The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 249

I liked the extended race personally, I just couldn't stand the cartoonish racers.

Imagine the drama/horror if they were all kids like Anakin, he is a slave after all.

Gladiators were also slaves.

Sometimes they were treated better but if you want to make a real tone shift keep the crashes but lose the puppets/CGI cartoons.

I like the extended race also. Though I dislike Anakin's Stalling Out and then having the mechanical problem and then the extended versions, flailing around loose engine bit.

I don't disagree with the cartoon issue. But if you cut Quadrinaros and the 2 headed announcer, I think the rest wouldn't seem so bad.

My edit is an attempt to shrink the whole 6 film saga into a single 3 hr and 59 minute epic movie. So thats why the shortening of the race to only 1 lap.

I think the name presentations should have been omitted. The only characters we care to know is Anakin and Sebulba and we already know who they are way before the Podrace. I would include all of the Podrace itself, though.

princethomas said:

I prefer the long version as well. As I said, the project I am working on is a 6 film 4 hour cut. Which means cutting about 9 hours worth of stuff. So getting the whole podrace sequence, from the hangar to the finish line down to about 4 minutes is kind of a must. The race itself edited down quite well. Using shots from lap one during the early parts and shots from lap two in the middle and from lap 3 at the end.

You could say that again. ;)

princethomas said:

I prefer the long version as well. As I said, the project I am working on is a 6 film 4 hour cut. Which means cutting about 9 hours worth of stuff. So getting the whole podrace sequence, from the hangar to the finish line down to about 4 minutes is kind of a must. The race itself edited down quite well. Using shots from lap one during the early parts and shots from lap two in the middle and from lap 3 at the end.

On another note. I'm interested in this project you're working on. Tell us more.

princethomas said:

Ok. I've been kicking this idea around for years. I got it by watching a lot of the big famous "epic" movies. Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia etc. People throw that term around a lot, but I was thinking about what it is. Those movies are very long, but more importantly, they take place over a long period of time. The jump forward in time multiple times without much warning or explanation. I started wondering about Star Wars in that way. What it would be like. I settled on 3 hrs and 59 minutes, because at some point its cheating. I mean how long is a "movie" before it becomes something else. There are almost ZERO mainstream movies that ever hit 4 hrs. GWTW, LoArabia, Ben Hur, the Ten Commandments etc. Are all in the 3:30 to 3:50 range. The key for me is this. Im not doing it because I think its better this way. I don't believe that at all. Its just a fun puzzle to try to figure out. For that reason I am not going to go the Godfather II or Once Upon a time in America route. Yes, I think a very good movie could be made with the OT as the main story and 30 to 45 minutes of prequel flashbacks. Im just not trying to do that here. I also am not trying to "correct" anything here. This is an OT board and I get that, but Im a full Saga fan. I do have my issues with the movies but Im not doing that here. I'm keeping Jar Jar Binks, and Im cutting a huge chunk of Return of the Jedi. Its just part of completing the puzzle. Some things I have: Opening shot is now the Federation invasion ships landing. (will explain in the crawl that the Jedi were betrayed and escaped by stowing away) First "person" seen is Jar Jar. Using the shot of him coming up from the lake that takes place later. Then it cuts to him almost getting run over. Its a good intro and it fits with all the lowly creatures vs. sophisticated society stuff that runs through the whole thing. Jar Jar takes them directly to Theed where they escape. Shorten Pod Race to 1 lap. Shorten battle to little more than the lightsaber fight. Clones is tough. There is a ton of stuff that can be cut, but also there is a ton of little expositional things that need to stay. I'll cut or move the fight with Dooku to before the battle. Using the battle as the seque to Sith. Montage of scenes from Geonosis and other battles from Sith playing right into the opening space battle. In the OT, I want to make it so there is just one death star. I plan to have the death star escape be the end of ANH. However, the problem is, I don't want to lose Luke's flying part of it. Also its tricky to do since the appearance of the death stars are so different. In Empire. I did one cool thing little thing. When the Falcon escapes Hoth I cut right to the part where they attack and then hide on the back. Then after they "float away" I cut in the scenes onboard scenes that take place in the cave. The other tricky part is how to either avoid Han being frozen or how to rescue him quicker, I'd really like to lose all of the first part of Return of the Jedi, but Im not sure how to just yet. Its hard and probably not totally doable, but its a fun exercise nonetheless.

Sounds like an interesting idea for sure. I've seen 3-in-1 edits, and apparently those were tricky. It will be interesting to see how this one goes.

princethomas said:

