AOTC: JEDI NO MORE (finished)

So I decided to start all over again with my prequel edits and because I haven’t really figured out what I want to do with TPM, I’ll start with AOTC. But first a super short synopsis of the two big changes, I’ll make to the trilogy as a whole.

1.: The Galactic civil war will be fought over the abolishment of slavery. That will allow for a much closer connection between all three of the prequels by making this conflict a much more personal matter to Anakin and a sort of consequence of the Jedi not actively fighting slavery in TPM. Apart from that it would also explain Anakin’s high opinion of Palpatine.

2.: I’ll change the clone army’s origin completely. The clone army will not have been made for the republic, but for the Trade Federation instead. The idea is to introduce the clones under less shady circumstances, because those mysteries never get resolved anyway and it makes the Jedi and the Republic look extremely foolish, because nobody is investigating anything. Instead I am trying to invent a really solid explanation for why this army exist and twist the creation of the GAR into a victory of the Republic over the Separatist. But more on this later.

Now lets get to the main course, here is a broad layout of the changes I have in mind for AOTC:

-New structure: Opening on Geonosis, Obi-Wan is sent to investigate the vanishing of Sifo Dyas
-In the beginning Anakin and Padme are something between just friends and more
-Shmi has been freed thanks to the Senate enforcing the abolishment of slavery
-it is this law that lead to the formation of the separatist

Mostly complete changelist:

-New crawl establishing the enforcement of the anti slavery law, the formation of the separatist and Obi-Wan’s mission to investigate Sifo Dyas’ whereabouts

-Pan down to Obi-Wan entering the orbit around Geonosis

-Obi eavesdropping on the separatist (only the first scene) with new dialogue mentioning the Kaminoans and a secret deal

-Obi-Wan is directly contacting Coruscant to report that he hasn’t found any clue that Sifo Dyas is still alive and that he thinks that Sifo Dyas was killed while investigating this deal with the Kaminoans (I’m using the AI voice of clone wars Obi-Wan for his hologram voice); Obi-Wan gets captured

-Dooku interogates Obi-Wan; Obi tells him that he is looking for Sifo Dyas; but Dooku shows no reaction

-Anakin and Padme arrive to rescue Obi; no 3PO and R2 action

-Deleted scene; Anakin and Padme on trial; changed subtitles, they are sentenced to die in the arena, fro trying to abolish these gladiator fights

-Arena scene plays out as usual minus R2, 3PO and Jango’s death (the Reek dies from the impact of the explosion that throws Anakin, Padme and Obi-Wan off its back, instead of being shot by Jango); there won’t be any clones either, we will only see the gunships picking up the survivors

-Library scene with new dialogue, Obi-Wan is trying to find out more about the Kaminoans but the archives prove incomplete

-Hallway scene with new dialogue, Obi-Wan explains that there are no leads regarding Sifo Dyas and tells Yoda and Mace what Dooku told him about Sidious

-Padme arrives on coruscant, first assassination attempt, Padme addresses the senate

-Padme meets Yoda and Mace at Palpatine’s office, Mace suggest that disgruntled slavers are behind the assassination attempt and Palpatine asks the Jedi to protect Amidala

-Anakin and Obi elevator scene minus the haven’t seen her in ten years line

-Heavily edited Fireplace scene (background replacement, heavily trimmed dialogue)

-Zam sends the assassination droid on its way, Obi-Wan arrives at the apartment (cut some dialogue, to make Anakin less creepy), New dialogue between Anakin and Obi-Wan
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qGjqTuUfP5uX6soZAY5sENl_BazjQFnK/view?usp=sharing

-Speeder chase without the flames and Anakin disables Zam’s speeder with his lightsaber

-Night club, council scene, Obi-Wan meets Dex to find out more about the Dart

-Padme prepares to depart from coruscant (new dialogue)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g30FKS5UM5zWfP647kFQndvR2sMeAk9J/view?usp=sharing

-Obi-Wan asks Yoda for help to find his lost planet, Padme and Anakin leave coruscant, Obi-Wan leaves coruscant (deleted scene landing platform)

-Anakin and Padme arrive on Naboo and meet the queen (reordered the dialogue to put greater emphasis on the threat of a civil war rather than Nute Gunray still being around), New senate scene: Jar Jar is trying to convince the senate to pursue a diplomatic solution, but he is cut off by the delegate of Malastare, who opposes him and causes uproar in the senate, end on a shot of dooku watching the scenery via hologram.

