Originally posted by: Erikstormtrooper

Originally posted by: SluggoI know erikstormtrooper has been good at assembling notes etc. I'd nominate him as Ranch Manager, if such a thing is appropriate.

Golly

Thanks, Slugs.

Sure, I guess I can do that, until someone else comes along who wants it more.

The main thing we need is someone with a real fire in their belly to see this through to completion. At first that was InfoDroid, and then Commander Courage. But that role is pretty vacant at the moment.

I think it would be a good idea to create a Starkiller team. Things have just been too come-and-go to get anything concrete done. And we need to have some way to vote on issues that are unresolved (like Maul=Grievous). That's not to say that we wouldn't take input from those not on the official team. One of the best aspects of this project has been its openness to new ideas from just about anyone. But I think a voting team is needed to make the final say. What do y'all think?

A lot of work was done on Episode I in terms of story, but I don't know how much editing was done. Since Episode I is a kind-of standalone story (aside from the C-3PO angle), I don't see why some work couldn't be restarted on it. I still have the proposed "script" if anyone cares. Any takers?

I'd like to be involved (to some extent) with story development. The scripts that I read were good for starters but can certainly be improved on.

"The main thing we need is someone with a real fire in their belly to see this through to completion."

I think this is true. Wasn't LTH really interested in doing Ep. I? I ought to contact him.

The problem CC and others were running into was this- you can't just write whatever you want in the script without having the special-FX capability to pull it off. Now, Adywan is hard at work on his own trilogy right now, and although he did offer to help with some shots (as time allows), I wouldn't want to put a burden on him. On the flip side, it's probably hard for him to agree to anything without knowing what it all entails.

I have gotten by in SOTDS by cutting together FX footage from other films (with a couple new shots from Ady), but for Ep. I and III, which are more fundamentally flawed, more FX work would be needed.

Off topic a little, but my original idea for Ep. III was to completely redo the opening battle of Ep. III, even though I know a lot of people liked it. It's just way too cluttered and inconsistent with everything else, and it introduces a bunch of new ship designs that are never seen again. Keep the cockpit shots, of course, but with new FX create a tight and controlled dogfight sequence with actual TIE fighters and X-Wings, in the style of the OT. This idea has come up before. The fighters are brand new in Ep. III, and then you see them in Ep. IV and they're all beaten up. The rebel's ships are then seen as out-of-date in Ep. IV.

Ordinarily this would probably be really difficult, but after seeing Ady's new clips, I know he is the master of the TIE fighter/X-wing shot

Maybe it would be possible to work something out once we have our act together at "the Ranch." I've found that you don't really know what shots you're forgetting until you really start cutting it together. But I think that if we finalize a script, or at least a collection of notes, for Ep. I, then we can come up with a master list of FX shots that would be required. Only when we know exactly what we want should we go to Ady for help. I don't want to speak for Ady, but I think he would be very willing if we gave him plenty of time to work.

But yeah, I would really like to see someone come forward with as much enthusiasm for fixing Ep. I (or III) as I had before I started on SOTDS, to see this through to completion.

The problem with Ep. I is not how to fix it, because there are at least a dozen edits of that out there, many of them very well done. The problem is there are so many options, it's hard to make a definite decision on what course to take with issues like "Does Maul=Grievous. If so, how?"

The problem with Ep. II was bad editing, bad use of music, and unlikability of the main characters, especially Anakin. But at its heart, the story was cohesive. That was a fixable problem.

The problem with Ep. III is that it's a complete mess on repeated viewings because Anakin's turn is bad, Padme's death is bad, and a lot of the movie is blown on Grievous, Obi-Wan, and the giant lizard. Besides being completely out of place, they aren't even good as stand-alone scenes. My idea to elevate the quality of this one was to take out the whole Obi-Wan and the lizard somehow, as well as the Emperor/Yoda fight, and put in narration for Anakin as he slips to the Dark Side (although the narration might be too great of a stylistic departure from the other SW movies). When he becomes evil, the narration stops.

And remember that since Yoda never fights in SOTDS, in keeping with his original character, if we remove the Emperor/Yoda fight, nobody will protest because there is no reason to believe that Yoda is capable of using a lightsaber at his age. And I don't begin to know what do about Palpatine's ridiculous voice and makeup after he turns.

From my point of view, Ep. III requires the most amount of thought and of major script changes to be succesful. Episode I just requires a lot of foreign dubbing. The main ideas are already there, not only in the scripts we've worked out, but in edits like "Balance of the Force."

So as a stand-alone flick, Ep. I fundamentally works, while Ep. III fundamentally does not.

Any thoughts? A discussion of this stuff would be great.