Bingowings said:theslime said:Good clip!
Based on this, I got another radical idea. Would it work, story-wise, to have the short Vader scene - getting the headgear on, with the Emperor standing by - as the very first scene of ROTS? As a way of building mystery - "who's this guy? Looks evil" - and introducing him early on as a central character. Then when Anakin fails, this other guy finishes the job. There should be at least one instance where Palps refers to his new apprentice Vader by name, so we could put that line earlier in the film. That way we just assume Sidious got a new apprentice after Maul (Dooku was never his apprentice, as far as I'm concerned), since we're not supposed to know he and Palps are the same man yet anyway. And when it's revealed, we could just assume he has two apprentices. (Oh, and btw, screw the "rule of two". At best it's just a Sith survival mechanism, but once they're out in the open (after Maul), it wouldn't make sense to keep it.)
It's blatant trickery, of course, to admit it was really a flash-forward two films later. Of the very worst kind. Still, it's fun as an idea, at least.
EDIT: Thinking about it, using the Vader name earlier in the film to imply there are two, is way over-the-top. I got a little carried away. :)
I love this thread!
I suggested the idea of moving reference to Vader before Anakin starts killing people quite a few pages back so if you are getting carried away so was I back then (this is the place to get a bit carried away in, that's the fun of this thread).
I still think there is potential in the idea (Sidious gives Vader his Sith name and is pretty sure of himself so why not have him assume there will be a Vader to send to the part before he has actually fully fallen?)
If you got rid of the OTT death of General Grievous and had him fall to his death and scooped up by the troopers it could add to the ambiguity of who Vader is (It could be Grievous working under his new Sith moniker).
You could even redub Grievous so he claims to have been a former pupil of Obi-Wan (after training Anakin he might have had another Padwan).
Heh, I actually HAVE read the entire thread, but I must have forgotten among all the other ideas bandied about that you said that. Sorry 'bout that! :)
I love the idea of Sidious dropping a reference to his new apprentice before there even is a Vader. That would be cool no matter how you handle the other stuff. He has it all mapped out. Then whether or not you actually admit Vader is Anakin in the end, it still gives a nice and subtle glimpse into how in control Palpatine actually is.
To be less into trickery than my idea on the last page, I think starting with a flashback - matter how un-OT it is - would work too. We start with the Vader headgear and Sidious lurking next to him (scene shortened and de-crappified), then "n months earlier" [I forget the timeframe of ROTS]. Then we wonder for the rest of the movie who that guy was (well, y'know, we could have wondered).
The more I think about it, I think trying to kill Obi-Wan should never have been the climax. Having post-lava Vader kill the younglings - though less of an obvious BETRAYAL than the Anakin scene - would have been more powerful.
The same is true for the Dooku fight. Grievous should have been killed first, then Dooku. It's a complete mystery to me how Lucas thought it would be a good idea to kill off the main villain of the last film within ten minutes of ROTS. I know someone suggested switching Dooku and Grievous some sixty pages back, but this is virtually impossible to edit without editing virtually every inter-Jedi conversation in the whole film. The fact that Dooku got killed early on is (redundantly) mentioned a gazillion times in ROTS.