Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace — Page 14

SpenceEdit said:

1. Qui-Gon. The juxtaposition of the way he is (compassionate, caring, unafraid to take risks) vs. the way the Jedi council is (scared, traditionalist, forbidding connection) is important to see. It sets up that the way the Jedi Order functions doesn’t work and should change. Obi-Wan being pulled between the Order and the way Qui-Gon operated is what leads to his middle-ground approach to training Anakin, which leaves him vulnerable to Palpatine.

2. The Republic. We need to see it the way we see it in TPM. It’s huge, thriving, bright, happy. We need to see it that way to realize how corrupted it becomes, and see the tragedy of its downfall into becoming the Empire.

I personally agree with both, though it would have been nice if both of those core messages were a bit more explicit in the script. Good points though.

I do think TPM deserves its place in the saga, I’m just curious what others think here.

It’s also important to see how Palpatine became Chancellor. The second plotline of the prequels is Palpatine’s rise to power, you need to see how he became Chancellor because that’s such an important step.

The Republic’s corruption also needs to be introduced, as well as Anakin’s slave past, his mother, and the Jedi Council and how controversial it was that he become a Jedi.

Yeah, also all good points. I guess these’re all less important if you’re positioning the prequels as just the ‘flashback’ showing Anakin’s fall, but for a proper focus on the wider saga, TPM is pretty key.

Totally unrelated, I’ve just been thinking a little more about the opening of TPM, in the scenario where we don’t have the Jedi board the Neimoidian ship. I know some think we need those scenes, so I was wondering if there was an approach where you could have the best of both worlds, and that led me to thinking about intercutting between the early Neimoidian scenes and the scenes of the Jedi on the planet. Perhaps something like this:

• Opening crawl explains that Naboo’s been invaded, that Queen Amidala is at risk of capture, and that the Jedi have been sent to rescue her (she’s the metaphorical Death Star plans).
• Open on an establishing shot of the Trade Federation ship bridge, and a later scene of them talking to Sidious:
  • Nute: “The invasion is on schedule, my lord.”
  • Sidious: “I have the Senate bogged down in procedures. They will have no choice but to accept your control of the system.”
  • Nute: “The Queen has great faith that the Senate will side with her.”
  • Sidious: “Queen Amidala is young and naive. You will find controlling her will not be difficult.”
  • Nute: “Yes, my lord.”
• Cut to scenes of the invasion of Theed, as Amidala sadly watches.
• Cut to the original first establishing shot of the Jedi’s ship approaching the planet.
• Cut to the first scene of the Jedi originally in the droid control ship’s waiting room. (This is now a room on the Jedi ship, perhaps via some VFX masking of the windows to show the ship approaching quite low to the planet.) Have the droid (dubbed) say “We have slipped past the blockade but our ship has been identified. I have activated the comms jammer, and will land us in the nearby swamp. You will have to move quickly.” Keep most of the rest of the scene, surrounding Obi-Wan’s feelings of unease.
• Cut to the scene of the Neimoidians on the bridge, clearly showing a transmission going fuzzy. (Originally they were reacting to the Jedi fighting the battle droids on their own ship.)
  • Nute: “What’s going on down there?”
  • Comms guy: “We lost the transmission sir.”
  • Nute’s friend: “Have you ever encountered a Jedi Knight before, sir?”
  • Nute: “Well no, but… [hesitates] I will contact Lord Sidious.”
• Ideally, manufacture a shot of the Jedi ship landing in the swamp/forest. (Perhaps with added VO of Qui-Gon saying “let’s split up”, or other voice implying they’re heading overland to the palace)
• Cut to the scene of Neimoidians and Sidious on the bridge.
  • Sidious: “What is it?”
  • Nute’s friend: “The [invasion/plan] is finished! We dare not go against the Jedi.”
  • Sidious: “This turn of events is unfortunate. The chancellor should never have brought them into this. Begin landing [more] troops.”
  • Nute: “My lord…”
  • Sidious: “Kill them immediately.”
  • Nute: “Yes, yes my lord, as you wish.”
• (Now we have a reason for the Jedi encountering resistance immediately on the surface, and our villains and Jedi are in conflict even though they’re not in the same scenes.)
• Cut to the scene of the Trade Federation invasion fleet landing, and then the Neimoidians holocalling in to the droid commander:
  • Droid: “Yes, Viceroy?”
  • Nute: “Captain, we’ve searched the ship, and there is no trace of the Jedi.”
  • Droid: “If they’re down here, we’ll find them.”
  • Nute: “Use caution, these Jedi are not to be underestimated.”
• Cut to the Jedi fleeing the droids and encountering Jar Jar, and continue from there.
• Later, when appropriate (around the plot of getting Jar Jar and the Jedi to Theed), have the Neimoidians’ arrival on the planet and their discussion with the droid captain: “Viceroy, we have captured the Queen.” “Ah, Victory.”

