Return of the Jedi: Radical Re-Edit (Released) — Page 5

I think I am a noob.  I downloaded the RAR files ....is there a tuturiol on how to get the files into a movie format?   Sorry to ask.

Use Winrar which is free.  Then right-click on part 1 of the several files and designate where you wish to extract it.  Winrar will automatically extract all the parts and put them together for you into the whole, and your job is done :)

EyeShotFirst said:

Really, really enjoyed this edit. You're editing of the Jabba parts is what sold me. The subtitles actually made Jabba more, gangster. The lines were scumbaggy enough that Ray Liotta or Harvey Keitel could've said 'em. You cut and arranged the whole sequence to be much faster, and more Star Warsy. I didn't miss Boba Fett either.

That long drawn out scene on the bridge with Luke and Leia trimmed brilliantly.

 

Liked the inclusion of bits of music that were cut from Empire and Jedi. Reminded me of Shadows of the Empire hearing the intro bit.

 

All in all, this was a real treat. Some fine visual adjustments here and there, but a solid edit all around.

Thanks for the review, and glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I've watched up until the end of the Barge fight and I thought contribute a few observations while they are fresh in my memory.

I have to agree with Ryan, the squished shots must go they really do detract from the ideas on display here.

I think you could have more ROTJ dialogue in that opening from the Emperor's arrival in the theatrical version.

PALPATINE : Rise my friend. I sense you wish to continue your search for young Skywalker?

VADER : Yes my master.

PALPATINE : Go to the Death Star and await him.

VADER: He will come to me?

PALPATINE : His compassion for you will be his undoing. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.

VADER: Yes my master.

These lines are practically said twice in the same picture it makes more sense to condense them into one conversation and have it at the beginning as it sets out what the Emperor has in mind for Luke and leads to Luke on Dagobah.

I wish there was a way to replace Yoda repeating his first lesson to Luke (which turn out to be inaccurate) with ...

YODA : Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not, miss them not.

It was such a great line that it seems better served in ROTJ.

I don't know if it possible to swap some of the furniture around the three Jabba thone room entrances.

Boushh is meant to be a bounty hunter presenting a quarry to the Hutt so why then the aggressive resistance to 'his' entrance?

Luke is meant to be an unwelcome visitor and yet he is only briefly stopped by two guards.

It makes Jabba look weak if people are breaking into his fortress willy nilly.

I don't know if it's possible to take more material from the current entrance of the droids and mix it with Luke's entrance to create a calm entrance of Boushh and Chewie with Oola still alive.

Threepio and Artoo could then turn up with Leia chained to Jabba in a party mood (Han, Leia and Chewie are now his guests he has something to celebrate). Leia can see Oola die which makes her position all the more uncomfortable.

Luke could then turn up and be met with futile resistance (which makes Luke seem more powerful and aggressive).

I appreciate this is a lot of hard work moving Threepio, Leia and Oola around but it would build on the sterling work building the mood of the opening.

The saber building and Vader communicating with Luke telepathically aren't really adding anything, indeed showing Vader arriving at the Death Star is made surplus to requirements now that we have met him at Coruscant. All we learn is that the Emperor is arriving soon and we learn that at the Rebel Briefing.

It's a real achievement so far and I'm really enjoying what you have done.

The tone is much more serious and in keeping with the end of ESB.

Luke is fully trained but has lost his mentor and all of his friends are trapped.

He himself is being plotted against.

Fett is not missed. I forgot he had been cut to be honest.

The sandstorm is obviously hampered by the missing sound elements but it does work better.

Vader communicating with Luke makes more narrative sense here but the flashbacks are a big mistake.

Rather than a duplicate meditation chamber on the Death Star we could have Vader on the bridge of the Executor reaching out (end of ESB style) I would also use Luke from that film for reaction shots because he seems to be smirking in the ROTJ footage. After the glove going on the stinger to the sequence could be our first view of the Death Star out of the window.

As for briefing my only suggestion here would be to swap Threepio's lines in this act.

So when Luke joins the crowd he says "here we go again" and when the leave "Exciting is hardly the word I would use".

Generally Threepio could do with a bit more trimming (less "We're Doomed" etc).

Trimming Lando's lines helps these scene a lot.

In an ideal world Ackbar lines would be coming out of a translator device (he sounds too human for that head).

I would trim most of Vader and Palpatine's repeating their declaration to turn Luke etc.

Putting the surprise in Vader's questioning in the beginning removes the continuity problem of him being totally fine with the concept when the Emperor arrived at the station.

So glad you cut Harrison pulling silly faces to the barest of minimums when they are captured by the Ewoks.

