The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 236

yeah okay, I made it, but thanks for liking :)
The accent is danish ;) back to topic 

Last night I watched The Name Of The Rose (1986) again.

Not only did it remind me of how much I want to see Vincent Ward's Alien 3, the whole structure of the various monastic orders and the relationship between Master and Novice could have made for a much more interesting Jedi Temple.

Anakin the slave entering the opulence of the Jedi Temple must have stung a bit.

That would have made a much stronger foundation for his final fall than anything we saw on screen. 

Bingowings said:

Last night I watched The Name Of The Rose (1986) again.

Not only did it remind me of how much I want to see Vincent Ward's Alien 3, the whole structure of the various monastic orders and the relationship between Master and Novice could have made for a much more interesting Jedi Temple.

Anakin the slave entering the opulence of the Jedi Temple must have stung a bit.

That would have made a much stronger foundation for his final fall than anything we saw on screen. 

Yeah. I feel like they needed to reinforce the idea that some Jedi weren't chill with Anakin being trained there also. I mean, they kind of had Windu treat him poorly, but I dunno. I feel like it needed to be more apparent.

Hey, dudes!

I think I've just come up with an enormous problem solver!

Yesterday I started watching NightStalkerPoet's "The Phantom Hour" and simply couldn't get through it. But not because the editing was bad, but because I've seen that film so many times (in an edited form, of course) that it just felt unbearable.

So I opened the film using VLC player end sped it up by 1.10x... and HOLY DOG SMOKES was that an enormous fudging imrovement!

The whole thing flew perfectly! Amidala's voice didn't sound half as annoying and all those boring static shots became ALIVE! You could just feel the camera moving and stuff happening.

Sure, the even more fast-paced lightsaber shots made me puke my ass off, but other than that - it was exciting as hell! Cause it didn't make it seem like a Benny Hill parody, it literally made the film flow as fast as it should've originally. The fact that it was cut down to 70min also helped.

I dare you dudes to give this method a shot. I dare you!

I just cannot stress this enough - all this time we've been messing around with cutting crap out when all it needed really was just speed.

Seriously - check it out, let me know what you think.

That's a great idea!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Kerr used it to the same effect in his Episode III edit, which helped put it down at an hour and a half. Everyone's voice sounds a little bit higher.

I'm sure that the pitch could be dropped down to match the original while maintaining the new increased speed.

It might sound weird though.

After some tinkering with the Phantom Menace I put together a very rough mock-up of a re-staged scene where Nute Gunray tells Sidious that they have lost Padme - I wanted to move that scene from the control ship and onto Naboo, to show that the Nemodians have settled themselves in on the planet. 

Like I said, it's only rough and you have to ignore the presence of Darth Maul - pretend that he has been replaced with another Nemodian or something :P  In a final version I would also like to darken up Sidious's face as well, to play with the idea that maybe Sidious and Maul are the same character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6e0nZy2VjQ&feature=youtu.be

Bingowings said:

I'm sure that the pitch could be dropped down to match the original while maintaining the new increased speed.

It might sound weird though.

In premiere you can actually match the pitch in a speed up or speed down. The only issue I can really see is the change in music.

Has anyone considered incorporating other movies/TV shows into Star Wars? Not just in the shots used, but linking the stories together or substituting plot elements.
I think it'd be really cool to not only keep the good elements of the prequels, but to also tie them in with another story, science fiction or not. Stargate SG-1 in particular can have a similar tone to the OT at times, and uses a lot more practical effects. You could really use a lot of science fiction and fantasy for this purpose.
If we're talking really radical ideas, find two characters that fall in love and have them be Owen and Beru.

There are plenty of movies that are not very well liked, but have good effects or cinematography. You could have space battles from Star Trek films, or explosions from Transformers. There's no reason to limit the toolbox to what the prequels already have in them, especially since they don't match the style of what we're aiming for anyway.

I was thinking of completely removing the term Sith. They're never mentioned in the first trilogy, and it's easy to assume Palpatine is simply a wizard that has trained himself in the ways of the Dark Side. This would prove extremely difficult to do with Episode III, but since this the Radical Ideas thread, well, I see that as radical enough.

Likewise, losing the Chosen One/Prophecy angle might work in benefit of the film, again the Prophecy is never mentioned in the OT. It would even make Vader's sacrifice more powerful.

Last, here's a short clip adressing both issues:

http://www.gigasize.com/get/wx0472ng7sd

Put Captain Solo in the Cargo Hold said:

I was thinking of completely removing the term Sith. They're never mentioned in the first trilogy, and it's easy to assume Palpatine is simply a wizard that has trained himself in the ways of the Dark Side. This would prove extremely difficult to do with Episode III, but since this the Radical Ideas thread, well, I see that as radical enough.

Likewise, losing the Chosen One/Prophecy angle might work in benefit of the film, again the Prophecy is never mentioned in the OT. It would even make Vader's sacrifice more powerful.

Last, here's a short clip adressing both issues:

http://www.gigasize.com/get/wx0472ng7sd

I've heard this idea before, and I mean....it's okay. But why do it? It doesn't really serve a purpose.

Definitely agree with the Chosen One thing as it's completely unimportant.  However, as I like the basic idea and I started the integration thread, I actually would prefer somehow including its brief mention in the OT.

darth_ender said:

Definitely agree with the Chosen One thing as it's completely unimportant.  However, as I like the basic idea and I started the integration thread, I actually would prefer somehow including its brief mention in the OT.

