Return of the Jedi - The Spence Final Cut (Released) — Page 25

Anyone had luck with part 1 and 2 in the past day or two? I'm on day two and part 2 gets stuck at 44.0 of 200 MB, and part 1 hardly even budges at all. I got all the rest in 5-10 minutes each with no issues whatsoever.

I'm anxious to check out the edit!

Spence - are you still releasing a digital (DivX?) version of the edit?

Alright, I'm back from a terrible stomach flu. Whew. What a waste of time.

I've been waiting for this, as anyone on this board knows. The thing is: I was a Star Wars kid. I was there for the first release of the OT. I was crazy about the stories, the characters, their galaxy-- I got as many toys, comics, posters and magazines as I could about Star Wars and its incredible sequel "Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back". Then the third movie came out... and I went to it... and I came out... so confused.

I couldn't put it in words, I didn't hate it, but the effect was that I never bought another Star Wars comic, toy, or poster again unless it was about the other two movies. I came to realize "Return of the Jedi" was a giant let-down.

The reasons it fails are numerous. First, it's all a giant hand-holding romp; just a victory lap without ever building any real stakes. Second, it is totally disjointed as a story. It tries to give moments to all the characters without doing justice to any. Third, The Jabba rescue was totally inane. Forth, The Ewoks are overdone and (embarrassing) they save our heroes asses. Fifth, Everything Han does turns out wrong. Etc. Luke finished the last movie as a total punk with a few days training and a missing hand-- but now suddenly he needs no more training? Suddenly Vader now worries about how it's too late for him? None of this was keeping with the Empire Strikes Back. Empire was brutal. Jedi is a musical. They just don't match.

Ah, but in comes SpencEdit and his Final Cut.

This fan edit has answers to all these problems and more. There is so much concern here for trying to make ROTJ fit the original Two-logy and, I am happy to report, it revives a dead film. The RETURN OF THE JEDI, um, Returns!

Spence's strategy is simple: This edit removes the giant narrative dog-leg from the middle of the film which has Luke run off to Degobah for an exposition dump. Instead, as would more naturally follow the ass-whipping he received in Empire, the first thing Luke Skywalker does is go to Degobah for more training. So not only is this Luke more consistent with who he was, but the viewer of this story gets to identify with Luke right away as he hears he must face Vader and discover who "the other Skywalker" is. This turns the rescue on Tatooine into a test for the newly trained Jedi; it allows the mission to Endor to naturally flow out of getting the heroes back together; and it makes all the gravity between Luke and Vader feel organic. To support these grand ideas, this edit also tackles the pace of every sequence to remove as much cushion as possible. Now, when people get shot on Endor, it really hurts. Capping it all off strategically is a giant idea that I don't want to spoil-- but let's just say destroying the Death Star won't necessarily get the Rebels everything they want now. Now the personal Luke story has more stakes than ever.

Execution is first rate. The best example for me is the scene I've always hated between Han and Lando, where Han makes Lando take the Millenium Falcon. This has always felt and looked fake to me. But Spence does something brilliant, he follows it up by letting Han's last look at the Falcon from inside the Imperial Shuttle go as a silent observation-- no one but the audience gets to notice how he feels. It makes the whole thing authentic and beautiful; character driven and smart. That's a good metaphor for the effect of this entire edit.  All the characters feel more on target, stripped of their schtick and yet still given their chance to shine (the new intro of Chewie is especially effective).  And not enough can be said about how this has become a fitting finish of the Luke Skywalker story (not to mention a few effective musical choices that make this a fitting finish to the Anakin Skywalker story as well-- this truly completes the Saga). The final twenty minutes of this thing is perfect. I never knew this was what the footage held-- it's so much more effective and exciting.

There are only a couple things that I can take issue with-- first, the way Spence chose to edit two tiny scenes jarred me a little and second there seemed to be a mix issue where the music felt muffled and then jumped up a level. I'm not technical enough to describe exactly what was wrong, but let me say that neither is enough to worry about. Download and watch this if you have any interest in a BETTER version of RETURN OF THE JEDI.

