The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 153

mrbenja0618 said:

Did anyone hear about his original cut of SW? Sounded awful...

It is awful:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/TMBTMs-The-War-of-the-Stars-a-Star-Wars-grindhouse-cut/topic/11051/

;-)

Wow. Low blow... I liked that for what it is. What were you expecting that edit to be? lol

It was a successful grindhouse edit.

mrbenja0618 said:

Wow. Low blow... I liked that for what it is. What were you expecting that edit to be? lol

It was a successful grindhouse edit.

Dude!  It was a joke.  Guess you didn't see the winky? 
Well then, follow the linky:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/TMBTMs-The-War-of-the-Stars-a-Star-Wars-grindhouse-cut/post/393417/#TopicPost393417

Haha... Sorry, I figured you were joking... That's why I added "lol".   Sorry if it came off like I was launching at ya.

Funny thing is, TMBTM's edit was still far better than Lucas' original cut of SW... Wish I could find that article. It was just horrible sounding.

mrbenja0618 said:

Haha... Sorry, I figured you were joking... That's why I added "lol".   Sorry if it came off like I was launching at ya.

Ah, ok.  I thought you were lol at my expectations.

Those look very good! I never really noticed how orange Geonosis was, your corrections make everything feel more "real". Well done!

mrbenja0618 said:

JasonN said:

Avatar said:

JasonN said:

I'm sorry, but I think that time and knowledge has proven that Lucas's "original vision" isn't worth jack...

i'm talking about the pre-special edition/prequel lucas

I was talking about Lucas the person, period...
(including before the Special Editions and Prequels came out)

This is true. Did anyone hear about his original cut of SW? Sounded awful... Fortunately at the time he wasn't surrounded by yes men.

I don't know about his first CUT, but here's an analysis of his first DRAFT. Granted, it's a first draft, but I'm willing to bet that had he been the famous George Lucas of today, this dud would have been filmed with very few rewrites.

Being surrounded by yes men is murder for any artist. (Especially one as fickle and inconsistent as Lucas.)

I have a grand compromise:

Start off Episode One with them having different colours to show their individuality. then have them become more stuffy and dogmatic in Ep 2 and 3 and then have all blue to show their loss of individuality.

Luke's green in ROTJ would then show a "return" to the glory days of the jedi order.

I really hope you guys arent being serious about changing lightsaber colors.

How does that in any way symbolize anything?

It would be pretty confusing.

And its totally unnecesary.  It would be pointless to change because SW is too mainstream.

Seriously guys, there are so many things wrong with the prequels, and you guys are talking about lightsaber colors?

Ghost said:

And its totally unnecesary.  It would be pointless to change because SW is too mainstream.

Eh?

As for your comment about not symbolizing anything, what about Dooku's saber in certain edits? How can you say that doesn't make his character more ambiguous rather than a typical bad guy?

Turning all the prequel sabers blue (or blue and any other colour besides green) is the only way of preserving the impact Luke's saber had in ROTJ.

Well maybe you don't care about that as much as I do, but it was a great cinematic "Holy shit" moment for me anyway.

Changing them all to something other than green is essential if you have an edit where Dooku (and maybe qui gon seeing as he was a bit of a rogue too) and Luke are given Green sabers. That way Luke echoes the father of the rebel alliance, and you're uncertain how things will pan out, seeing as Dooku was killed for trying to do the right thing.

The way I see it, there's a few options:

1. Qui Gon, Dooku and Luke are the only ones with Green Sabers. The rest are all changed to blue.
2. Dooku and Luke are the only ones with green sabers.
3. Qui Gon and Luke are the only ones with Green Sabers. Dooku has something completely different e.g. purple, orange, yellow, etc.
4. Luke is the only one with a green saber in the whole saga. Everyone else has blue, except for Dooku who has one of the aforementioned "radical" colours.

I'm undecided which method I prefer. With Qui Gon keeping his green saber, there's a sense that the last hope for the order is lost come episode 2, when we see that the remainder of the order is dogmatic and uniform.

