Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace — Page 2

I really like the idea of using the Anakin deleted scene in that way. Also,

Anyway, I’m not saying Brian Blessed should be the authority on this

Brian Blessed gets my vote for authority on everything.

I’ve just realised that I can stream TPM on my phone, so I’ll rewatch it so I can better contribute to this thread. I’ll have to watch it with the sound turned off for various reasons, though this might provide a unique perspective on things since I won’t be listening to the voices of Jar Jar, Watto, the Nemoidians, Amidala, etc etc while still getting to see their performances.

ImperialFighter said:

EddieDean said:

I’m trying to present this section from an ‘editor’s perspective’, highlighting the key plot points, structure, character development and interactions, topics of dialogue, scene linkages, references, etc. It’s in as close to original order as possible, with cut scenes placed in roughly the right place. Let me know if there’s anything relevant that I’ve missed.

EddieDean, I look forward to adding a thing or three to your ongoing series of topic threads eventually.

Just a little thing for now, but can you also include a description of the ‘deleted scene’ of Yoda arriving at Dagobah in this one too? - while I have my own firm preference of how I’d like to see it incorporated into a re-edit of the movie, perhaps you could just add it at the bottom of your scene descriptions if you don’t have a preference of your own. It’s not readily obvious where it should go, as there’s optional places to put it if anyone chooses to include it.

Isn’t that a Revenge of the Sith deleted scene? If there was one made for Phantom Menace though, I’ll add it in.

RogueLeader said:

I’ve been thinking about the movie since you made this post, so I’ll share some random thoughts I’ve been having.

The Crawl

I like the direction of the crawl you posted, Eddie.

I think the big complaint of the original crawl is that it got people’s heads scratching before the movie even starts. The goal of the crawl should be clarify things for the audience. Get everyone on the same page, keep it simple. Think about the original Star Wars opening crawl. It gives some background, but we’re left with a few simple ideas: There’s a big, evil empire, and there’s a rebellion fighting against them. A easy to understand tale of underdogs fighting against tyranny. We also get the gist of the basic plot: the bad guys have a super weapon, and the good guys stole the secret plans for it. We also learn about Princess Leia and her crucial role in this mission.

With this TPM new crawl, there are a few key words used that I think help establish important themes or ideas for this trilogy: complacency, corruption, and greed. These words highlight the problems in the final years of the Galactic Republic, and it establishes people like Padmé trying to fight against this corruption, and personally paying a cost for it. I think centering Padmé as an important character in a new crawl is a great idea. It might do a better job at investing the audience in her journey from the get-go. Like you mentioned before, a common point made about this movie is how it feels like there isn’t a main protagonist. Maybe Padmé technically isn’t, but I think anything would help to give more characterization to this ensemble.

Brilliant set of thoughts, RogueLeader. Following your thoughts on the crawl/set up for the movie-

What you said about the fact that Padmé arguably isn’t a main character in this episode, but is still important to the plot, made me realise the following: Padmé IS the Death Star plans. The actual thrust of the movie, for the first three quarters, is that we have to get the Death Star plans to the rebellion. (We have to get Padmé to Coruscant.) If everything’s framed in that way, there’s a clear and simple goal for the main characters that’s easy for the audience to grasp. The character who keeps things moving in that direction is Qui-Gon (the analogue to Obi-Wan in ANH). Their chance encounter with Luke (Anakin) brings him into the fold while Qui-Gon is still working on the goal of bringing Padmé to Coruscant. The twist in TPM compared to ANH is that getting Padmé to Coruscant doesn’t help - they leave Coruscant dejected with the Death Star (Trade Federation invasion) still a threat. But the day is ultimately won by the allies they picked up along the way, and the unexpected gift of Luke (Anakin).

So that gives us a solid backbone:

• The Trade Federation invasion is the simple well-defined threat we care about, that the main characters are invested in stopping.
• The solution is to get Padmé off planet to Coruscant, which they believe is their best chance.
• Qui-Gon is our main character driving this plot in line with that goal.
• A chance meeting with Anakin makes him our second main character and suprise addition.
• On Coruscant, we learn that the Republic is not our salvation, and the plan changes. At this point Padmé picks up more agency (becoming our late-game third main character instead of the macguffin) and the party decide to act together to save the day.
• On Naboo, Padmé and Qui-Gon serve to further the new plan (failing and coming into jeopardy but still helping enable its success), but Anakin, our suprise addition, emerges as the hero whose actions defeat the invasion, saving the day.

