The problem I'm having with eliminating Tarkin completely is that my main idea to link the first 2 movies together is that the tracking of the Millennium Falcon is what leads them to Hoth and, subsequently, the battle of Hoth. I can't find a way to make this idea understood without Tarkin's line "You're sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship? I'm taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work." There isn't any other similar line in that film or Empire that would explain how they knew where the base was and it just doesn't seem plausible to me that they just followed them there. Don't worry I am planning on cutting as much of Tarkin's superiority to Vader as I can. I like the idea of adding him into Empire as a hologram or some other message. I will look into that and see if there's a place in the film I can do it and if it's even something a novice in after effects like myself can pull off.

Onto the progress of the edit. I have completed all the shots I need to show the millennium falcon landing on Hoth. All I've done is take the shots of them landing on Yavin and used custom mattes to cover up the forest with a snow landscape. I think this will work fairly successfully. I've roughed out the transitions between SW and Empire and it seems like it will work fairly well. The only thing that's a little jarring is how different Luke looks between the films, but of course there's no way to really explain this without the scene with the wampa, which will, of course, be gone in this edit.

I've also been thinking of something else I'd like opinions on. Would there be any interest in an extended edition of this in addition to the normal edit? What I mean is a version (that would be released after the original edit) that JUST links the films together without cutting them down for run-time. There would be no edits apart from what is necessary to merge the narratives. What do you guys think? Any interest?