I'm definitely digging this more "realistic" looking version of Geonosis. The original was a touch too far removed from reality for my tastes even if it was visually arresting, and I think that the toned down version matches the original trilogy much nicer. If I ever get around to my AOTC cut, I may likely find myself using that look.

For the record thoguh, I am NOT going to consider changing all the prequel lightsabers to blue. I've read the arguments for it and it still seems like a very a frivolous change. Nothing in the OT suggested that green lightsabers were special, and in addition to the reasoning behind making all the sabers blue not stacking up, it would be way more trouble than it's worth. If anything, I'd go in the opposite direction and give Dooku a unique colored lightsaber that isn't in any of the other movies. He practices an ancient form of dueling, and given the unique shape of his saber I would not put it past him to have a rarer crystal in there. He's been from one edge of the galaxy to the other in his time, so if any colors besides blue, green, red, and purple are out there, there's a decent possibility that he'd find one. It'd also be a nice nod to the expanded universe and fan films where non-traditional saber colors can be found fairly often.

I must say I agree with those saying that this is the most minute of all my issues with the prequels. Rogue jedis having rogue colours feels like silly and obvious symbolism to me. Not very interesting.

I agree that any editor making Dooku a rogue jedi and not a sith should change his red saber to a blue or green one, though.

Timstuff said:

Nothing in the OT suggested that green lightsabers were special

I agree, but this isn't my personal reason for wanting green sabers (at least largely) removed from the PT. When we originally saw Luke ignite his saber for the first time in ROTJ, our reaction to having only seen blue before wasn't "it must be a rare crystal" but rather "holy shit, a new colour!"

That moment is lost for new viewers if the PT is full of green sabers.

It's possible to preserve the impact of Luke igniting his saber though, but in a different way. Instead of "holy shit, I've never seen that colour before" it could be "wow, he's got the same colour as dooku, how symbolic".

This is where I have a problem. Giving Dooku a green or blue saber, when the rest of the jedi themselves have green and blue sabers pigeonholes him as a Jedi just as much as a red saber pigeonholes him as a Sith.

We need him to be more ambiguous than that, not only for the audience, but to make it more plausible that the Jedi believe he is a sith even when he's not.

I know it's just a colour at the end of the day, but it semiotically conveys a whole lot about the character, especially by association with the established sabre colour conventions.

We shouldn't know for a fact that Dooku is good any more than we should know from the outset that Palpatine is evil.

That statement makes no sense to me. It's much more interesting from a narrative point of view if a rogue jedi has the same regalia as the jedi that are out to hunt him down and kill him. To me, at least. They're supposed to be on the same team, and yet there they are: in lethal battle. If you rotoscope his saber yellow, you've already - heavy-handedly, I might add - said he's not on anyone's team - and the mystery of his character is deflated faster than you can say "Geonosis".

Also, such symbolism presupposes an off-screen event where he gets his yellow saber once he leaves the jedi order. At some point he must have said to himself: Now that I'm no longer with the Order, I need a different saber colour.

That's not my idea of a good plot point. And it's IMO way worse than the actual prequel story where he probably got his red saber from Palps (a plot point that makes sense and serves a purpose).

theslime said:

If you rotoscope his saber yellow, you've already - heavy-handedly, I might add - said he's not on anyone's team - and the mystery of his character is deflated faster than you can say "Geonosis".

Fair enough you saying it's, in your opinion, more interesting for Dooku to have the same regalia as the Jedi in battle with him. But how does a different colour say, without a doubt, he's on nobody's team?

Surely it could also mean that it's uncertain where his allegiances lie? Which would mean there's plenty of mystery. Unlike making it semiotically apparent he's still on the Jedi's side.

I'm just going to agree to disagree with you on this one =)

vaderios said:

Now you can tell me why mace has purple. well no idea no care :)

cause samuel jackson requested it

off topic: i just watched a new clone wars episode and at the end i noticed that the old master had a very lighter shade of a blue lightsaber