Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 232

I would prefer the end battle between Vader and Luke on Coruscant.

Yeah, me to.  The end of the saga should end on an important place.

Ghost said:

I would prefer the end battle between Vader and Luke on Coruscant.

 Yeah, me to.  The end of the saga should end on an important place.

I don't think it fits the story that was written.

If Lucas had gone for Luke facing down the Emperor in Episode IX with a full on raid on the capital to back up Luke getting out after it would make some sense.

If Luke was going on a suicide mission and like Ben surrendered his life for the greater cause of ridding the galaxy of Vader and the Emperor it would also make sense but Luke on his own escaping the Imperial Palace on the Imperial capital planet just doesn't make sense.

Luke is a Jedi Knight not Superman.

I've done this rough video scribble to illustrate my earlier point about making a bit more of Leia's injury.

It's rough as hell and the musical cues and linking material are all over the place I only post it as hopefully fuel for a bit of discussion and maybe inspiration for further ideas.

It does swing back and forth (largely because I was playing with the idea of mini-cliffhangers (is Leia ok? will Luke swing to the darkside? will he be killed by the Emperor?) so maybe only a few of the ideas in there might be fit for use.

It might seem less jumpy if some of the battle was shifted into the gaps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCbZueifn88

I noticed while knocking together my piece of nonsense that the earlier scene where Luke kicks Vader down the stairs lands him almost on the same spot where Luke would later go postal.

I wonder if at some point the kick stunt was going to lead to the thrashing near the lift pit but then it became reworked to take place sooner?

Darth Chronus said:

rcb said:

The end battle in one revision was supposed to happen below coruscant in a lava room.

 

something like mustafar then ;)

If you haven't read the rough draft of Revenge of the Jedi then here it is

http://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/scripts/revenge_revised_rough_draft.htm

I read it around the time Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005 and I loved it; though I know that it would have been such an expensive film had it been made.

Thanks Darth Cronos! I did read this script and I liked it a lot.

I feel it needed further revision such as Darth Vaders dialogue and Ben seems to just hang around at the end chillaxin with the Emperor while Luke and Vader fight.

But it is a much more exciting movie. The end space battle seems so much more epic. You can definitely tell that ROTJ was a much more budget concious film. I liked having the team infiltrate the sanctuary moon to set up a laser and I also liked Luke being separated for most of the film.

This script illustrates to me that one of the main problems of ROTJ is that the final showdown happens in the middle of nowhere in space. It is much more dramatic having it happen at the Imperial capital ( Coruscant or Had Abbadon). It also would make much more sense in terms of wrapping up the whole trilogy and tying it to Episode III.

However we are unable to change this fact due to the fact we can't re-shoot scenes with the original actors who are 30 years younger. Maybe....in 20 more years Adywan will figure out a way... but who knows.

Matticon

This script illustrates to me that one of the main problems of ROTJ is that the final showdown happens in the middle of nowhere in space. It is much more dramatic having it happen at the Imperial capital ( Coruscant or Had Abbadon).

That is exactly what im saying.  I think the story should be edited somehow to make this happen.  It would be a much more powerful ending.  The saga would be alot better off to end on the capital of the SW universe.  It would make it feel like the actuall ending and would wrap everything up.  While potentially giving the movie the edge it needs.

The idea of Ben watching is also a good idea for the final duel.  I always wondered where they were. It would add some more emotion.  It would also make him feel like a much more important character at this point in the movies.  Which he should already be.

Back to Cruscant talk.  I see there are some reasons it wouldnt work, but id like to see them worked around.  If they can.

Ghost said:

This script illustrates to me that one of the main problems of ROTJ is that the final showdown happens in the middle of nowhere in space. It is much more dramatic having it happen at the Imperial capital ( Coruscant or Had Abbadon).

 

That is exactly what im saying.  I think the story should be edited somehow to make this happen.  It would be a much more powerful ending.  The saga would be alot better off to end on the capital of the SW universe.  It would make it feel like the actuall ending and would wrap everything up.  While potentially giving the movie the edge it needs.

The idea of Ben watching is also a good idea for the final duel.  I always wondered where they were. It would add some more emotion.  It would also make him feel like a much more important character at this point in the movies.  Which he should already be.

Back to Cruscant talk.  I see there are some reasons it wouldnt work, but id like to see them worked around.  If they can.

 

One radical way around the problems you mention is potentially more divisive than the Kill Lando idea.

If the Force Ghosts can only appear because of a love bond between the person who has died and the person who sees them Luke could die.

Yes I just typed that...you could kill Luke.

Vader is a little too late trying to save Luke they both sacrifice themselves blowing up the Emperor's palace and paving the way for an Alliance liberation of Coruscant and Luke trains Leia from beyond the grave in the form of a Force Ghost that only she can see.