(There’s also perhaps a place earlier on for Padmé’s insulting phonecall with the Neimoidians.)

Now, the Neimoidians have sent a whole military force to hunt down the Jedi, emphasising their threat to the invasion, and the first time we see the Jedi in action, we see how they handle the droids mainly through evasion, but also some good Jedi skill. We still get all of the important context of the Neimoidians and Sidious’ relationship, and the Jedi’s relationship and context, but we get more quickly to action whilst preserving each side’s threat/reaction to each other. We also get the invasion in earlier, which helps move the plot along and helps make ‘save the Queen’ our core macguffin instead of starting with negotiation.

Here’s a very ROUGH example of that idea that I threw together very quickly, to see how you guys think that version works if it played out that way.

EddieDean said:

Here’s a very ROUGH AND GLITCHY example of that idea, to give a feel for how the intro would feel if it played out that way.

I don’t know. For me, it suffers from, uh, every single image having so many things going on. At only 5 minutes, we’re constantly going back and forth between the invasion of Naboo, the Neimoidians, and the jedi, which makes this opening even more complicated than the original. For all of its flaws, at least the original opening placed most of its focus on Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, so it wasn’t too hard to follow (You could argue that this was done for eye candy, but the point remains).

I’m not sure if it’s doable, but I think the best way to fix this issue would be to make this opening longer or slower paced. This way, we can catch up with it a little more easily. Is there an extra scene or two that can be added in to slow things down?

Yeah, you’re right. It just doesn’t flow at all. Oh well! Perhaps keeping the original opening is necessary for the flow.

EddieDean said:

Yeah, you’re right. It just doesn’t flow at all. Oh well! Perhaps keeping the original opening is necessary for the flow.

Okay, I’ve been mulling over this alternate opening again, and I think I have an idea that could fix it up! Most of it involves cutting out the Palpatine scene. I’m gonna try this idea out and upload it when I’ve completed it!

Also, because I have a Custom Crawl Creator on Blender, I’m adding the opening crawl. It’s rendering as I type this! I’ll upload it all when it’s ready! 😉👌

Looking forward to seeing it!

My feeling from my own rough demo was that removing the Jedi on the control ship might not be possible after all, though the pacing through the intro might still be improvable.

So I’m really excited to have someone else take a crack at this just in case!

EddieDean said:

Looking forward to seeing it!

My feeling from my own rough demo was that removing the Jedi on the control ship might not be possible after all, though the pacing through the intro might still be improvable.

So I’m really excited to have someone else take a crack at this just in case!

Here’s my version of the intro! I’ve done what I could to polish up certain things, but those things that I can’t do are still incomplete. Hope it’s an improvement!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/118OZlN1IP2C3MvN-dsCAQd7AwEWqltwy/view?usp=sharing

Eyepainter said:

EddieDean said:

Looking forward to seeing it!

My feeling from my own rough demo was that removing the Jedi on the control ship might not be possible after all, though the pacing through the intro might still be improvable.

So I’m really excited to have someone else take a crack at this just in case!