-Obi-Wan enters the orbit around Kamino and is attacked by Jango (dyed Geonosis blue)

-Anakin and Padme meet her parents

-Obi-Wan lands on Kamino after he had been hiding from Jango and talks to the prime minister: Lama Su tells him that the clone army was ordered by Gunray after his defeat on Naboo and that Sifo Dyas approached them to buy this army off them instead. He then assures Obi-Wan that they are still willing to sell to the highest bidder. (Again I’ll be using an AI voice to redo Lama Su’s dialogue)

-Deleted Scene Padme’s bedroom without the terrible dialogue about dead children, Meadow picnic without the terrible dictatorship dialogue (boy, oh boy, I wonder why they don’t have any chemistry in this movie…)
(+I cut the cows)

-Obi-Wan inspects the clones and meets Jango

-Anakin and Padme dinner (replaced the aggressive negotiation joke with this one: Padme: “Love, That was forbidden for a Jedi” Anakin: “Ah, well, we are encouraged to love a lightsaber”)
(+I cut the pear)

-sundown midnight kiss, anakins nightmare (might use some of Bobas flashbacks of the tusken to extend the scene)

-Obi-Wan has a detective moment (borrowed the idea from poorandin), Obi-Wan fights Jango on the landing platform (cut closeups of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber handle to hide continuity error)
(+cut Obi-Wan hanging on the cable for half an eternity, took inspiration from Caleb Gamman)

-Anakin and Padme arrive on Tatooine and meet Watto to find out about Shmi’s whereabouts, Watto tells Anakin that he doesn’t own her anymore because of the enforcement of the anti slavery law, but after Anakin repeats his question he tells them what he knows

-Jango arrives on Geonosis, Separatist meeting (new subtitles referring to the clones, replaced Wat Tambor’s voice with AI, bacause he is given a new line later on)

-Anakin and Padme arrive at the Lars homestead, Anakin speeds off to find his mother, Shmi dies and Anakin kills the tusken, Yoda senses this through the force, Obi-Wan reports to Mace and Yoda about the clones (AI voice)

-garage scene (trimmed Anakins confession to make him seem more rueful and less hateful + removed to be angry line)

-The senators gather in Palpatine’s office to asses the situation, the senator of Malastare proposes a preemptive strike against the separatist, Palpatine is granted emergency powers and creates the GAR, Mace tells Yoda to take what Jedi they have left and go to Geonosis, Shmi’s funeral (3PO says that R2 is carrying a message from Mace Windu, again altered using AI)

-Anakin and Padme leave Tatooine, Obi-Wan watches the troops assemble on Kamino, transition to the Battle on Geonosis

-During the war room scene the Separatist are puzzled about the strength of the republic army and Wat Tambor mentions that large amounts of money have been transferred to the Kaminoan cloning corporation, new subtitles for Poggle expressing his anger at the betrayal of the Kaminoans

-Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda fight Dooku

-New montage after the Battle showing dead clones, Jedi, broken droids and ships as well as Boba holding Jango’s helmet (sadly I couldn’t find good footage of dead clones and Jedi, I could have sworn I saw a fan film sometime ago, which I was intending to use for this, but I couldn’t find it)

-Normal ending but without the line about Sidious controlling the senate (used that earlier) and with the scene of Anakin and Palpatine talking in his office (new dialogue, Palpatine congratulates Anakin on becoming a Jedi Knight)
(+restructured the ending, took inspiration from Cathy’s edit of AOTC: first Yoda, Mace, Obi-Wan on coruscant, then Anakin+Padme wedding, then Dooku meeting Sidious, after that Anakin meets Palpatine in his office and we close on the clones assembling under the eyes of the supreme chancellor)

That’s mostly it, but I am sure as hell that I forgot about some minor cuts here and there.

I made a first draft of the new crawl, let me know what you think.

It is a time of great change. Under the
supervision of Chancellor Palpatine and
the young Senator Padmé Amidala, the
Republic has successfully enforced Anti-
Slavery-Laws across the galaxy.

Sparked by these reforms, several solar
systems have left the Republic. Lead by
the mysterious Count Dooku, this
separatist movement made it difficult
for the limited number of Jedi Knights
to maintain peace and order.

