Return of the Jedi - The Spence Final Cut (Released) — Page 11

SpenceEdit said:

I'm going to respectfully table the crawl suggestions conversation. I think I've got it where I need it, and I don't want to over-analyze it.

Fair enough.

I hope you don't think we're trying to take over your edit, Spence - I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we just want this to be the best Return of the Jedi it can be, and as insignificant as the crawl may seem, it's the first thing anyone will ever see of your edit, and it needs to grab them and make them want to continue watching.  I don't know how many times I've downloaded a Star Wars fan edit, popped it in, and been immediately disillusioned when the half-assed replacement crawl comes up.  I just don't want that to happen with this edit, since it seems so very promising.

Anyway, that's the last I'll say on the subject of the crawl.

ChainsawAsh said:

SpenceEdit said:

I'm going to respectfully table the crawl suggestions conversation. I think I've got it where I need it, and I don't want to over-analyze it.

Fair enough.

Agreed.

Don't get me wrong, all of your input just helped me get the crawl where I wanted it to be. If I didn't want feedback, I wouldn't put this stuff on here. But I have a habit of looking at these things too much sometimes, and I think you can easily work on something to the point of ruining it. I don't want to do that. When things get to a point I'm happy with, i stop, even if there are ways to "improve" it.

Sounds very sensible to me.  Lucas could learn a thing or two from your attitude!

ChainsawAsh said:

This seems the best to me.  I give it my stamp of approval.

You should post that in my thread that is currently about stamps.

If you have made your mind up that's fine by me Spence and there is no need for me to clutter up your thread with further suggestions but as I pointed out before having Luke's mind made up about Vader in the crawl nullifies his request for information from Yoda so I'd either cut it from the crawl or cut it from the scene.

The audience should know these things when the main character does for dramatic reasons and if Luke has already obtained this information off screen we don't need to see him do it again on screen.

That's been removed from the scene on Dagobah. Yoda still tells him that in order to completely be a Jedi, he must confront Vader, but that's a different context. Plus I removed the bit in the crawl about "knowing he must face Darth Vader."

The crawl is in, and bob just sent me an update on the Death Star shots. They're looking really good! It's all coming together. I'm scrambling to meet my release date, but I think I might just get there by the skin of my teeth.

Still got my eye on this. Really looking forward.

I hesitate to suggest anything else as you say you've made up your mind on the crawl, but to echo what others have said, I think the first line needs to refer to the galaxy-wide struggle as opposed to that of our heroes. That way it stays in line with the rest of the saga. :-)

One of the main complaints about the ROTJ crawl is the lack of a sense of epic scale, right from the outset. Here's a quote from the article '50 reasons why Return of the Jedi sucks':

28. The Opening Text Crawl – In which we are given our first taste of each of the three films. Let’s compare their opening sentences, shall we?

WARS: “It is a period of civil war….”

EMPIRE: “It is a dark time for the Rebellion…”

JEDI: “Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Charro guest stars.”

Okay, we threw in the part about Charro. But the point is, we’re talking mythic tracts versus a blurb from TV Guide. The first sentence in Jedi centers around the word “friend.” Well, that’s just peachy, but we much prefer the first two films’ implications that we’re about to see something a bit larger than a buddy picture.

I'm using a line about the Rebels before we go into the Luke stuff. Again, I have to set up Luke/Leia/Lando/Chewie really clearly, while having a galaxy wide beginning and ending with the Death Star. It's tough, and I've got it in the format as much as I can, but it's more important to me to set up the information clearly.

Thank you for your input, brash. Again, I want to table the Crawl discussion. It's already done now. It's not changing again.

And I know someone right after this post will say something like "I know you don't want anymore suggestions... but..." I know you're tempted, but don't do it! I will get all Adywan on your asses!

Of course! The feedback has been great. I wish I was good enough at effects to fix some other little niggly things that bother me (the stupid aliens in Jabba's palace, the reuse of the Greedo costume, etc.) but that's not something I really want to get into. All of the changes to the story I wanted to make, I have found a way to do, plus some ideas i got solely through feedback.