It's almost exactly the movie I wish I'd gotten when I waited in line all those years ago. This would have kept me buying toys and comic books. Very impressed. Very happy.

Merry Christmas to us all!

I just posted my spoiler-free review over at FE.org where I see Spence's own description is completely full of spoilers. Guess that makes me look pretty silly.

I'll watch the discussion and jump in again if it can be helpful-- but I wish for anyone to experience this one as spoiler free as possible to get some real WHOA! moments out of it.

Here's my review:

I think this was the most ambitious ROTJ edit that I've seen to date. Spence deserves the highest praise for taking this on.

Unfortunately, there's only so much ROTJ can be polished with editing alone. And another problem for me is: how can I "unsee" the version of the film that I've known for almost 30 years?

I haven't listened to the commentary yet. Spence has probably commented on many of these things.

I loved the new crawl :)

The scenes with Luke on Dagobah were good. They still talk about Vader's identity, which is important on some level to confirm for the viewer.

The Tatooine cuts worked well in theory, but I felt the trimmed sequences were too fast. The story needs a little room to breathe. All the fat has been removed from this part of the story, and not much plot is left. But at least Luke's plan makes more sense.

I thought the idea of sending in Leia first worked very well. We get an introduction to Jabba's palace and Jabba himself through them. The cuts to Luke sensing what happened seemed a little out of place. I would prefer a shot of Luke sensing the events after they've happened, using an echoey repetition of some of Jabba's lines or maybe his laughter.  Luke also seems to get to Tatooine too quickly.

The removal of Fett was very well done. He is not missed.

After the rescue, the heroes go their separate ways, but Luke has nowhere to go. When he shows up at the fleet, he's welcomed like he's been gone a long time. I know there's nothing to show Luke doing, but it leaves a pretty big hole.

Once on Endor, I liked the speeder bike chase and the hint at what happened to Leia. The brief part where 3PO tells his story, which then cuts to Luke leaving, was perfect.

The establishing shot of Vader taking Luke to the Super Star Destroyer was nice, but maybe should have been a little longer. It was hard to tell if it was the super star destroyer or one of the smaller star destroyers.

While Luke is watching the space battle, it seems like the Death Star should have stayed close to the fleet, instead of moving away from it. Logistically, why would the imperial fleet change its location if it's trying to box in the Rebels. So I think the DS should remain in all shots of the fleet through the window.

I'm not a big fan of the lightsaber duel being one complete scene. I just don't feel like there's enough there, so cutting away to something else makes it feel fuller. Plus, in the course of the duel, Luke goes from wanting to kill the Emperor, to not wanting to fight, to wanting to kill Vader, to then not wanting to kill him. With the shorter duel, these flip-flops are more glaring.

When the Executor's shield generators are hit, we see Luke is on board having his moment with his father (I can't decide if I like the use of Anakin's theme here or not). So I got confused about whether there is one super star destroyer or 2. I'm still not sure how many there were supposed to be. I was hoping you would have the SSD go down, so that Luke has to escape in time, but I guess you didn't have the external shots for that.

Han's face right before Leia kisses him is confusing. He has nothing to react to. (I'd personally like to see an edit where Luke implies to Leia that she's his sister, but we don't get confirmation of it until she tells Han at the end.)

The new ending has a nice somber feel. I just wish there was a way to remove the SE city shots.

Technical Issues:

I noticed some jaggies on the crawl. It seemed like it might not have been done at full DVD resolution.

There seemed to be a strange effect with the music in some scenes (like the Emperor's arrival & the skiff battle). It was like there were 2 music tracks layered on top of each other, with one delayed by about a second or two (I have a 5.1 system).

There was an audio dropout in the bunker when the commander sends more reinforcements to the battle.

------

I recommend this edit as an important stepping stone for
getting people to see ROTJ in a different way. But personally, I still think there's room for more improvement.

I've just posted a review for this over at FE.org/info....cant remember which!

but i cant vote yet...or im not seeing where to vote...

id give this 8/10 currently, only because of the technical issues which i think Spence could fix, such as a few moments with the lip sink issues - already discussed and mainly the volume of the audio changing at the beginning of the credits.