Along the way, the rest of the content would be seen as world-building ideally handled as deftly as ANH did it - not too much cutting away from the main plot, giving the audience information in a sensible order, etc. Establishing the core setting (the state of the Galaxy) belongs in the crawl (but IMO should be whatever best sets up the Trade Federation invasion and Padmé as the solution clearly.) The rise of Palpatine is a background event that’s triggered by but doesn’t need to be central to the plot. The things that leave us with anticipation for a future movie are Qui-Gon’s twist death handing over his role to Obi-Wan, the Jedi’s doubts in Anakin, and the fact that a dark presence may have manipulated this plot for sinister ends.

Thinking about it like this, I’m led to another couple of thoughts:

1. If you set up the Republic as failing in the crawl, there’s (interesting?) doubt about whether the plan to get Padmé to Coruscant will succeed, and the reveal that they’re too bureaucratic to help will give the audience good evidence to hammer that point home. I also feel like the most valuable word to describe the Republic is complacent, because that best explains how these guys think they can get away with full-on invasion. (And going for invasion first, rather than blockade, not only gives you the actual threat in the crawl, but also avoids the fact that the blockade is replaced with a single ship by the climax.)
2. The Gungans aren’t vital. Since they are effectively used as a tool by Padmé in line with the party’s goals in the finale, they could still serve an edit, but if you had an alternative group for Anakin to save during the finale (say, shots of Naboo citizens being oppressed and surrounded by battle droids) they’d be skippable.
3. If we take Padmé as the macguffin, then the main force against her is Maul (as a tool of the unknown Sith Lord), and Maul’s use in that role should be emphasised. While Maul is alive, the threat against Padmé is emphasised. (I suppose we don’t actually need to know why he’s targeting her, with my suggested perspective, since targeting her still brings the core plot into jeopardy and Maul’s master’s motivations remain a mystery at the end of the film.) Therefore, I’d have the ending ordered as: Gungans draw out the forces from the city to enable the infiltration, and are captured (if we see them at all). The party infiltrate the palace to capture Nute Gunray. Anakin takes a ‘safe place’ in a ship, but Padmé is interrupted by the arrival of Maul, so the Jedi step in to stop him so she can continue the plan alone. We follow Padmé until she fails. Now the plan’s in real jeopardy. Maul is able to handle Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan at the same time, and when he kills Qui-Gon, we believe he’s more than a match for Obi-Wan, left dangling in a pit. He’s likely to kill Obi-Wan, and then he’s coming for the Queen. This is the point of highest jeopardy. Then roughly at the same time, we have Anakin destroy the ship and Obi-Wan destroy Maul. The invasion is defeated, saving the people, and Maul is killed, saving the Queen.
4. I wonder if more could be done to emphasise Anakin’s agency. Perhaps when he’s in the cockpit, we could hear echoes of dialogue we’ve already heard as he remembers them: “That’s a droid control ship.” “We will send the pilots we have to knock out the droid control ship.” “You catch on pretty quick.” “Mom, you say the biggest problem in this universe is nobody helps each other.” “There is no other way. I may not like it, but he can help you. He was meant to help you.” [Anakin turns on the ship and flies off to space.]
5. I think the biggest value add, which may now be more within our grasp, would be additional shots of the invasion being felt by the Naboo.

Good analysis by RL, and good follow-up by Eddie! The thing that leaps out at me is:

So that gives us a solid backbone:

• The Trade Federation invasion is the simple well-defined threat we care about, that the main characters are invested in stopping.
• The solution is to get Padmé off planet to Coruscant, which they believe is their best chance.
• Qui-Gon is our main character driving this plot in line with that goal.

There’s your opening crawl.

CaptainFaraday said:

So that gives us a solid backbone:

• The Trade Federation invasion is the simple well-defined threat we care about, that the main characters are invested in stopping.
• The solution is to get Padmé off planet to Coruscant, which they believe is their best chance.
• Qui-Gon is our main character driving this plot in line with that goal.

There’s your opening crawl.

Job done. What’s next?

Oof, just spotted something else to amend what I’d just said-

Queen Amidala (the figurehead) is the macguffin, Padmé (revealed in the third act as the true Queen) is a character with real agency. This way you don’t reveal that Padmé is Queen until the right moment.

Perhaps-

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
QUEEN AMIDALA, elected ruler of the
planet Naboo, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy TRADE
FEDERATION have invaded her home system,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Jedi Order, mystical wielders of
THE FORCE and defenders of the Republic,
have dispatched Jedi Knight QUI-GON JINN
and his apprentice to bring the Queen to
safety on the capital planet of Coruscant.

The key factions are the Galactic Republic (complacent, corrupt, unable to act), the Trade Federation (greedy, opportunistic), and the Jedi Order (protectors, mystical, act semi-independently of the Senate). The key characters are Queen Amidala (champion of democracy) and Qui-Gon (a Jedi Knight). The plot is escape from invasion.