Here’s my version of the intro! I’ve done what I could to polish up certain things, but those things that I can’t do are still incomplete. Hope it’s an improvement!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/118OZlN1IP2C3MvN-dsCAQd7AwEWqltwy/view?usp=sharing

Oh man it’s a treat to see my crawl for real! Though I think Hal’s right, and it is too heavy. Good to see though!

On the actual content, I think your original criticism still stands, and it cuts too quickly between too many locations, so there’s no room to breathe, and the pacing is a bit frantic. Having tested this idea, and tending to prefer conservative changes, I suspect that just a light tightening of the original opening might be most appropriate.

That said, I do have a couple more ideas I might try, for cutting the Jedi on the Neimoidian ship and allowing the movie to have better momentum at the beginning:

The first idea: If we’re trimming the Neimoidian ship, and a valid criticism of my original attempt was that we flick between too many locations, then perhaps we don’t need to see the Jedi on their ship at all - perhaps they begin on the planet. That way, the first time we see them they’re in action. There’s also a natural flow into that content, as it could be preceded by the army arriving in the swamp, which could itself be preceded by the Neimoidian/Sidious dialogue about the invasion. The opening crawl could simply help place them already on mission.

The second idea: This one’s a little more radical, but we could preserve some of the Neimoidian ship drama and existing plot, and build tension, if the ambassadors sent to the Neimoidians are different characters the Jedi. If the Jedi begin on the planet, getting flushed out by Trade Federation forces, then we still have the footage of a Republic ship arriving on the Neimoidian ship, and being destroyed. Plus we might be able to tie that in with Queen Amidala’s accusative phonecall.

Scene ordering might be:

• Opening crawl
• Neimoidians and Sidious discuss their hopes for the invasion
• Second set of shots of Trade Federation forces landing (this set nicely transitions from the sky to the ground)
• Jedi fleeing tanks, discover Jar Jar (a bit of new Jar Jar dialogue here might help give some key exposition)
• Jar Jar agrees to take the Jedi to Theed
• Set of shots showing Trade Federation forces travelling overground to Theed, Padmé laments at the window

Going with the second idea as well, you could put the scenes of the ambassador-but-not-Jedi ship arriving, then getting immediately destroyed, right after the crawl, which feels like it should flow OK. And Padmé’s smack talk could either come around that time - near Sidious calling her naive - or after her lament later on.

You’d have to change the Neimodians holo transmission after the invasion force landed. It doesn’t make sense for them to search their ship for the Jedi, if they landed on Naboo directly.

However now that I saw this, I had an idea. What if we show how the Jedi pass the blockade, without the Neimodians taking notice? I’m imagining something like this:

-Crawl
-Sidious hologram
-Obi and Qui-Gon are briefed by pseudo 3PO
-Gunray contacts the Jedi’s ship, they’re asked to land onboard
-Wide Shot of the Jedi’s ship approaching the droid control ship, add in a tiny escape pod flying away
-we follow the pod and see the droid invasion fleet lowering to the surface
-from here on we’re back on track with the original plot

This would bridge the Jedi and the invasion plot and mirror the opening of ANH nicely.
All we would need is a model of an escape pod.

Peter Pan said:

double post

Peter Pan said:

You’d have to change the Neimodians holo transmission after the invasion force landed. It doesn’t make sense for them to search their ship for the Jedi, if they landed on Naboo directly.

Yeah, you’d skip that shot.

However now that I saw this, I had an idea. What if we show the Jedi pass the blockade? I’m imagining something like this:

-Crawl
-Sidious hologram
-Obi and Qui-Gon are briefed by pseudo 3PO
-Gunray contacts the Jedi’s ship, they’re asked to land onboard
-Wide Shot of the Jedi’s ship approaching the droid control ship, add in a tiny escape pod flying away
-we follow the pod and see the droid invasion fleet lowering to the surface
-from here on we’re back on track with the original plot

This would bridge the Jedi and the invasion plot and mirror the opening of ANH nicely.
All we would need is a model of an escape pod.