I still don't think a flying chair would phase the Ewoks that much or panic even Threepio that much either. Another in an ideal world situation would be to turn this expression of their God's anger into something weirder than a speeder bike or a metal moon.

I love the re-arrangement of the Endor battle.

I miss the amazing came out of nowhere traps but at least it makes sense that they are gone.

I would like you to push it a bit further so Luke under the stairs corresponds with Leia being shot.

Her psychic pain breaks Luke's concentration so Vader can then zero in on her as a means of breaking Luke.

Leia in peril is something that should have been built on and not the source of a cheapish gag.

The music at the end is a good idea. It doesn't quite match the mood for me it's too sombre for a celebration.

I would have put a bit of Sir Alec's voice in there.

Ben fibbed terribly and he needs to give some sort of account for himself even if it's off-screen and echoey, to be honest I hardly noticed that scene going either.

Generally speaking this version intensifies the impression that the Rebels could lose by removing much of the levity added by slapstick.

On the whole this is an astonishing effort and full of ideas that hopefully can be built upon by others with more special effects abilities and access to actors and props.

Bingowings, thanks for the review. I'm on holiday for the week in tropical Bournemouth, so can't do a detailed breakdown of your points right now, but when I get back home I'll go through them. Lots of great suggestions, for which I'm grateful.

And regarding your last paragraph, that's exactly my intention for this edit: I don't have any special effects skills (as you can now attest) but hopefully these ideas can someday become part of a definitive ROTJ edit. There's definitely a decent, though not great, movie to be found in here somewhere.

Bingowings said:

I think you could have more ROTJ dialogue in that opening from the Emperor's arrival in the theatrical version.

PALPATINE : Rise my friend. I sense you wish to continue your search for young Skywalker?

VADER : Yes my master.

PALPATINE : Go to the Death Star and await him.

VADER: He will come to me?

PALPATINE : His compassion for you will be his undoing. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.

VADER: Yes my master.

These lines are practically said twice in the same picture it makes more sense to condense them into one conversation and have it at the beginning as it sets out what the Emperor has in mind for Luke and leads to Luke on Dagobah.

I really like this idea. Next time I do some work on this edit I'll try to do something along these lines. The only problem I can see is that when Palpatine says "Death Star" it's from the TESB SE, and McDiarmid's voice had deepened noticeably by then. Last year I played around with trying to change the pitch to match how he sounded in 1983 but to no avail.

"After the glove going on the stinger to the sequence could be our first view of the Death Star out of the window."

Nice idea. I doubt I could pull it off (see: nonexistent fx abilities), but I'll give it a shot.

"As for briefing my only suggestion here would be to swap Threepio's lines in this act.

So when Luke joins the crowd he says "here we go again" and when the leave "Exciting is hardly the word I would use"."

Agreed. I would have cut the second line years ago but the audio editing was problematic. Guess I could give it another shot, but my philosophy has always been to leave things alone unless the change can be made smoothly.

"I have to agree with Ryan, the squished shots must go they really do detract from the ideas on display here."

I thought I'd got rid of all the squished shots by now. Obviously I missed some.

"I wish there was a way to replace Yoda repeating his first lesson to Luke (which turn out to be inaccurate) with ...

YODA : Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not, miss them not.

It was such a great line that it seems better served in ROTJ."

(Another) good idea, but I wonder if Frank Oz's voice had also deepened and changed in the intervening years. I'll add this to my list of things to try in the next workprint.

Thanks again for all your thoughts. Appreciated muchly.

This edit keeps getting better and better. The sense of urgency that is created for the Rebellion is right on track. The only thing that slows this down is on Endor - when Luke, Han, etc. allow themselves to be captured by Ewoks for no determined reason. This has nothing to do with your editing Daneditor, as this was the original film idea obviously. This never made sense to me - to slow down the Rebellion's biggest offensive by being captured. Han and Luke didn't know that Leia was with the Ewoks, so why waste time to be tied up and hauled away?

The only way around this (that I could think of) is to insert quick dialogue from from another SW movie. Dialogue that says the Ewoks have Leia, giving reason for the group to be captured. Example (paraphrased):

Threepio: I do believe they think I am some sort of god. I could be mistaken...they are using a very primitive dialect.

Han: ...why don't you use your divine influence, and get us out of here?

Insert dialogue from A New Hope (Death Star scene) here:

Artoo beeps rapidly

Threepio:...he says "I found her," and keeps repeating she's here.

Luke: The princess, she's here?

Back to ROTJ dialogue now:

Luke: Han, it will be all right. Chewie, give them your crossbow.

