I just did all of the math today and discovered the running time as of this time. 108. Wow! I could’ve sworn that it was longer than that- that’s over half an hour shorter than the original cut and 16 minutes shorter than the original Star Wars. Raiders of the Lost Ark is 7 minutes longer. And I salvaged so many bad scenes and turned them into good ones. But then I took inventory and realized just how much I really did throw out (not including reworkings and medium to small cuts- these are the huge ones):
AXED:
Part of opening scene (after explosion)
*Elevator scene
Both Jango/Zam scenes
Part of Obi-Wan/Anakin fight
*Part of Coruscant chase
Part of Jedi Council meeting
*Long scene in Padme’s bedroom (Anakin whines and establishes himself as stalker)
*Mace/Obi-Wan/Yoda scene (irretrievable)
Part of Coruscant departure scene (all the m’lady stuff)
*Dex’s Diner scene
Much of the Yoda/Younglings scene
Some of the en route scene
*Queen Jamilla scene
Much of the balcony scene
*Aggressive negotiations scene
Much of the fireplace rejection scene
A lot of the droid factory
Most of the Yoda/Dooku fight
So taking this into consideration and thinking about all the other cuts that were made on top of this, I guess I can see how I lost half an hour of footage, even with the 3 or 4 new scenes I’ve included.
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Anyway, things are really coming along now. The video should be locked, encoded, and burned onto a hard copy by the end of the year, hopefully giving me all of the remaining time to focus on audio.
As a side-note, I’m looking at the very end of the movie now, and I’m really appalled- I think this wins 1st place for the most stupid looking kiss scene ever put to film (or pixels, actually). Absolutely pathetic, lifeless, and laughable.
Any suggestions? This is the last thing the audience sees, and I really wish I could do something about it…
-TM