even possible) is Palpatine teaching Anakin. One such scene could involve Palpatine bringing in various men and women into his room and having Vader practice killing them without touching them. Obviously this would be difficult logistically, but I have a few shots in mind.

Because if at all possible, it's true that we don't want to show the children slaughter. It's true- never would have been done in this era.

Of course, this will only be poignant when we establish during Part 1 that Anakin was a good person to begin with. I can explain my viewpoint further....

-----------------------

I really like the script so far, though. These are my favorite lines:

No one else saw
what I saw. How I got here is a
long story, but it's one worth
telling. And it's looking like I
got all the time in the world.

AND

Shots of Anakin fighting various bad guys, and various
villainous looking guys getting slammed behind bars.

ANAKIN (VO)
I police the city, take down the
criminals, the low lives, lock 'em
up in the joint. Protect the
citizens, preserve the peace.
----------------

This is perfect because it cancels out the whiny, effeminate image of Anakin we all have from the prequels. Straight and to the point, which I like. Keep up the great work, if you don't mind Also looking forward to what you do with your own version of the narration.

-TM


Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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"So a neat thing that could be included (but I don't know if it's even possible) is Palpatine teaching Anakin. One such scene could involve Palpatine bringing in various men and women into his room and having Vader practice killing them without touching them. Obviously this would be difficult logistically, but I have a few shots in mind."

Dude! You could do a training montage! Complete with the Montage song from TA:WP! You can even shoot yourself grasping at your throat and gurgling as a kind of director's cameo!
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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i love the idea of palpatine doing the electricity routine. that has to go in. I think we need to piece together a basic plot outline, and by we i mean anyone that wants to help. e-mails and pm's as well as this thread should be utilized. Once we have the basic plot and know what we want to use from what movies, we can piece the "script" together in no time

i'm so excited about this i could pee.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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So will this contain clips/flashbacks to Episode II or just ROTS?

Indeed, this is a VERY interesting idea.

Not to jump the gun, but I wonder how this film would end...
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i think itd be nice to flashback to episodes I & II, or at least not rule out that idea. Just because its mainly ROTS doesnt mean we have to stay there.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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I did a quick test last night, mainly for my own entertainment. I took the sequence of Anakin being put in the Vader suit, wrote some quick narration, read it myself, and threw in some effects. It's rough and in no way final, it's just to kind of give an idea of where this thing could go.

The voice is me, i'm sick and i didnt have time to record it more than once. It's not very good i'm afraid. The music is from the Philip Glass score to the 1931 Dracula movie.

myurl
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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Have just watched your clip Spence & all I can say is WOW, it really feels like a Film Noir & the music fits perfectley & your voice over was way cool
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Your voice IS great! Neat clip! Our voices are really very different. I would have done it a little differently, of course (I don't know if I would even have kept that scene, for instance, or Darth's "No!" at the end.) But very good.

I was actually wanting to work on a test clip myself, but it's all about SOTDS until November/December. Since you obviously have video editing capabilities, how would you feel about possibly helping me out with either this project or Ep. III in the new series? You obviously have a drive to do great things with this stuff.

The issue is always...time. That's the issue I'm facing, because I've had to sink a lot of time into SOTDS, and while the result will be worth it, I don't know if I want to lose that much of my life again. I have other things in life

Anyway, great work. I knew that turning Ep. III into a BW noir would work, just based on the cinematography, which was a LOT better than Ep. I and II. Lots of contrast, shadows, camera movement, etc.

I like the narration you wrote, too!

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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I very much want to work on this project, it's the only edit i am involved with at the moment (other than my Matrix Reloaded edit i cant get to freakin' work!). Anything you need help with let me know!

My defenese of this scene is that its so much like an old universal horror movie it's almost too fun to pass up!

On the "Noooo!", I actually thought it worked a bit better with the narration and new music, it came off less silly and a little more dramatic. The No! makes sense if he tells you why he's yelling it.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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Great! Thanks so much, and I think I'll really start diving into the idea after SOTDS is done.

"On the "Noooo!", I actually thought it worked a bit better with the narration and new music, it came off less silly and a little more dramatic. The No! makes sense if he tells you why he's yelling it. "

Good point. It definitely works a lot better with narration- maybe it's just the memories from the original cut

The neat thing about this scene is that it comes off as almost one of the Tone Poems- starting and ending with "This is what it feels like to be Anakin Skywalker."

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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yeah, the idea i took straight from the novel. Most of the narration in there is lifted from the book and reworded a little.
I'm always looking to trade my edits, if you don't want to get them from a torrent. PM or e-mail!
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wow, that was really cool. It actually made that scene work. not only was it not cringeworthy... it was.... good. I couldn't believe it. I've never seen any fan edits (don't have a dvd burner & am too lazy to really learn to use any of the file distribution methods you guys use), but i really want to see the whole project completed now! seeing as STAR WARS pulled from so many classic films and basic story concepts that are repeated from one generation to the next, it just seems so perfect to have the prequels as one film done as if made in the late 20's/early 30's. It just works. please put this together!!
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I wanted to add my voice in support of this project. I loved the idea from the get-go, but seeing that clip really shows that the idea can work. The clip is brilliant, and your voice is perfect. Excellent work!

Steve
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Wow, looks better in black and white than I would have imagined. Really kicks down the CG look. I could almost believe it was a movie from the 50s. I am very thankful for the ROTS novelization. It at least gives me a telling of the story of Anakin Skywalker I can somewhat enjoy, it is so poetic. I think Stover did a remarkable job given the material he had to work with. I think a lot of the VO for this could be taken straight from the novel with only minor tweaking, just as you did here. I love how you used the "This is how it is to be Anakin Skywalker" it sounded perfect. I think your voice fit quite well also. I really, really hate that scene, but it wasn't too bad in its new context. I would love to see the rest of the movie. Hey, Spence, you should try some scenes from the video game and use the b&w effect you used on this scene and see how they look. I still can't imagine them looking very fiftiesish, but then again I never thought that scene could look as great as it did. I did however feel the pace of the music was all wrong for that scene, but as you said, it was just thrown together real quick.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Heheh. Great work Spence. You should put anything you do up at Youtube, it'd be a big hit.

Few little comments - the voices from the real film should be louder. You may want to just use the real sound mix and Williams score in many places. Also the narration before "No" is a little long, it's straining to fit into that timeslot. Cut a little bit of it out.

Best wishes.