MESA BACK! Just popping in to make a surprise announcement. I have here the links to Return of the Jedi: The Collaborative Edit!
Alright, so before all fans of this thread get so excited and expect an amazing product, let me offer several disclaimers. First, I don't have particularly great editing skills, software, or time. I don't have any abilities with special effects. This is very rough. Second, this does not follow the script all that perfectly. I had to make do with what was available to me. Third, not all the source material is even of great quality, resulting in scenes with very nice special effects to rather poor material. I did try to use at least somewhat acceptable, but eh, what can you do? Fourth, it's not even a truly completed project. I still have ideas for expanding it (i.e. I think I can come up with an expanded Boba Fett subplot with the available fanfilms out there!). I will likely expand my ideas as time allows (which it really doesn't these days), and even now I realize I forgot a couple of things, like the Eclipse leaving after dropping off the Emperor at the Death Star.
Let me list the various sources of additional footage, as best as I can recollect:
The basic movie is not the original ROTJ, but rather daneditor's most recent experimental edit, and therefore you will see many changes that were his choices, most of which I approve of.
Official Star Wars sources include a few of the ROTJ deleted scenes from the blu rays, an Episode III deleted scene from the DVD, footage from The Clone Wars, and reused footage from The Empire Strikes Back (some from the SE, assuming that it would be removed from my ideal ESB edit), Star Tours, and Star Tours: The Adventure Continues.
Additional work from folks on this forum include Ronster's Last of the Jedi edit, Johannus's Collaborative Edit trailer, SSWR's ideas, the slightly improved Falcon targeting computer from Adywan's Star Wars: Revisited, and Aalenfae's funeral pyre scene.
Game footage comes from Rebellion, X-wing vs. Tie Fighter, X-wing Alliance, Homeworld 2 with the Warlords mod, and Empire at War/Forces of Corruption, The Force Unleashed II
Fan films include, but are not limited to Mackazie One, The Secret in the Sand, the Tydirium trailers, Star Wars: THX trailer, I.M.P.S.: The Relentless, Broken Allegiance, and various minor projects by individuals toying around with computer animation. Some material was included by daneditor, and I'm not sure of the source, and I'm probably forgetting some that I should name, but am too lazy to go figure out.
A couple additional footage bits of note: I used a commercial for Curry's as well; and one video was actually supposed to be a battle between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (I believe). The footage was very high quality, so I wanted to put it in there, but I tried to eliminate the most obviously out of place vessels. The space battle includes new ships popping up without being seen before, and then disappearing, never to be seen again. *cue sunglasses*
Don't expect any miracles! But you might have a little fun watching some of the things we had planned make their way (often with alteration to accommodate available footage) into an edit. And some stuff was never even talked about, such as the opening scene. But it was fun to put it together, and I hope you get some enjoyment out of watching it.
Password for all four videos is: ROTJ