The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 182

Cliegg's lines should go. The focus here needs to stay on Anakin. The Phantom editor explains it well in his commentary.

Another ill thing in that AOTC saber duel sequence - the movements in the close-ups of Anakin & Dooku do not match at all from shot-to-shot.  I'm also not impressed with the digital pasting of Christopher Lee's face onto the stunt double.  Obviously, watching the film at normal speed you wouldn't much notice these things.  Yet, you examine the scene closely, and these issues become clearly apparent.  It's amazing how they continue to have technical issues when they can fix practically every single one of them.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Ben Burt oughtta be embarrassed at how poorly he edited that Anakin-Dooku duel.  It's amateurish.  How do you fuck up the editing of a well-rehearsed choreographed fight?

-NJM

Just dug out my old EPISODE I widescreen VHS tape from the crawlspace under the house, and on brief looks, none of that pink hue is apparent.  Tatoonie's skies are perfectly blue.  Someone might want to reference that for a more pleasing color palette.  Also, from my original 97 SE VHS tapes (which were pan-and-scan), the blue hues are there.  So, it wasn't Lowry Digital who messed anything up, but they are indeed stronger on the DVDs.

-NJM

mrbenja0618 said:

Dead on the forums as of late...

Posted less than 24 hours after my previous post, lol.

;-)

Nicholas J. Michalak said:

I removed Clieg's lines mainly because he's essentially a character I'm indifferent to.  He has all of two or three scenes in all of the saga, and is never mentioned again.  While I get that, yeah, it's a more touching eulogy for Shmi, we forget anything about this guy by the next scene.  He really has little to no emotional impact on the story.

The mass murder confession is gone because it's insulting to Padmé's character.  She is a person dedicated to peaceful, diplomatic, non-violent solutions.  At every turn throughout the prequels, she strongly seeks diplomatic solutions to everything up until there is absolutely no other option available.  So, I cannot accept that she would choose to marry a guy who confesses to murdering men, women, and children out of blind rage and vengeance.  Plus, in ROTS, she is shocked at the thought that Anakin would kill younglings despite knowing that he has already killed men, women, and children in cold blood, previously.  These events make her appear to be moronic, in the least.  I also think, as another fan editor did (don't recall which), that it's perhaps more telling that Anakin would trust this secret with Palpatine more than his own wife (as he mentions it in ROTS after Dooku's death).

The wipe from Anakin bringing his deceased mother home to the funeral was in contention with me.  It does appear odd, but I don't know how well a straight cut would work.  Might just have to cut out earlier.  I'll work in those ideas for removing 3PO's lines.  After hearing Adywan's old radio interview, I think distancing Anakin from C-3PO's origins is a truly intelligent idea.  The big problem is I have no idea how to remove CPO from the final shots of the film.  I do intend to start my own thread, shortly.  Just keep revising my excessively long post covering all three films (which I am editing simultaneously along with a few other films).  Likely, the thread will debut this weekend, if not later tonight.

-NJM

Fair enough about Cliegg's lines. I'd keep them, but this is your edit after all :)

I get your point about Anakin's confession, and I agree completely. What I was saying with my post was that I think it's necessary the scene is kept, just remove him confessing the actual murder. I think we need this scene because Anakin just did something terrible and this scene goes a little deeper into it. It shows Anakin showing remorse for what he did, which is important because without it, it would be even harder to relate to him. Also, this scene brings Anakin and Padme a little closer to each other.

How I would fix this scene is when Padme asks him what is wrong, Anakin could answer with "nothing", taken from one of their ROTS conversations, but underscored with some foreboding music. It might give the scene some subtext.

Concerning the transition between Anakin's arrival at the farm and the funeral: maybe it might work nicely if you pan up to the sky after the arrival, hold it right there for a few seconds, and then pan down again to the funeral. The shots seem pretty much the same, so it might work smoothly.

The next time someone mocks a mock up on any of these boards Angel must re-post big hand wonky head Dooku with the words ACTUAL MOVIE STILL underneath it.

Wait, that last screenshot with giant-copypasted-Dooku-head-and-hand is actually from the movie? It's not a joke photoshop?

Wtf ILM, how does someone even do that?

Apologies if this has been brought up before, but something that has bothered me about ROTS relates back to a line from ROTJ: "Obi-wan once thought as you do." And yet, from what we see in ROTS, it almost seems as if this line should be: "Your mother once thought as you do"....Now, it might be easier to change the line in ROTJ, but that seems a bit backwards. Is there any way to give Obi-wan some (temporary) optimism about Anakin's redeemability? I could imagine even a single line, like "Anakin, there is still good in you!" before the duel on Mustafar...but that might require an impersonator's ADR... 

It is probably a thing best fixed in ROTJ.

Changing one two words "Obi-Wan" to "Your mother" sorts the problem out with much better efficiency than trying to distort the already problematic PT dialogue.

It was a bit of a mis-step to ignore the one reference to Luke and Leia's mother in ROTJ in the PT but it was also a bit of mistake not addressing this then mysterious character more in ROTJ.

Watching the entire saga now she goes from being the major character she is in TPM to an afterthought in ROTJ and altering that line seals a continuity problem and reminds us of an important character (whether you like the PT or not).