I agree. The Chosen One is only a cool concept if it had some mention in the OT which it really doesn't. But then again, how to integrate it into the OT....that's the question. Because otherwise it's just a vague prophecy that's mentioned and then abandoned. 

Oops.  What's funny is I actually was referring to the Sith, not the Chosen One :D  I don't much care for that, but I forgot to say the word Sith.  Sorry, now I didn't mean to make you look dumb or anything.

darth_ender said:

Oops.  What's funny is I actually was referring to the Sith, not the Chosen One :D  I don't much care for that, but I forgot to say the word Sith.  Sorry, now I didn't mean to make you look dumb or anything.

It's okay, I'm awesome at making myself look dumb on my own. :P

i've been suggesting the whole sith-removal for a while now.

in the EU fiction sith rock as we have a whole load of backstory and they are presented as this massive super-culture. they really function in this context.

in the films however, they are a horribly simplified cohesive term for evil. this really really castrates everything about what anakin's turn should be about (which is one of the key themes of the series). the dark side/light side choice is something which we as people are presented with everyday, on a small level, and on a large level. luke's constant personal battles epitomize this. being consistently good, then becoming evil to join team-evil (ie the sith) doesn't seem to have that same personal relevance.

the chosen one prophecy is a bit cheesey IMHO buuuut could work well in the OT if it was mentioned in ROTJ or ESB. think of the "he was our last hope" conversation between yoda and obiwan. what if it is mentioned that luke is now believed to be the chosen one, as it is obviously not anakin. when luke is defeated by the emperor, and vader slays him, it would act as a sort of slight final twist. this overall though may detract from the theme of ROTJ, which is luke saving vader, as oppose to luke assassinating the emperor - that was just lucky.

I actually like the Sith from the movies better than the EU.  To me they are overly powerful and the Jedi awfully stupid during the Sith War stuff.  I like the Rule of Two (and I'm not fond of all the Sith acolyte stuff in the Clone Wars).  I like their subversive nature rather than another large group.  I like that their evil is subtle and infiltrating instead of a big group that everyone knows is evil.  Just my two cents.

Somewhat reconsidering what I said about the Chosen One...it could be made to better appeal to me in the OT if done right, and maybe I'd be happier with it overall.  I confess, the main thing I don't like about it is its lack of reference in the OT, but if it were included more, it might be better in my mind as another way of looking at Star Wars.  I really do like having several interpretations of Star Wars, not simply an "only way to watch it."

I would have preferred to have seen the Jedi being divided more in their interpretation of the the discovery of 'the chosen one'.

I could see a section of the council seeing this as really bad news.

For a thousand generations or so they have had relative peace so they must have assumed the Sith were gone for good but if the chosen one is meant to destroy the Sith that implies that there are Sith to be destroyed and if the status quo has been relatively speaking ok that would mean bringing balance to the Force would imply changes which would disturb that imbalanced but relatively peaceful situation.

Others would great it as a good thing like the coming of a messiah and others would be pragmatic about the ambiguities of prophecy.

If some of the nonsensical exposition was removed it would leave room for new characters to provide better narrative driven exposition which could provoke the audience to think about where the story could be going and better understand the natural divisions in the Jedi community.

That would be much more interesting than taxation and generally muddled worries about uncertain futures.

In the current PT we only get the bit about destroying the Sith in the final film anyway so it would make sense to put both sides of that plot strand on the table in the first episode (if the strand is there at all) than leave it to the final part.

We never even find out (outside the EU) where this prophecy came from in the first place (did the Sith plant it there for less rainy day?)

The Star Wars universe is a fantasy led cousin to the Duneiverse and the problems caused by limited prescience (or even total prescience) feature well enough in that story.

What the PT needed was to have a coherent but simplified version of that theme or to drop the whole prophetic strand altogether.

If that is dropped do you replace it with something else or just have a shorter film?

i guess the prophecy does support the mysticism over science. perhaps that duality could cause the division?

if the prophecy is linked to the "son of the suns" idea from the really early drafts of STAR WARS then perhaps that could leave it open ended for the OT. i can imagine shots of yoda meditating to abstract scenes of the prophecies?

darth_ender said:

I actually like the Sith from the movies better than the EU.  To me they are overly powerful and the Jedi awfully stupid during the Sith War stuff.  I like the Rule of Two (and I'm not fond of all the Sith acolyte stuff in the Clone Wars).  I like their subversive nature rather than another large group.  I like that their evil is subtle and infiltrating instead of a big group that everyone knows is evil.  Just my two cents.

Somewhat reconsidering what I said about the Chosen One...it could be made to better appeal to me in the OT if done right, and maybe I'd be happier with it overall.  I confess, the main thing I don't like about it is its lack of reference in the OT, but if it were included more, it might be better in my mind as another way of looking at Star Wars.  I really do like having several interpretations of Star Wars, not simply an "only way to watch it."

Ditto on the Sith. I am definitely for their inclusion, but like you said, there are many ways to watch Star Wars. 

As this is a long running thread I thought I'd tie these threads

Music replacement.

Footage replacement from other films.

Integrating the two trilogies.

Aalenfae's Revenge Of The Sith.

Replacing Aliens/Droids with Humans

into this one so anyone following this thread at a later date could be aware of the pertinent discussions taking place elsewhere.

If anyone can think of any other threads that might be pertinent to access through this one please post a link here as it may assist editors using ideas from here to be aware of other related threads.

Actually it would be best if all those discussions stayed here. It's all related, and multiple threads are unnecessary.

this is sort of relevant....

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Alternative-Star-Wars-Movie-Titles-Keep-Checking-the-First-Post/topic/13439/