If you want an example of how this might work get your hands on a copy of the John Mills Quatermass (aka The Quatermass Conclusion) or Edge Of Darkness.

The hero (Luke) redeems/completes the father through his own death and delivers boons from the underworld.

If the film ended with a coda like the one suggested by SSWR his sacrifice would be acknowledged by the forging of a new future.

I personally don't think Luke on Coruscant can be done but Luke on Coruscant acting exactly the same as he does in the theatrical cut (hopping onto a shuttle for a family hug  in the Imperial Capital on his own with the Emperor killed just doesn't make sense to me).

It's bad enough when Ben and Yoda do something similar in ROTS.

I am all for the kill Lando Idea. It was going to happen up until the final draft I think.

Bingowings, I think your idea of killing off Luke is pretty cool.

But in the end I think the underlying issue is one that even Lawrence Kasdan brought up in an interview I watched. The film lacks a sense of self-sacrafice.

Kasdan wanted to have one of the main characters killed off in the first act. I think he wanted Han Solo to die and so did Harrison Ford. However, George Lucas put a stop to that.

But.... if a major character dies there needs to be a lengthy exposition of it and an emotional response from the other characters. Otherwise it just seems hollow.

I really don't know what Ady has planned. But I am very curious to see how he is going to tinker with ROTJ's storyline.

Matticon.

'Must keep feet on the ground'

I dont think Jedi:Revisited will ever happen based on the level of expectation here.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this isn't an Ady only thread.

Adywan probably had a list of things he wanted to do with ROTJ when he started to do ANH:R and he may do hardly any of the things suggested on this thread.

He certainly couldn't do all of them.

It's pretty much for anyone to read, contribute to and think about.

That isn't to underplay the anticipation level for Ady's work at all, not one jot but what he doesn't do is in some ways as interesting as what he chooses to do because it still leaves room for other people to continue to experiment.

In the last few weeks I've been rebuilding my lost library of fan edits and so far only one of them has been Ady's.

Han Solo dieing in the first act would have been a good idea, but I think we can all agree that wont happen. Now at the end of the movie is still an option somehow.

I still think Lando and the Falcon need to get blown up somehow.  But would need to be properly pulled off.

I dont think Jedi:Revisited will ever happen based on the level of expectation here.

I think Ady has some good ideas up his sleeve. Looking at his editing of ANH R, it gives me a reason to believe that there will be some great changes made.

Im not trying to be an Adywan fanboy either.

Han : "Who are you?"

Leia : "Someone who loves you."

Han : "Salla"

Leia : "What?"

Han : "Amaiza"

Leia : ".......!"

Han : "Chewie?"

Leia : "Why you!" (laser blast)

Stacy : "Great shot sister, that's one in a...what's that number that comes after the one before a million again?"

You can't really kill of any of the major characters because the new emotional arcs and endings required for the other characters aren't there. You'd need to shoot a whole new movie. The again, I'm surprised Leia wasn't an emotional wreck for all of ANH after her entire family and planet was wiped away....seriously one minute her life is turned upside down, the next she's making witty banter...

Octorox said:

You can't really kill of any of the major characters because the new emotional arcs and endings required for the other characters aren't there. You'd need to shoot a whole new movie. The again, I'm surprised Leia wasn't an emotional wreck for all of ANH after her entire family and planet was wiped away....seriously one minute her life is turned upside down, the next she's making witty banter...

I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why a lot of the more radical ideas just plain don't work. Yeah, there's no harm in it as a "what if" concept, but if you were to actually try to make some of these changes, like killing off a main character or moving the final battle to Couriscant, you would have practically film a new movie just to make it work, and the logistics of that are not very good if the goal is seamless integration. At best I could see such changes being jarring, and ultimately it's the exact kind of thing that we complain about Lucas doing too much.

My general ethos around fan editing is to accept the stories for what they are, and see fan editing as a tool that allows the story to be better told. Outlandish changes can be great if you're willing to accept that they won't be perfect, which is why TMBTM's grindhouse cuts work so well, even though they're drastically different from the original versions. If you're going to try and drastically alter the mythos of the original though, for me that's sort of walking on thin ice. If there's a change that is really necessary and it's possible to do it without breaking the illusion, then I say go for it. If it's a change that does not benefit the story significantly though, and it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief on the audience's part, then I feel like it's probably something better left unchanged.

Bingowings said:

I've done this rough video scribble to illustrate my earlier point about making a bit more of Leia's injury.

It's rough as hell and the musical cues and linking material are all over the place I only post it as hopefully fuel for a bit of discussion and maybe inspiration for further ideas.