This is a nice idea too. I’d love to get some VFX help on things like this but it’s a big ask every time. I’m picking up Blender right now but I’m at the beginner tutorials stage, so far I’ve made a half decent donut.

EddieDean said:

That said, I do have a couple more ideas I might try, for cutting the Jedi on the Neimoidian ship and allowing the movie to have better momentum at the beginning:

The first idea: If we’re trimming the Neimoidian ship, and a valid criticism of my original attempt was that we flick between too many locations, then perhaps we don’t need to see the Jedi on their ship at all - perhaps they begin on the planet. That way, the first time we see them they’re in action. There’s also a natural flow into that content, as it could be preceded by the army arriving in the swamp, which could itself be preceded by the Neimoidian/Sidious dialogue about the invasion. The opening crawl could simply help place them already on mission.

The second idea: This one’s a little more radical, but we could preserve some of the Neimoidian ship drama and existing plot, and build tension, if the ambassadors sent to the Neimoidians are different characters the Jedi. If the Jedi begin on the planet, getting flushed out by Trade Federation forces, then we still have the footage of a Republic ship arriving on the Neimoidian ship, and being destroyed. Plus we might be able to tie that in with Queen Amidala’s accusative phonecall.

Scene ordering might be:

• Opening crawl
• Neimoidians and Sidious discuss their hopes for the invasion
• Second set of shots of Trade Federation forces landing (this set nicely transitions from the sky to the ground)
• Jedi fleeing tanks, discover Jar Jar (a bit of new Jar Jar dialogue here might help give some key exposition)
• Jar Jar agrees to take the Jedi to Theed
• Set of shots showing Trade Federation forces travelling overground to Theed, Padmé laments at the window

Going with the second idea as well, you could put the scenes of the ambassador-but-not-Jedi ship arriving, then getting immediately destroyed, right after the crawl, which feels like it should flow OK. And Padmé’s smack talk could either come around that time - near Sidious calling her naive - or after her lament later on.

I guess between the two, I’ll pick the first one, since I feel lazy, and it’s an easier feat than the other one. Just a couple simple cuts with some crossfades if need be. The second one requires a lot of work, and I’m worried that you’d need someone who knows Blender all too well in order to pull it off.

I’m feeling exhausted due to my day job. But when I get my energy back, I’d be happy to work on the first option and upload the result like I did last time! What do you think?

I love the new crawl, but I’m still in favor of keeping the original intro. I think that just makes it go too fast, plus the original intro is such a perfect introduction to the Jedi and what they do. It shows how their typical job is diplomatic, that their job is peaceful negotiation, but they will fight if necessary, and are skilled warriors when provoked into action. It shows off their powers and their skills with lightsabers. I’d also hate to lose the part where Qui-Gon melts the metal door with his saber (so cool; for some reason I find the sound effect of the saber cutting the door really pleasing to the ear, like the seismic charges in AOTC).

I could go for one that cuts it shorter. I can try it myself.

Eyepainter said:

EddieDean said:

That said, I do have a couple more ideas I might try, for cutting the Jedi on the Neimoidian ship and allowing the movie to have better momentum at the beginning:

The first idea: If we’re trimming the Neimoidian ship, and a valid criticism of my original attempt was that we flick between too many locations, then perhaps we don’t need to see the Jedi on their ship at all - perhaps they begin on the planet. That way, the first time we see them they’re in action. There’s also a natural flow into that content, as it could be preceded by the army arriving in the swamp, which could itself be preceded by the Neimoidian/Sidious dialogue about the invasion. The opening crawl could simply help place them already on mission.

The second idea: This one’s a little more radical, but we could preserve some of the Neimoidian ship drama and existing plot, and build tension, if the ambassadors sent to the Neimoidians are different characters the Jedi. If the Jedi begin on the planet, getting flushed out by Trade Federation forces, then we still have the footage of a Republic ship arriving on the Neimoidian ship, and being destroyed. Plus we might be able to tie that in with Queen Amidala’s accusative phonecall.

