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Return of the Jedi Re-imagined Idea

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A friend and I were watching Attack of the Clones of all movies and he came up with a pretty interesting idea for what I think would make a much better Return of the Jedi. This idea is by no means complete but I’d like to see some feedback and ideas for how it could be done.

Main Idea: Tatooine is completely skipped in Episode 6. Instead of seeing yet another desert planet (Tatooine and also Jakku) Jabba now resides on the opposite side of Endor that the Ewoks live on. Instead of a direct copy of the rest of Endor his environment could be altered a bit (this could break the cliche of 1 topographical region per planet). The rebels while having enough help on the ground from the Ewoks are still vastly outnumbered in space. Jabba is their only option close enough to the system with enough forces to help them. They make their plea to Jabba and warn him that not only will the rebellion be destroyed but also his home planet of Endor if the Death Star is not taken out. Jabba reluctantly agrees to help in the fight against the Death Star. Instead of the rebellion somehow prevailing it would make sense that with Jabba’s help they might stand a chance. Jabba could die in the space battle, or as a result of ships in space attacking his palace. With Jabba gone Solo could be easily rescued. Jabba could also survive the battle and as a new ally of the rebellion free Han Solo back to them.

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Would the Dagobah scene where Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke’s father be kept in this altered storyline?

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CourtlyHades296 said:

Would the Dagobah scene where Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke’s father be kept in this altered storyline?

To keep prequel continuity yes. Theoretically this would leave in Luke going to Dagobah and only alter the space battle, jabba subtitles, disguised leah subtitles, jabba palace outside shots and possibly outside shots of the attempted execution, and the space battle. Some minor changes throughout would be needed and scenes rearranged and spliced but that’s the main idea.

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Codeman said:

CourtlyHades296 said:

Would the Dagobah scene where Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke’s father be kept in this altered storyline?

To keep prequel continuity yes. Theoretically this would leave in Luke going to Dagobah and only alter the space battle, jabba subtitles, disguised leah subtitles, jabba palace outside shots and possibly outside shots of the attempted execution, and the space battle. Some minor changes throughout would be needed and scenes rearranged and spliced but that’s the main idea.

This actually might be doable, it would be especially convincing if Jabba’s palace was color-corrected to look more like dark, wet dirt that sand or rocks

Prequel Fan-Edit thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Yet-another-series-of-prequel-edits/id/17329

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 (Edited)

Smithers said:

Codeman said:

CourtlyHades296 said:

Would the Dagobah scene where Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke’s father be kept in this altered storyline?

To keep prequel continuity yes. Theoretically this would leave in Luke going to Dagobah and only alter the space battle, jabba subtitles, disguised leah subtitles, jabba palace outside shots and possibly outside shots of the attempted execution, and the space battle. Some minor changes throughout would be needed and scenes rearranged and spliced but that’s the main idea.

This actually might be doable, it would be especially convincing if Jabba’s palace was color-corrected to look more like dark, wet dirt that sand or rocks

I might attempt it. I think the hardest parts would be making the alliance agreement believable, boba-fett’s death, and Han Solo being saved. Everything else seems pretty straightfoward. Not easy by any means but clear-cut.

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The Rebel’s being outnumbered in space is sort of irrelevant as their plan is a quick strike - they don’t really need to out number or destroy the imperial fleet - just deliver one payload at the right time.

The battle hinges on the land battle - so surely it would make more sense if the sail barge showed up to save the day at the shield generator?

I played around with this idea ages ago - a sort of PT solution to the ROTJ problem that might be to your liking.

You’d need to joint edit this with AOTC.

In AOTC - have Jabba one of the separatist warlord. He would be bringing his Droid Legions to the cause.

In ROTJ - Jabba he has since become an underworld kingpin. you could introduce some leftover droids to his palace. He still has control of the droid fleet and legions, which lie dormant somewhere. The Han rescue is now a two-fold mission. Rescue Han, but also gain control of the droid army.

This was originally part of a much larger idea if you are interested - where ROTJ is set much later and the Rebels are now much more powerful.

The crawl would establish that through a daring attack, the now huge rebel movement has gained control of the surprisingly lightly defended imperial capital. They discover the plans for the DEATH STAR II, however because of the relentlessly attacking Imperial fleet, they can do nothing to stop it’s construction.

Leia and Lando go to rescue Han from Jabba, but also to seize the ‘key’ to the droid fleet (I’d assume it would be an extra character that they could abduct during the sail barge sequence who would have appeared in AOTC.)

Endor would now be a droid control station, which is lightly guarded by imperials. Perhaps R2D2 would ultimately control the entire droid armada?

