Possessed Return of the Jedi-* Resurrected!!* — Page 11

TML, what do you use to make the crawl? Looks pretty good. Just something i noticed though, the Star Wars logo doesn't disappear it just becomes static and then gets covered by the crawl

Just watched the clip. Great stuff! Here's just a few things that I feel need just a bit of work:

Obi-Wan suddenly sitting is a bit jarring. leaving the dialog whle he takes a seat would be better I think

Although the shots work, I don't think there is any need to show Luke leaving Dagobah. The cut would be smoother going from Luke and Obi-Wan's conversation straight to the establishing shot of the DS. Would also leave a little more mystery to the cloaked figure (Luke) entering Jabba's palace.

One more thing, I love the shot of the x-wing and the Falcon in the desert (add a little blowing sand and it would easily pass as a live action shot!) but I think the transition would work better cutting from the space shot of Tatooine to the droids in the desert. No need to let the audience know who's already there and who isn't until they reveal themselves.

I really like what you're doing here. The beginning of the film has so much more tension and emotion this way!

[edit] sorry if this post sounds like recycled bits from others, but I didn't read anything so nothing would be spoiled. But I've started looking back now and I see that maybe others have already mentioned some of this.

Wow, TML, that's really cool! :-D

But what do you really think of that text? It seems awfully complicated still. I'll try to widdle it down again because it just feels like a traffic jam of information when I see it flying across the screen like that. 

ray_afraid said:

Although the shots work, I don't think there is any need to show Luke leaving Dagobah. The cut would be smoother going from Luke and Obi-Wan's conversation straight to the establishing shot of the DS. Would also leave a little more mystery to the cloaked figure (Luke) entering Jabba's palace.

One more thing, I love the shot of the x-wing and the Falcon in the desert (add a little blowing sand and it would easily pass as a live action shot!) but I think the transition would work better cutting from the space shot of Tatooine to the droids in the desert. No need to let the audience know who's already there and who isn't until they reveal themselves.

I agree that the shot of Luke leaving dagobah is not needed. It's a bit jarring to see Luke flying off, then suddenly we have the imperial fleet. I think you should go straight from Ben's emperor line to the scene of the emperor arriving.

But after the emperor's scene, I think we need to show an establishing shot of tatooine of some kind. I think we can do better than the recycled shot from episode IV.

I believe there's a shot of the falcon and X-wing arriving at Tatooine from the menu of the 2004 DVD of Return of the Jedi. If we can rotoscope the Falcon from that shot, it would be the perfect arrival scene. I think showing the falcon and xwing parked together works as it.

I watched RLM's review of RotS and he made an interesting point about RotJ - the emperor doesn't really have anything to offer to Luke to tempt him to the dark side. At best, all he can do is goad him. Is that something that can be addressed in this edit? I think we just have to accept that Luke is only there to help save Vader, but it's hard to rule anything out in this forum.

With regard to Luke's conversation with Ben, I do love that you changed Luke's tone with "Why didn't you tell me?" and that Ben just jumps right into it - really, what else could Luke be talking about? - but it seems to slow down the pace. Maybe I've seen it too many times, but it was the only part I was tempted to skip past. It's be discussed in other threads that it could be removed altogether and not hurt anything - Luke would just know that the other was Leia. Other than that, it's a lot better having the focus on Luke and the empire.

Seeing just Luke's x-wing arrive on Tatooine would be perfect. But I think the recycled ANH establishing shot of Tatooine works on many levels.I'd have to see the shot of the x-wing arriving before I wanted to switch.

Asking Possessed to find and rotoscope more stuff at this point might be asking for a bridge too far. Polishing what's there will tell the story. That's the bottom line.

Here's another take on the opening crawl if TML and Possessed want to try something clearer:

LUKE SKYWALKER has returned to

Degobah following his defeat at the

hands of DARTH VADER. Luke seeks the

guidance of Jedi Master YODA. Meanwhile,

on Tatooine, Luke's friend HAN SOLO

remains in the clutches of vile gangster

JABBA THE HUTT.

Little does Luke know... (etc.)

This wording is more in line with the tone of the original crawl and, I hope, sets the stage for this edit a little better than the previous version.

Possessed said:

Yes but I can't use the crawl unless the starfield matches that of the opening shot of rotj.

 

And like I said we could just remove mention of them already being on tatooine, and then I could use the menu shot without rotoscoping.  Because that's not going to happen.

The new text doesn't mention anyone but Han being on Tatooine, so that's covered.

The starfield problem is beyond me, except to say that I've seen edits where a cross-fade is added during the "pan-down" so that the new star field dissolves into the original starfield. It has never bothered me, though it is obviously not as elegant as it could be.

If we see the Falcon and the X-Wing fly down to Tatooine, then park in the desert, and then see the droids walking-- does that give time for Lando to insinuate himself into Jabba's guard?

It might be appropriate to use a "clockwise wipe" to the droids or even a fade to black between-- to indicate they didn't just land and push the droids out the door.  There is at least one fade-to-black in ANH.

RE: YOUR EDITED REPLY -- I agree that the ANH shot is good. Have you tried "flipping" the image so the moons appear different in the sky?

Possessed said:

I want to have the shot of the falcon and the xwing on the planet, otherwise we won't know where the droids come from.

We don't see or know where they've come from in the original film either. It builds mystery. We know it has to have something to do with saving Han, but other than that we don't know where they are coming from, what exactly they are doing there or who else is around. Of course we've all seen the film tons of times so we know who the bounty hunter is and we immediately know it's Luke in the hood, but a first time viewer doesn't need to be let in on this until they are revealed.

The problem for me here is that we've already been with R2 on Dagobah, so it seems strange to see him somewhere else so quickly. Of course, we have no idea how long it's been between the scene on Dagobah, the Death Star and now Tatooine, but it seems strange to see the same character jumping around so much so early in the film. Other than that, I love the Dagobah scene moved up to where you have it.

Cover image for the Possessed Edit?