It does swing back and forth (largely because I was playing with the idea of mini-cliffhangers (is Leia ok? will Luke swing to the darkside? will he be killed by the Emperor?) so maybe only a few of the ideas in there might be fit for use.

It might seem less jumpy if some of the battle was shifted into the gaps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCbZueifn88

 That's great. I always felt the pacing of those scenes were a bit bullshit. But now it seems much more intense. In fact I was dissapointed to see it end as topping that with the ending sequences inside the death star would have been perfect. It also gives Luke a more believable amount of time to haul Vader to a docking bay.

Timstuff said:

Octorox said:

You can't really kill of any of the major characters because the new emotional arcs and endings required for the other characters aren't there. You'd need to shoot a whole new movie. The again, I'm surprised Leia wasn't an emotional wreck for all of ANH after her entire family and planet was wiped away....seriously one minute her life is turned upside down, the next she's making witty banter...

I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why a lot of the more radical ideas just plain don't work. Yeah, there's no harm in it as a "what if" concept, but if you were to actually try to make some of these changes, like killing off a main character or moving the final battle to Couriscant, you would have practically film a new movie just to make it work, and the logistics of that are not very good if the goal is seamless integration. At best I could see such changes being jarring, and ultimately it's the exact kind of thing that we complain about Lucas doing too much.

My general ethos around fan editing is to accept the stories for what they are, and see fan editing as a tool that allows the story to be better told. Outlandish changes can be great if you're willing to accept that they won't be perfect, which is why TMBTM's grindhouse cuts work so well, even though they're drastically different from the original versions. If you're going to try and drastically alter the mythos of the original though, for me that's sort of walking on thin ice. If there's a change that is really necessary and it's possible to do it without breaking the illusion, then I say go for it. If it's a change that does not benefit the story significantly though, and it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief on the audience's part, then I feel like it's probably something better left unchanged.

 "I can't believe he's gone" to "Help! I'm melting, this is all your fault" is hardly a emotional arc , it's a bit of slight of hand.

We go from tension, shock, anger, excitement, relief and humour in the blink of an eye and this is a major character (even more so if you count the PT in).

Ben's death get's emotional coverage by the introduction of a mystery in the middle of an action scene.

His death was an eleventh hour decision and Lucas does a little emotional dance to distract the audience away from what it has just seen.

It could be possible to do something similar with the death of a major character in Jedi.

I'm not saying it's easy but it isn't impossible. 

As far as I think killing Han would have been a great idea, I can maybe understand why Lucas did not want it.

Remember Alien3? Killing Newt and Hicks after all the suffering endured by Ripley to save their skins in the second movie was not a clever move (at least not for me, and a lots of fans).

I think killing Han after all the risks taken by his friends to save him at the begining of the movie would end the same way: the audience would feel like "what? So half the movie was pointless?". The only way for Han's death to be interesting would have been killing him on the Falcon, right after a great heroic move, giving a new hope to the rebels during the final battle.

But as we know, Han is on Endor, and killing him in the destruction of the bunker would not be visualy amazing and we don't have any footage of other characters reacting to that; although seeing Lando laughing right after that (cause he don't know his friend has been killed) could change the mood of that scene... but we're not doing a Grindhouse ROTJ here! ;).

Killing Lando could work indeed, but franckly, as much as I like him, I think he is more a friend to the other characters than to the audience. I would probably be more shocked by seeing the Falcon destroyed... Poor Lando, I always felt he did not have enough screentime (or interesting lines) to really be part of the story (exept his great betrayal/friend move in ESB, of course).

Killing Leia would be a amazing twist, but I don't know how to do that with the footage we got. And I'm not sure we could bring some sens to this.

So, in our quest to find "who must die", we're left with: killing Luke, indeed.

I don't know if it makes sens, but I sure can already see Vader's funeral pyre with the ghost of Luke appearing in front of it. Then he turns and there are the three other ghosts, and everybody smile. A little cheesy, but good cheese.

EDIT: And that could be called "End of the Jedi".

maybe the solution is making vaders death more emotional by building up his turning, so his death is a bit more sudden and an anticlimax.

what if.....vader force pulls luke's saber, and stabs the emperor from behind. (what could follow is that uneasy silence that followed dookus death). redeemed, anakin goes to help luke to his feet. suddenly a huge wave of lightening pours forth as the emperor makes one last dying charge at them both. vader forces himself against the waves of lightening, grabbing the emperor and falling over a drop with him. luke could cry the generic NOOOO!

vader would not die because of the lightening, but because of the fall perhaps? enstead of being in a hangar, luke is at the bottom of this alternative pit?

alternative vader footage would be doable i should imagine?