The Star Wars Mono-logy (a 3-in-1 OT Edit: hard drive failure ended the project) — Page 2

Darth Lucas said:

Here it is, a little later than I'd hoped, but here nonetheless.  The transition between Star Wars and Empire.

https://vimeo.com/83473441

password: ot

 Those FX shots are genius, simple yet perfect. Nice job!!!!

But I think it still feels a bit like two films spliced. I believe you need a couple of scenes on the Hoth base before cutting away to Vader to truly sell the concept that one narrative is flowing into the other. After the last shot of the Falcon in flight over Hoth do a wipe into Han walking through the Hoth hanger with Chewie doing repairs. He then walks into the command room but just skip right over his talk with Riken (I checked the scene, it would be sooo easy to remove). So he strolls in, gives Leia a thoughful look and then tells her he's leaving. Then they have the corridor argument (Without the Ordmantel line).

This would be very similar to the Yavin hanger scene from ANH where he's telling Luke he's leaving. If this is still supposed to be flighty Han from ANH (And not 1 year later best buddy Han) then it would be natural for him to leave the rebels as soon as Chewie has fixed the damage from the Tie-Fighter attack. It's only his growing love for Leia and the sudden assault by the Empire that stops him from leaving as planned.

Remember there will be no sudden heroic rescue of Luke during the trench run that shows us that Han has changed. In this edit, and at that point in the narrative he still should be a bit selfish and still be argueing like cats and dogs with Leia.

That's how I see it anyway.

Then cut away to Vader as planned (But with smoothed edges on the wipe).

Infact... I think it may just be possible to cut from the flying Falcon into the corridor scene of 3PO telling R2 it's freezing* (Nice bit of scene setting exposition) they then walk up to Han and tell him Leia wants to see him. Remove the middle of the scene mentioning Luke and splice that with the end of the hanger scene I mentioned and continue as above.

*Plus 3PO mentions that he can't dry out Leia's clothes... because they are still wet from the garbage-masher! Plus this would help explain away the costume changes as 3PO is telling us in passing that the characters have had (And needed) time to change.

One more idea!

Since you seem pretty hot on FX, the "Not this ship sister" scene could easily read as a post landing scene (Han taking off his gloves and the general debriefing-esque nature of the dialogue helps). If you added sound of the Falcons engines powering down a bit of Hoth base radio chatter and general hubbub in the background it would really sell it. But the difficult bit is you'd need to do this FX shot...

(^ a VERY quick mockup I did)

How about this progression:

Luke arrives at the base on Hoth, and immediately the commander picks up something moving toward the base "Princess, we've got a visitor. We picked up something outside the base moving East." He mutters some orders which we hear at the end of that scene. Then cut to someone searching for this thing, which they assume to be a life form. Luke reveals his face. The audience sees that he's now officially a member of the Rebellion. Luke radios back to base, saying: "I've finished my circle. I don't pick up any life readings." Han (who was in the room with the commander) responds "There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser".

Luke is then knocked out in the Wampa attack. Cut to a different scene, such as his friends' concern for his safety. Cut back to him waking up at dusk:

He collapses in the same shot, and there sees Obi-wan:

He loses consciousness again, but Han has not come looking for him. Another scene occurs where the base is preparing for invasion.

Luke wakes up in the Wampa cave (the Wampa apparently came back for him, after dragging the Tauntan to it's cave first). It is here that he hears Obi-wan's voice in his head, and understands that his vision was not a dream. "Use the Force, Luke" is apportioned from ANH, and he retrieves his lightsaber. He cuts off the Wampa's arm and runs outside (it is clearly bright daylight outside the cave from the lighting here) This shows how quickly Luke has grown in power, and implies that Luke is quite recovered.

Meanwhile, the rebels are deploying their forces in preparation for an Imperial attack. They send out snowspeeders as an advance force:

They find Luke while on patrol (they simply refer to him as Skywalker and not Commander, as he is still untested in battle). From here Luke could be brought back to base quickly to change into his uniform, or it could be implied that he was recovered enough to don an extra uniform and fall in with the troops in the field. In that case the next shot of him would be as the snowspeeders prepare for the attack on the walkers. He quickly gets shot down due to his inexperience, and the story proceeds from there.

You know until I read that post ^ I hadn't thought about the problems of the main crew being constantly refered to as Commander and General etc by the rest of the Rebels. Not such a problem with Lando since we see how his field-promotion comes about but without the Yavin Battle, medal ceremony or anything, taking Luke, Leia and Han as credible leaders is an issue.

btw not sure if this is a possibility, I'm just shooting from the hip here. Could the (Unused) battle of Yavin footage be used as an opener? Remove all shots of Luke and it could be a last ditch assault on the Death Star to buy Leia time to escape on the Tantive IV. Remember before Luke hits the sweetspot with the help of the Force there is a heck of a lot of missing and dying from the various Rebel pilots. It might just be possible to use the shot from ROTS where Vader and Palpatine are looking at a half finished DS to be a shot of them watching the battle from the bridge of the Stardestroyer that soon pusues Leia. This would nicely foreshadow the Emperor watching the Endor assault later on. Plus when cut with the Yavin footage it'd help sell the fact that the battle is taking place above the same half-finished DSII we are gonna see at the end.

If you completely swapped out the audio in this shot ^ you could have the Emperor saying anything (We don't see his lips I believe?) using borrowed dialogue from ROTS.

"We must move quickly. The Jedi are relentless. If they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end. First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the Dark Side to save Padmé"

^ There's probably lots of other dialogue options but that was the first that came to mind.

Also another thought. This ^ could be used to introduce the idea that Tarkin is the Captain of the Stardestroyer while Jerjerrod is the Moff. That's if there is footage of Peter Cushing you still wanted to use? Tarkin turns away at the end. Could it be because Vader just told him to "lay in a pursuit course"?

TheBoost said:

Watching this edit with great interest. 

 *In Simon Pegg's Scotty impression*

"Watching this edit...are you from the future?"

I've realized that there's potentially a major problem with omitting the end of ANH and a lot of the Hoth material: these are the only times when Han demonstrates his friendship with Luke, first by returning to help in the battle of Yavin, then in searching for Luke on Hoth. This is a problem as Luke's major motivation for leaving Dagobah is that his friends are in danger.

NeverarGreat said:

I've realized that there's potentially a major problem with omitting the end of ANH and a lot of the Hoth material: these are the only times when Han demonstrates his friendship with Luke, first by returning to help in the battle of Yavin, then in searching for Luke on Hoth. This is a problem as Luke's major motivation for leaving Dagobah is that his friends are in danger.

This is true. Unless his reason for leaving is the death of Yoda? Instead of ESB Yoda trying to disuade Luke, ROTJ Yoda tells Luke to go confront Vader. It doesn't matter from Han's perspective since he actually has very little to do with Luke after they all leave Hoth in the rest of ESB and ROTJ anyway.

That could work, but a big part of the fun of Star Wars was knowing that our three friends were on an adventure, not our three bickering acquaintances. It'll be tough to balance plot and character in a single movie.

Nope