Right you can probably tell by now that I really like the idea of including the Bothans as the new intro, and that I'm all for editing footage from existing sources over filming our own (based purely on cost and quality, not because I wouldn't like to be able to).
But based on this I have made a better clip demonstrating a possible intro scene. It is rough because the filesize is relatively low and I did it in a day or so without much video editing skill. However, if I did something like this in a day, imagine what someone like Angel could do in two days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTpDFA-FXXg
The material is sourced from a relatively small pool too so with more thought we could probably improve nearly every shot so please judge it on the idea rather than the execution.
The reasons I am pushing for this though are that it provides us a way to see Boushh before Jabba's palace, which means when it turns out Boushh is in fact Leia it will be a shock, which is good. Also in my version I have used the idea that the Bothans are attempting to get to the imperial planet by using a stolen code just like Han and co will try later on in the film. Because we saw this fail for the Bothans it will increase the tension when Han tries it later on. We would also get to see some ships which would be new to the OT. I think that is good because it shows the rebels are having to take whatever they can get including old ships to throw together the biggest force they can. Something I dislike a little about the ships in RotJ is that the big rebel ships are almost all Mon Calamari ships, why not have a few others to mix it up and make it look like a really diverse force. And finally adding a few minutes in this way would increase the run time which would give more freedom to cut parts later on without leaving the overall film feeling too short.
Anyway please let me know what you do or do not like about this idea as I intend to try to gradually improve it as and when I find better clips to use, so all feedback would be much appreciated.
Edit:
I have just clicked the link to make sure it was working ok and for some reason youtube has altered the video slightly (recompression at a guess), but every now and then I added a frame of just text or still image to demonstrate something, these shots seem to have been cut to a second or so, I don't know why but sorry about that, the only thing I can suggest is pressing pause so you have time to read what is written. Thanks again for watching it.