Just little things like that which kinda remind you its a fanedit, if they were fixed it would be a deffinate 10/10!

I know you worked hard on this and there were a lot of expectant people waiting to see it (including me), so you deffinately deserved a break. But i hope you will come back and just fix those things.

On a final note - regarding seeing the death star outside the window, for me it works fine the way it is - I can see what the others mean when they comment about it not being there in some of the later shots - but for me it doesnt matter - by then its already established that Luke and co are not on the Death Star so ive no problem with it.

So i guess there will be people who want all the shots altered and others who think its fine as is.

Overall, good job dood!

 Edit: Now voted didnt realise is was that easy lol!

There are so many changes to appreciate, I love reading about them in the other reviews.

One thing I'm still relishing is how Han Solo is so much improved. Some of my favorite bits are now Han-- like his blasting away at troopers down on Endor. 

Faceshot! Ouch.

I'm all, like, I wish you would just make the two small changes that I want because they're so awesome and easy. But then someone else might chime in with some other totally stupid ideas and then you'd probably have to field at least a dozen more after that and who needs it?

It really is a great edit. I'm waiting for feedback from folks I've let in on it. I'm nervous like I actually did something on it.

SpenceEdit said:

Out of curiosity, what are those two things?

For the sake of discussion, the only two things I'd change are:

1) Use a single wipe to Luke at the end of the "Jabba catches Leia" scene. When I saw this the first time, the first wipe-to-Luke was totally clear and the second one confused me-- it wasn't until the third one that I realized you were emulating ESB. That made me want just one wipe at the right place.

2) Move the Wicket finds Leia shot slightly. Currently it comes after the heroes basically say, "I hope Leia's safe"... cut to Leia suddenly being threatened.  That cut feels externally motivated. I'd move it to right after Luke dispatches the last speeder bike to make it feed the following discussion with suspense.

But that's two tiny changes that become less to me every time I rewatch your edit.

hmm.. ok

for me if you could just fix Lando's lip sync - during the sarlacc scene

.....and if you listen to the music right as the end credits begin you will notice the music suddenly gets loud....then again and again....like a staggered volume increase - almost blew my ears off the first time as i was using headphones lol cos the ending is so good now - its that sudden jarring of the music that spoils it. Oh and theres a few repeated frames during the credits near the beginning - I think its whats causing your DIY credits to show over the top of the movies original credits in one place....have a look you'll see it.  - watch from near the end of the funeral pyre scene to a few minutes into the credit and you'll notice the music and credits issues.

...and.....I wasnt going to mention when Luke senses Leia & han being captured...again.... hey thats 2 they owe him man!

...um right, try something different - instead of a few quick shots of Luke during the de-carbonising scene, for instance you could try....

extending the death of yoda scene to include - luke walking back to his x-wing - and interacting with R2 ...he stand ups and moans about how can he possibly carry on alone (eww... cut that shit out, no whiny Luke pls)...i think you can show footage of Luke knelt down with R2 - and then cut him talking as he stands up - next shot is close up of Lukes face then theres a nice pause just before the Ghost of Obi Wan starts talking - and he looks round...

you could cut it there - delete the audio of bens voice and input the jabba Theme! - and cut to next scene. Or use those shots but have Luke sense something odd going on....and jabba's theme playing...somewhere before leia rescues han....but after yoda dies....hmmm that doesnt give you much room for manuvering....

also I know there is an awfull wipe between Yoda dying and Luke walking to his xwing in the original movie but i no you can do it! :)

For me thats all i'd like to see fixed...

I think...well thats what most stands out in my mind at the moment.

you can do it! :)

I dont mind the way you've done endor - im quite happy with it.

I've made a 40min super 16 (cant call it super 8 cos its widescreen) edit - and for me Jabba's palace and endor were the hardest bits for me to do  - and what you managed with Jabba's palace was pretty amazing - especially with the usage of Leia footage. I didnt do anything like that, im just not patient enough to try!