SCENE continues normally, with the group being captured.



I hope I typed all this correctly, so that it makes sense. Not sure if those are the best lines to insert, only an idea to justify being captured. You may think the original idea is fine though. Otherwise, this edit is really headed on the right path. Best fanedit of ROTJ so far, in my opinion.

Maybe if you mixed up a bit so it was so obviously a cut and paste.

Threepio is a machine but he isn't a tape machine.

You could have Threepio say the Ewoks tell him they have Leia (no mention of her safety).

But then if they already know she's there you'd have to remove Han, Luke and 3P0's shocked reactions to seeing her with the Ewoks later on.

Their reactions currently come off as surprised (and happy) to see her.

But their being surprised would seem weird if they already knew she'd be there.

They could be shocked to see her all dressed up instead of trussed up.

How many Ewoks worked that fast to make that pretty dress and do her hair I must ask (don't tell me they keep a dress ready for passing giantesses after the space family Towani crashed into their lives)?

Darth Blacken said:

This edit keeps getting better and better. The sense of urgency that is created for the Rebellion is right on track. The only thing that slows this down is on Endor - when Luke, Han, etc. allow themselves to be captured by Ewoks for no determined reason. This has nothing to do with your editing Daneditor, as this was the original film idea obviously. This never made sense to me - to slow down the Rebellion's biggest offensive by being captured. Han and Luke didn't know that Leia was with the Ewoks, so why waste time to be tied up and hauled away?

The only way around this (that I could think of) is to insert quick dialogue from from another SW movie. Dialogue that says the Ewoks have Leia, giving reason for the group to be captured. Example (paraphrased):

Threepio: I do believe they think I am some sort of god. I could be mistaken...they are using a very primitive dialect.

Han: ...why don't you use your divine influence, and get us out of here?

Insert dialogue from A New Hope (Death Star scene) here:

Artoo beeps rapidly

Threepio:...he says "I found her," and keeps repeating she's here.

Luke: The princess, she's here?

Back to ROTJ dialogue now:

Luke: Han, it will be all right. Chewie, give them your crossbow.

SCENE continues normally, with the group being captured.

Interesting idea, but I wouldn't want to include dialogue from ANH. Perhaps there's a line or two in the ROTJ radio play that could be added instead.

As for your general point about how the edit slows down when they reach Endor, it really does. And it's probably my least favourite section of the edit. But the edit is about 1h50m right now, and I wouldn't want to cut it down much more. Actually I'd rather add another 10 minutes, but unless "Tydirium" finally gets released and has amazing content I don't see how I can.

MTHaslett said:

Very impressed! Love the effect of the new scenes on Tatooine and, particularly, the juxtaposition of Luke's mechanical hand wound with Vader. The connection between Luke and Vader is so much stronger in this edit and the movie is so much the better for it.

I was hoping to see two ideas that didn't make it-- the assembly of the lightsaber on Degobah and the convo with Ben Kenobi outside the Imperial shuttle. I may have missed reading posts that explain why these had to be cut, but they seemed like excellent ideas and I missed them.

So, that seems unfair as I type it, but it may be another way of saying that the Degobah and "Leia, you're my sister" scenes seem like my least favorite still in this much improved edit. I think you had good fixes in the above ideas, so if there's a chance of making them work, I urge that.

The restaging of the battle on Endor with the lost footage and the additional battle footage is an awesome thing. My instinct creatively is that it's taken a little far and that less would be more. The Death Star commander gets more screen time here than feels warranted. So, I love the idea, but could love it more.

I loved some of the additions to the final battle. It's a very tough finale to pull off well. I have found that my favorite version is in the Spence Edit where Palpatine is on the Executor and the Vader/Luke saber fight is cut into one long battle. At this point, marrying much of what you've accomplished here with Vader and Luke to the Spence Edit would create my preferred version.

I feel these notes are sub-par. I will watch again for more specific ideas and read the thread more carefully. I congratulate you on this. My qualms feel small compared to all you successfully pull off!

Thanks for the review. Appreciated.

Re: assembling the lightsaber on Dagobah and Ben's chat by the shuttle. Those were ideas bounced around in this thread and elsewhere, but I haven't edited those scenes. Constructing the lightsaber on Dagobah I like as a concept although I think it works fine on Tatooine, but the Ben scene IMO is deadweight and best cut from the movie.

I agree that the Jerjerrod scene runs a little long, but I'm not sure what you could cut, other than just ditching the whole scene: the ground battle is chaos... he orders in the TIE bombers... boom! I'm not married to the scene though, so might just ditch it. At the very least the music needs reworking.