Ok. I've been kicking this idea around for years. I got it by watching a lot of the big famous "epic" movies. Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia etc. People throw that term around a lot, but I was thinking about what it is. Those movies are very long, but more importantly, they take place over a long period of time. The jump forward in time multiple times without much warning or explanation. I started wondering about Star Wars in that way. What it would be like. I settled on 3 hrs and 59 minutes, because at some point its cheating. I mean how long is a "movie" before it becomes something else. There are almost ZERO mainstream movies that ever hit 4 hrs. GWTW, LoArabia, Ben Hur, the Ten Commandments etc. Are all in the 3:30 to 3:50 range. The key for me is this. Im not doing it because I think its better this way. I don't believe that at all. Its just a fun puzzle to try to figure out. For that reason I am not going to go the Godfather II or Once Upon a time in America route. Yes, I think a very good movie could be made with the OT as the main story and 30 to 45 minutes of prequel flashbacks. Im just not trying to do that here. I also am not trying to "correct" anything here. This is an OT board and I get that, but Im a full Saga fan. I do have my issues with the movies but Im not doing that here. I'm keeping Jar Jar Binks, and Im cutting a huge chunk of Return of the Jedi. Its just part of completing the puzzle. Some things I have: Opening shot is now the Federation invasion ships landing. (will explain in the crawl that the Jedi were betrayed and escaped by stowing away) First "person" seen is Jar Jar. Using the shot of him coming up from the lake that takes place later. Then it cuts to him almost getting run over. Its a good intro and it fits with all the lowly creatures vs. sophisticated society stuff that runs through the whole thing. Jar Jar takes them directly to Theed where they escape. Shorten Pod Race to 1 lap. Shorten battle to little more than the lightsaber fight. Clones is tough. There is a ton of stuff that can be cut, but also there is a ton of little expositional things that need to stay. I'll cut or move the fight with Dooku to before the battle. Using the battle as the seque to Sith. Montage of scenes from Geonosis and other battles from Sith playing right into the opening space battle. In the OT, I want to make it so there is just one death star. I plan to have the death star escape be the end of ANH. However, the problem is, I don't want to lose Luke's flying part of it. Also its tricky to do since the appearance of the death stars are so different. In Empire. I did one cool thing little thing. When the Falcon escapes Hoth I cut right to the part where they attack and then hide on the back. Then after they "float away" I cut in the scenes onboard scenes that take place in the cave. The other tricky part is how to either avoid Han being frozen or how to rescue him quicker, I'd really like to lose all of the first part of Return of the Jedi, but Im not sure how to just yet. Its hard and probably not totally doable, but its a fun exercise nonetheless.

I'd be really interested to see how it turns out.  Certainly don't be afraid to make hugely radical narative changes, such as ones I'm laying out for my Skywalker duology (trilogy, if possible), which will most likely have each movie 3 hours long.

haha, -1

princethomas said:

I was also considering not having them go back to Naboo. Having the Maul/Obi/Q fight be on Coruscant. The environment looks pretty Coruscanty to me.

Does it?

I thought it looked more like a starship interior or Kamino.

If anyone could fix Maul up after getting bi-sected and turn him into a cyborg or trillions of clones it would be those Kaminoans.

Bingowings said:

princethomas said:

I was also considering not having them go back to Naboo. Having the Maul/Obi/Q fight be on Coruscant. The environment looks pretty Coruscanty to me.

Does it?

I thought it looked more like a starship interior or Kamino.

If anyone could fix Maul up after getting bi-sected and turn him into a cyborg or trillions of clones it would be those Kaminoans.

I don't really know how it could be done (however, I haven't given it concentrated thought.) but the idea of Kamino being the climax sounds so much more interesting. Back when they began shooting Ep.2 there was this amazing rumor that there would be a lightsaber battle in the rain, and that the blades would sizzle when the drops hit them. Kamino has dramatic climatic look to it. It could have been where the last battle takes places, a battle for clones and not with clones. Gives the title The Clone Wars more meaning to me. Pity the powers in charge didn't see this. 

Maul hiring Fett has a certain 'it rhymes'ness about it (what with Vader doing it in ESB).

Maul could be a carry over character like Dooku is in ROTS but he lives on either as a cyborg or a clone army.

If Qui-Gon continued over into the beginning of AOTC his return in the form of a ghostly voice wouldn't feel so tacked on either.

darth_ender said:

Someone once said that the burden of meshing the two trilogies together via fan editing should be placed on the PT, but I've thought that such would be far too difficult in some cases.  However, just this morning  I actually thought of a simple idea to correct this little mistake.  A little voice splicing and cutting to Luke's face could resultin a line such as, "I seem to remember a droid like this one...very interesting."  I don't know exactly where to get the "like this one" part, but something along these lines might be doable, simply showing that he vaguely remembers R2, but that 20 years have obscured his memory and he can't be sure.

 I kinda feel like he does actually recognize R2.  If you look closely at the way he looks at R2 when he comes out of hiding, it always seemed to me that he recognized the droid. 

Judging by the fact that he lies about a lot of stuff in Episode IV, he could certainly lie about not knowing the droid. 

Also remember that there are many "R2" units.  This one happens to be "R2-D2" but the line Leia says about "information is in this R2 unit" implies that there are many R2 units around.  R2 is never referred to as "R2-D2" in ANH (at least I don't think) so it's certainly plausible that Obi-Wan just is confused.  I mean, he has been just chilling on Tatooine for 20 years, lol. 

Actually very interesting. I agree. I originally thought it looked like the inside of a Starship. I thought about having them go back to Naboo, but with Obi and Q THEN going to the TF starship to talk and using their early scenes of attack leading directly to the conflict with Maul, while Padme and JJ get the Gungans to fight the Droids.

But I think the electro pits and force fields of the Maul/Obi/Q fight would certainly "pass" for Coruscant.

If the movies are watched from the 1-6 perspective then there aren't any inconsistencies. But a lot of OT fans hate that because of the "surprise factor" which I can understand. You just have to understand that some things seem inconsistent if you insist upon watching in "surprise order"

Things like recognizing R2 aren't an issue because from 1-6 order, you flat out KNOW 100% that he is at the very least playing coy. We KNOW he is very familiar with astromech droids. Whether or not he technically ever owned a droid isn't really an issue.

But those who are making "Surprise preserving" edits won't need to worry about changing these because you'll still be on a 1-6 perspective.

Another example being. "The Jedi Master who instructed me" If you hear that as a stand alone line, its natural to assume a training relationship that is different than the dynamic we see in the prequels.

However, if the prequel training dynamic is your original base perspective (What you KNOW) when you get to Hoth, then that line will sound like a perfectly reasonable effecient way to tell Luke what he needs to hear right at the moment.