Even if you want to ignore the PT Luke, Leia and Vader all circle this woman and to largely dodge her leaves a hole in the final film.

Just watched Black Narcissus for the for the first time in a long time and the climatic scene in that film gave me some ideas on how to rework Anakin/Mace/Palpatine's window scene which might work.

I imagined Anakin focusing all his resentment with the council on Mace and setting him up to confront Palpatine to see if he really would go through with deposing the Chancellor (and also to test Palpatine to see if the Sith really are as bad as the Jedi say they are).

Anakin snitches on Palpatine (which he knows he will do) and Mace goes in (not much change there besides framing the tone so Anakin is being more deliberate about it and less pondering, setting up how he would act as Vader in the OT).

But when he comes in Palpatine maintains the weak old man routine all the time (no unlimited POWER!).

Seeing the Jedi Master he dislikes the most with a blade at the Chancellor's throat makes him snap and he uses Force Lightning on Mace (he doesn't use it in the OT because he is a cyborg and any lightning he could generate would fry his life support system, as seen in ROTJ). Once on the road he falls for Palpatine's line on the Jedi entirely and by the end of the film he's so deep in the do-do he can't go back.

Instead of Sith eyes it might be more effective if he becomes more pale and cold so even on a volcanic world he looks like he is anemic and chilled (mirroring Luke's line in ESB about feeling cold and death near the Dark Side infused cave).

Love the new vid Dave.

You could have had Zam reply to both questions as "A Senator From Naboo".
Is Padme trying to kill Jar-Jar? Is Jar-Jar trying to kill Padme (is Palpatine technically a Senator, as Chancellor he does lead the Senate)?

Is Zam a malfunctioning droid (or just plain hard of hearing)?

Some radical ideas:

The Trade Federation is now the Galactic Federation - warlords, not corporations.

The war begins at the end of Episode I and is on-going by the time we reach Episode II. 

Instead of voting for a clone army, the senate is voting on whether or not to construct a secret, planet destroying weapon capable of taking out the planets now constructing overwhelming numbers of battle droids. Amidala, for obvious reasons, opposes its construction. 

By Episode III, the partially constructed Death Star looms over the Coruscant skyline - an awful reminder of things to come. Now, I don't recall if the Death Star itself is considered a secret weapon or if it is only the plans for the Death Star that are specifically mentioned as being secret, but I'm sure somebody here can remind me. 

So, because the war is already on-going, when Obi-Wan and Anakin return from a "border dispute on Antion", it is therefore implied to be one of the conflicts of the war. 

When Obi-Wan goes to Kamino, it is therefore no longer a cloning facility. It is a half-way house run by a group of peaceful aliens who care for weary warriors who pass through - the bounty hunter being one of them. 

A battalion of Republic troopers also arrived on the planet after being near decimated in a battle in the outer rim. They are preparing to leave again when Obi-Wan arrives.

The removal of the clone soldier concept helps tie it in with the Stormtroopers as recruits concept we see in the OT and also goes some way toward making them more sympathetic (in the Clone Wars cartoon this would be especially useful). 

Now, I know what you're thinking - then why is it the "Clone Wars" at all?

Well, I've tried to think of various ways of getting around that. Grievous could be re-cast as a clone of a great warrior of an extinct race (the actual Sith race?), trained by Dooku and Sidious to command the droid armies. His training was so intense and merciless, it left him a Darth Vader like cyborg by the time we reach Episode I. By the time we reach Episode III, he is basically a mechanical husk and has a grudge against Kenobi. 

Following from this idea is the idea of replacing Darth Maul with Grievous. How to do this? I'm not sure. Perhaps simply replace Maul's face with a CGI Grievous-like helmet or maybe even rotoscope Maul out entirely and re-shoot his scenes using an entirely new actor and costume. 

Like I said, radical ideas. 

What do you think?

vaderios said:

TheoOdo said:

Instead of voting for a clone army, the senate is voting on whether or not to construct a secret, planet destroying weapon capable of taking out the planets now constructing overwhelming numbers of battle droids. Amidala, for obvious reasons, opposes its construction.

By Episode III, the partially constructed Death Star looms over the Coruscant skyline - an awful reminder of things to come.

Im digging that! In fact its inspiring for mockups :)

thanks for the ideas

 

-Angel

Radical yes (even if it creates a bit of a problem with the ANH crawl mention of secret plans...maybe the plans a top secret not the station itself).

Davnes007 said:

Hey all. Just wanted to let you know that I just uploaded a 'radical' video up on YouTube.

Yep...I finally got off my butt, and made a new video with my finally fixed computer.

Let's just say it involves AOTC's club scene, and half-naked girls.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Rv3D9F0MI

I loved the futuristic black bars the dancers were wearing.

vaderios said:

TheoOdo said:

Instead of voting for a clone army, the senate is voting on whether or not to construct a secret, planet destroying weapon capable of taking out the planets now constructing overwhelming numbers of battle droids. Amidala, for obvious reasons, opposes its construction. 

By Episode III, the partially constructed Death Star looms over the Coruscant skyline - an awful reminder of things to come.

Im digging that! In fact its inspiring for mockups :)

thanks for the ideas

 

-Angel

Cool!

Can't wait to see 'em!