Scene ordering might be:

• Opening crawl
• Neimoidians and Sidious discuss their hopes for the invasion
• Second set of shots of Trade Federation forces landing (this set nicely transitions from the sky to the ground)
• Jedi fleeing tanks, discover Jar Jar (a bit of new Jar Jar dialogue here might help give some key exposition)
• Jar Jar agrees to take the Jedi to Theed
• Set of shots showing Trade Federation forces travelling overground to Theed, Padmé laments at the window

Going with the second idea as well, you could put the scenes of the ambassador-but-not-Jedi ship arriving, then getting immediately destroyed, right after the crawl, which feels like it should flow OK. And Padmé’s smack talk could either come around that time - near Sidious calling her naive - or after her lament later on.

I guess between the two, I’ll pick the first one, since I feel lazy, and it’s an easier feat than the other one. Just a couple simple cuts with some crossfades if need be. The second one requires a lot of work, and I’m worried that you’d need someone who knows Blender all too well in order to pull it off.

I’m feeling exhausted due to my day job. But when I get my energy back, I’d be happy to work on the first option and upload the result like I did last time! What do you think?

Sorry if that sounded like I was asking you to do that Eyepainter, it wasn’t my intent to assume you’d take on the responsibility! I assumed I’d pick it up myself (and use the Jar Jar voice thing while I’m at it), but please do give it a crack if you’re up for it. Or we’ll both give it a crack and compare notes!

I’ve been learning Blender for work - one of the many reasons I’ve been absent from here - so if there’s anything relatively basic that needs doing, I can consult on it at the least.

Very exciting to hear there’re some blender wizards around!

I’ve just spent some time working on a new edit for the opening of the movie based on both of the ideas shared above. It’s not quite finished but I should get it done tomorrow - I need to work on some alternative Jar Jar lines to give context.

In this version, the Jedi are already on the planet, and are NOT the ambassadors. The Neimoidians immediately destroy the docked ambassador ship, which actually serves to recontextualise all of the surrounding discussion, show their boldness in the face of Republic complacency, and emphasise Sidious’ coercive influence. We will also skip over Otoh Gunga completely, with Jar Jar a more active participant who decides to guide them into the city.

That all sounds fairly radical, but I preserved a lot of the original scenes, albeit with new contexts, and found that it flows really nicely without feeling like it’s jumping all over the place like my previous attempt. It builds tension well, it still gives a lot of context, and it really emphasises the invasion angle. And while it is radical, I don’t propose making many other changes to the rest of the movie - this is mainly to (1) get it off with a bang and keep the energy high through the intro, (2) streamline the politics without removing them entirely, and (3) make Jar Jar a more active participant.

The new crawl that sets this up is as follows:

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing.
Under a weak chancellor, complacency
spreads in the Senate, opposed by
Queen Amidala of Naboo, a vocal
champion against corruption.

Encouraged by a shadowy benefactor,
the greedy TRADE FEDERATION have
massed a fleet around her planet
in an attempt to silence her, prompting
the chancellor to send a team of
ambassadors to negotiate.

Foreseeing an invasion, the Jedi Order,
mystical defenders of the Republic,
have secretly dispatched Jedi Knight
Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice to
the swamps outside the capital, seeking
to protect the Queen…

I could trim a little from that - perhaps the references to the Senate, Sidious, or the Trade Federation’s goals - but it covers the main beats. I’m hoping that ‘secretly dispatched’ justifies dropping the Jedi in the swamps nearby well enough…

Yeah, I think that sounds cool!

@NotTheDri0ds - I have modelling experience but not animating. So between us, we’ve got it covered lol.

…and I’ve lost all this morning’s work, its backup, and the post I’d written about it.

CRY

EddieDean said:

…and I’ve lost all this morning’s work, its backup, and the post I’d written about it.

CRY