Sent to investigate the vanishing of
Jedi Master Sifo Dyas, Obi-Wan Kenobi
followed a trace to the desolate Outer
Rim world of Geonosis…

I will always encourage fanedits that try to do something radical and new, than safe. Best of luck to you!

Thanks a lot and good luck with Ancient Lore v2. I’m looking forward to what you will end up with.

T-202 said:

This edit sounds really cool can’t wait to see more of it!

Can’t promise how fast I’ll make progress, but I got a lot of free time at the moment and I
had the movie almost finished before, so I think I’ll finish it rather sooner than later.

I’ll admit that putting Palpatine in Lincoln’s place was a really weird feeling at first, but I think it serves ROTS well in the way that it makes the Jedi’s suspicions against Palpatine feel completely ludicrous.

I am planning to complete the first 30 minutes with all the Geonosis stuff this week. Most of the difficult dialogue work from the first act is already done so all that remains is to throw everything together.

Here are the first five minutes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RpQKv8jvMUyS74B-boYCY05rrZFXXZFM/view?usp=sharing

Let me know what you think of the audio, working with the AI voices was a little harder than expected.

EDIT: There are some audio cracks during the opening, I’ll try to fix this later today.

The thing is the separatist have to speak English, because Obi is listening. Other ways it would feel jarring.
I think the problem with the voices is that they sound like they were recorded on a toilet, it doesn’t sound like they are standing in this huge hall.

I removed the first voice and put a bit of Gunray’s original line back in, now the important line is delivered by Wat Tambor. I have given him a deeper, more robotic voice and I think it fits rather well into the audio mix.

Thanks for the hint regarding the crawl. The title is final, why are you asking?

I’m reading it as in “XY is no Jedi anymore”. I want to raise the question who is meant with this. Is it Anakin? Is it Dooku, who is meant? Or does it refer to the Jedi as a whole?

I can understand that it might not be grammatically correct, but in my opinion it is a better fit for a title to a movie than “No Jedi anymore”.

Yeah that might work

I agree that “Jedi No More” reads more easily for the meaning you want to convey.

So I think it is time for an update, a lot has happened since the last time.
Approximatly 60 percent of the edit is done, however I did make some additional changes to those I outlined earlier. For example I changed the crowd reaction to Padme’s speech in the senate, now she gets applauded and I added Anakin to the scene. I figured it might be nice if we had a scene where he shows genuine interest in her political career. I trimmed the speeder chase and dropped the industrial district part as well as a lot of the bickering between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Then I trimmed the Dex’s Dinner scene and reordered some of the dialogue. I also cut the first part of the deleted scene on the landing platform, the bits that take place inside the hangar. Other than that I shortened the arrival on Naboo scene and cut the bits of Anakin in Padme’s father talking in the garden. The biggest changes where made to the dogfight between Obi-Wan and Fett.
I reconstructed the scene a lot to remove most of the shots with geonosis in the background. Now Obi-Wan arrives at Kamino and gets greeted with one seismic charge (not two), then Jango opens fire, then Obi-Wan flies through the asteroid to evade the blaster fire and then he gets targeted by a missile. I also removed any footage that showed Jango or Boba piloting the Slave I, this way the identity of the attacker remains a mystery and adds to the kamino plot. This works brilliantly with Taun We’s line, which expresses that they have been awaiting him.
And in regards to the kamino plot I have made some slight alterations to the structure of the second half of the movie, to make room for the deleted analysis archive scene. Now Obi-Wan visits the analysis archive on kamino after he spoke to Jango, to find out more about the toxic dart and the droid tells him that the toxin is only found on Bogden. Obi-Wan then realizes that Jango must be the bounty hunter who shot Zam and rushes off to fight him on the landing platform. I had seen this idea executed in poorandin’s edit of AOTC and liked it a lot, so I decided to include this, as it shows Obi-wan acting autonomously. I also trimmed the fight on the landing platform to remove Obi-Wan hanging there for hours.

I think that is it for now. Currently I am working on some vision sequences for Anakin utilizing footage from BOBF. I am planning to include three vision in my final edit, one in the beginning after Anakin has been knocked out by the robot arm in the factory, one in the middle as his nightmare and one in the finale playing as a flashback that hits Anakin as Dooku is about to deliver the killing blow to Obi-Wan.

The edit is done. However I restructured the second half of the movie again.

I would love to check this out! Sounds like some really interesting changes!