The Emperor would reveal that he allowed the Rebels to capture Coruscant, knowing that ALL their resources and staff would be put in one place, and by destroying the city planet, he could ultimately stop their cause. A hornet’s nest sort of trap.

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ben_danger said:

The Rebel’s being outnumbered in space is sort of irrelevant as their plan is a quick strike - they don’t really need to out number or destroy the imperial fleet - just deliver one payload at the right time.

The battle hinges on the land battle - so surely it would make more sense if the sail barge showed up to save the day at the shield generator?

I played around with this idea ages ago - a sort of PT solution to the ROTJ problem that might be to your liking.

You’d need to joint edit this with AOTC.

In AOTC - have Jabba one of the separatist warlord. He would be bringing his Droid Legions to the cause.

In ROTJ - Jabba he has since become an underworld kingpin. you could introduce some leftover droids to his palace. He still has control of the droid fleet and legions, which lie dormant somewhere. The Han rescue is now a two-fold mission. Rescue Han, but also gain control of the droid army.

This was originally part of a much larger idea if you are interested - where ROTJ is set much later and the Rebels are now much more powerful.

The crawl would establish that through a daring attack, the now huge rebel movement has gained control of the surprisingly lightly defended imperial capital. They discover the plans for the DEATH STAR II, however because of the relentlessly attacking Imperial fleet, they can do nothing to stop it’s construction.

Leia and Lando go to rescue Han from Jabba, but also to seize the ‘key’ to the droid fleet (I’d assume it would be an extra character that they could abduct during the sail barge sequence who would have appeared in AOTC.)

Endor would now be a droid control station, which is lightly guarded by imperials. Perhaps R2D2 would ultimately control the entire droid armada?

The Emperor would reveal that he allowed the Rebels to capture Coruscant, knowing that ALL their resources and staff would be put in one place, and by destroying the city planet, he could ultimately stop their cause. A hornet’s nest sort of trap.

Sounds much more detailed and thought out than my idea. Do you have any work done on this or is it just an idea? I was thinking only of altering Episode 6 and didn’t consider a large prequel tie-in.

I’m currently in the process moving my Star Wars project to my own website. Would you be interested in helping with ideas and artwork for it? I’ll try and give you some details here if you want but it’s much better detailed in my post on this site, and eventually detailed better and organized on my website.

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No work done at all sadly - I think I just found it created numerous plotholes. To pull it off successfully would require alot of new content too, which would be a push.

My skillbase is rather minimal - these were just pieced together years ago when I had more time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9qPxhaTEHU

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ben_danger said:

No work done at all sadly - I think I just found it created numerous plotholes. To pull it off successfully would require alot of new content too, which would be a push.

My skillbase is rather minimal - these were just pieced together years ago when I had more time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9qPxhaTEHU

Some of your videos are pretty well done. Better skillbase than mine! Ha. Well the currently barebones website I am moving all of the project content to is overhauled.weebly.com I’d love for any help at all with it. I’ll be constantly updating the website this week moving everything there. Really right now besides help with editing I could use some help with the artwork. I would like to have a Blu-ray box set with cover-art and disc art already knocked out.

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I’ll be honest - I don’t really have the time to commit to anything, other than just staying updated or helping with ideas. Years spent kicking around this forum has shown me that radically editting just one film can take years, and I’ve seen dozens of well intentioned projects end because they were too ambitious in the initial stages.

If you’re new to editting start small, experiment with the software and get a feel for how much work can go into the smallest edit. One of my favourite editors was a guy called SSWR who used to kick around here. Unfortunately he had to move on and many of his videos were lost - but here are a bunch if they help.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3yF2t_dm8BXQU1JYmljbHRTQWM&usp=sharing

It’s nothing ‘finished’, but it is radical enough to change a character, interaction or pace of a scene. These simple edits in themselves would have taken alot of time to put together and to experiment with.

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 (Edited)

ben_danger said:

I’ll be honest - I don’t really have the time to commit to anything, other than just staying updated or helping with ideas. Years spent kicking around this forum has shown me that radically editting just one film can take years, and I’ve seen dozens of well intentioned projects end because they were too ambitious in the initial stages.

If you’re new to editting start small, experiment with the software and get a feel for how much work can go into the smallest edit. One of my favourite editors was a guy called SSWR who used to kick around here. Unfortunately he had to move on and many of his videos were lost - but here are a bunch if they help.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3yF2t_dm8BXQU1JYmljbHRTQWM&usp=sharing

It’s nothing ‘finished’, but it is radical enough to change a character, interaction or pace of a scene. These simple edits in themselves would have taken alot of time to put together and to experiment with.

Really my project isn’t too radical. Any help is appreciated.