This edit is truly going to be a milestone. Consider me a definite first day downloader because finally we can end the Star Wars saga right.

I'd be interested in an alternative cut of ESB. No one has really touched it so far except ADigitalMan. Hope you eventually get to that.

Well it would literally almost be the same. I'd cut Leia and Luke's kiss and Obi-Wan's ghost on Dagobah. That's about it.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

This edit is truly going to be a milestone. Consider me a definite first day downloader because finally we can end the Star Wars saga right.

You and me both!

MTHaslett said:

B) it eliminates the most painful OT moment for me when we had to watch the once noble and honorable Obi Wan use lawyer speak to excuse his manipulative lies.  He didn't tell Luke the truth because he thought he could use Luke against Vader and that lying to Luke would make that easier. Watching his self-serving explanation only debases Obi Wan further. 

I always saw it that Obi didn't tell Luke because he was both ashamed of his own failure, and wanted to spare the boy's feelings. Perhaps if he hadn't been killed very soon after, he would have told the truth when Luke was more ready and they had more time.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting theory. But to be honest, taking the prequels into account (which not everybody does) Obi-Wan's explanation serves very little purpose. It was really just to bring us as the audience up to speed on what happened, but we already know that from Ep. III.

Plus if he had told Luke this in the first place, would Luke have gone with him? Would he have tried to reason with Vader and be killed, thus ending their last hope at restoring balance? If I were Obi-Wan, I wouldn't have told him till he was ready, and unfortunately he found out from Vader himself long before that time.

I've been discussing this a bit in some other forums, but I like to think that a big part of how Anakin turned out has to be attributed directly to Obi-Wan. to me he is just as responsible for Anakin's turn to the dark side as Padme is (both indirectly and without intention, obviously.) With a stricter master, things would've turned out quite differently, but it was his fate to end up with Obi-Wan, a young and brash Jedi who was not ready for a Padawan. It was also destiny that Obi-Wan was trained by Qui-Gnon, thus promoting his cavalier and sometimes disobedient attitude. I gotta give George credit, he really thought that through, and I can't think it was coincidece that all those pieces fell into play.

Sorry, off topic.

SpenceEdit said:

Sorry, off topic.

lol, don't worry about going off topic in your own thread....

SpenceEdit said:

 

...

I've been discussing this a bit in some other forums ...

Are you cheating on us?

*sob*

Spence, I'm glad this edit is coming together the way you like.  And I'm particularly pleased you are being bold with your approach to change the elements of the plot that you don't feel work.  I've always liked the "Go big or go home" attitude.

haha no, it just came up in other threads, I promise!

I tried doing a not so bold trim edit of this, but it didn't satisfy me in the end. I say it in my commentary a little, bit this is a nut I've been trying to crack pretty much since I started fanediting. I don't know too many editors who have tried drastically different things on the same movie three times, so you can see how desperate I was to get it right. The fact that I'm satisfied with this edit is particularly exciting to me, and I've got the quality on it at the highest level I'm capable of.

This is as close as I can get to the version of Jedi that i always wanted the original to be. Tastes are different, and again I said in my commentary that Star Wars is interesting because it means different things to different people, so one persons "perfect version" can never apply to everyone. Still, I hope you all enjoy it, whether it's as a definitive version or a fun alternate.

SpenceEdit said:

Plus if he had told Luke this in the first place, would Luke have gone with him? Would he have tried to reason with Vader and be killed, thus ending their last hope at restoring balance? If I were Obi-Wan, I wouldn't have told him till he was ready, and unfortunately he found out from Vader himself long before that time.

 It's also worth noting how much Luke didn't know. Dude didn't even know what the Force was, probably didn't know what a Jedi was and didn't know his dad was one. Add on that there's a Dark Side that made his dad evil and that kind old Ben tossed him in a volcano and he's now the evilest man alive... .... talk about a mind blowing experience. If I was Luke I'd go to the cantina and drink myself to oblivion.

or pick up some "power converters" if ya know what I mean... ;)