Editing the Luke/Vader fight into one long scene is an idea that Ator also advocated. Ator found a way to also cut the Luke/Leia sibling subplot seemlessly, which is something I'd like to do. The only concern for me is that the movie would be even shorter than it is now. Taking out the Luke/Leia stuff would take the edit under 1 hour 50 minutes, and it starts to feel too short for a SW movie.

"I have to say I was amazed by the effectiveness of the rough edit in this thread that panned down to Degobah from the crawl and showed Luke in training with Yoda. THAT is what I wanted ROTJ to start like. Then Vader hunting Luke. Yes! That's what this movie was supposed to be about. It feels to me like you have the ingredients of a miracle there, but I don't know from vfx and can only wish it were in your power."

I spent a couple of weeks playing around with Luke using the Force to build his lightsaber. It was supposed to harken back to Yoda lifting the X-wing from the swamp, and be a sort of emotional sequel to that scene, with Luke now showing himself the master. I love the idea (Ben Danger's idea, if I recall correctly). Ben kindly let me use it in the edit, but the special effects shots looked just plain awful no matter what I did. I just couldn't get the lightsaber parts to look like they were within the scene. I'm sure someone with After Effects skills could get it right (Adywan no doubt could in his sleep). But it was just a horrible execution of a fantastic idea, so unfortunately it had to go.

There was also the created "problem", if that scene is included, of there being no need for the lightsaber deleted scene in the cave, a scene I like, and one that nicely transitions from Vader on the DS to Tatooine - far more elegantly so than the theatrical version. And obviously it plays into the primary theme of this edit: the Luke and Vader conflict. Although I suppose you could argue he was just testing it with his screwdriver or whatever, to make sure the screws were in right, before heading to Jabba's, where he knew he'd have to use it.

But I wouldn't want to cut that deleted scene, and arguably it was superfluous so long as the other scene was in. IMO that deleted scene should never have been cut in the first place. It's mind blowing that ROTJ has so much extraneous BS throughout and they cut a genuine moment between protagonist and antagonist.

"Regarding the Ben scene, I have always disliked it as well. But in the placement where it would fall on Endor, it actually brings a narrative boost-- just when Luke needs to see Ben. I would venture to suggest a version where Ben says something new, recutting what is there to work with. I think it might be that he hints at Leia's relationship to him and then Luke puts it together, or Ben avoids the subject altogether."

I can see your point, for sure. My concern is about how those Endor scenes between landing on the moon and Luke surrendering to Vader are already the slowest and dullest part of the edit, and I'm not sure I'd want to put Ben's exposition and over-explaining in the middle of that slowness. But making that scene (somehow... no idea how other than the use of more ominous music) one that confirms to Luke how alone he really is in this battle would be a good step forward. But I definitely wouldn't want to include the Leia as sister exposition portion of the conversation. I like that Luke comes to that realisation himself, as evidence of his growing Force intuition.

"Sorry to be pitching you ideas you have already discarded. I realize I'm doing that and can only hope you see I'm not trying to be argumentative."

I don't think you're being argumentative at all. It's interesting to read your perspective.

Re: the Jerjerrod scene:

Making Jerjerrod more antagonistic would definitely benefit the scene, although I've just watched the deleted scene in question and he looks anxious in pretty much every shot. It was unfortunate that they went with such a weak and uninteresting character. I get that they didn't want to repeat the Tarkin character again, but there had to be something better than this.

Still, I think you've isolated the main problems with this scene, so I'll play around with reducing his reaction shots and make him seem as villainous as I can.

Cutting down the close ups and more fancy battle shots also makes sense, and I'll see what I can do - but again it's a case of being restricted by the available footage. That stuff comes from "Makazie One", which is a relatively well shot fan film... ironically in this case it might have been better if it was shot less well.

If there was some way to link this scene to the ones preceding and following it would help. But I can't think of any way to do that other than creating elaborate special effects shots. Like, for instance, the TIE ships could then be shown exiting the area, and we see them leave from Han and Leia's POV by the bunker.

I suppose my point is that the Jerjerrod scene feels a bit disconnected from everything else.

Re: 3PO and the Ewoks:

I don't really have a problem with how it plays now, but it might work better abridged. It's worth trying out.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Threepio can be heroic.

His first thought before being blown to bits is to warn the others about the troopers in ESB.

I always loved that moment.

You get a little glimpse of the metal man behind the cowardly programmed veneer.

As their 'god' it makes sense that he would lead the Ewok charge but it might be possible to use other Tony dialogue (maybe from the Radio adaptations) to make the scene less annoying.

Indeed he can give the order without making a target for himself.