Compare to the original crawl: The key factions are the Galactic Republic (in turmoil, bureaucratic), and the Trade Federation (objecting, greedy), and Jedi Knights (protectors, mediators, act on behalf of the Supreme Chancellor). The characters are the Supreme Chancellor (leader) and two Jedi Knights. The plot is taxation leading to blockade leading to negotiation.

With my suggestion you could perhaps do more to explain how getting the Queen to Coruscant might actually help (beyond just escape), but I think early dialogue captures some of that. It doesn’t explain what the force actually IS, nor does it hint at the dark power behind these events.

EddieDean said:

Oof, just spotted something else to amend what I’d just said-

Queen Amidala (the figurehead) is the macguffin, Padmé (revealed in the third act as the true Queen) is a character with real agency. This way you don’t reveal that Padmé is Queen until the right moment.

Perhaps-

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
QUEEN AMIDALA, elected ruler of the
Naboo system, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy TRADE
FEDERATION have invaded her home planet,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Jedi Order, mystical wielders of
THE FORCE and defenders of the Republic,
have dispatched Jedi Knight QUI-GON JINN
and his apprentice to bring the Queen to
safety on the capital planet of Coruscant.

The key factions are the Galactic Republic (complacent, corrupt, unable to act), the Trade Federation (greedy, opportunistic), and the Jedi Order (protectors, mystical, act semi-independently of the Senate). The key characters are Queen Amidala (champion of democracy) and Qui-Gon (a Jedi Knight). The plot is escape from invasion.

You could perhaps do more with what the force actually IS, and that getting the Queen to Coruscant might actually help (beyond just escape), but I think early dialogue captures some of that.

This is a really good opening crawl. It conveys what it needs to and all the language and grammar sounds right, which is surprisingly tricky to accomplish - George Lucas was right when he said it’s like writing a poem.

I was trying to come up with something that started with just: “Invasion! The greedy Trade Federation have blah blah blah” but I couldn’t get it to work in that paragraph order.

Plus, you could just switch ‘invaded’ with ‘blockaded’ and ‘bring the Queen to safety on the capital planet of Coruscant’ with something like ‘negotiate a peaceful solution before the conflict escalates’ if you wanted to preserve the blockade angle.

Vladius said:

I’ve said this before but people use way too many all caps words in their crawls. If you look at the movies they only do one or two.

In chronological order each count is 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 3, 2, 6. So you’re right, and Rise of Skywalker (and the whole sequel trilogy) is an outlier. But I don’t personally think it’s a big issue - I think all caps is an easy tool to direct people’s attention to the core concepts.

Vladius said:

I’ve said this before but people use way too many all caps words in their crawls. If you look at the movies they only do one or two.

To be fair, the movies themselves have become guilty of that recently. TROS’s crawl had 6 all-caps phrases, a record for the franchise so far. Reigning in the all-caps is certainly an option though.

RogueLeader said:

Nemoidians and Sidious

I know I just mentioned being careful about cutting too much and making the movie too short, but if I were to want to cut any scenes, I think I would cut a lot of the scenes between Nute Gunray and Darth Sidious. There’s a few reasons for doing this. 1) I feel like the pacing just halts every time we cut back to what the bad guys are doing. 3) It feels like a lot of information is repeated in other scenes. 2) I actually think it would serve the narrative more if we kept the Sith’s involvement in the plot as mysterious as we can. I actually wonder how much it would actually hurt the movie if we cut all of Sidious’ scenes. Would it be better if the actual phantom menace was a figure only alluded to in the first film? I’m sure there are edits that have already done this. We are talking about the most fan-edited film in history, after all.

Agree with your on those scenes. I don’t know how it would work to remove them all - I don’t know if there’s a need to explain Neimoidians trying to kill Jedi. If one kept maybe only the Coruscant balcony scene (removing lines about going after the queen) and Maul, that would help it feel like a separate threat focused on the Jedi. You’ve got me thinking about removing the scene where they tell Sid the queen has escaped. One problem I have with that scene is the virtual introduction of Maul. My current edit of the scene removes Maul and replaces Neimodian dialogue from elsewhere (https://streamable.com/6fhf7m). But you’re right the scene doesn’t add much/anything.

That opening shot of the ships around Naboo might be used instead for a return shot, not that it explains how the heroes land undetected.

I’m right there with you on most of what you wrote. Would help so much to be able to make Jar Jar speak more normally. I don’t think I had payed attention to Portman’s poor performance before. The scene with her speaking with Jar Jar on the ship is useful and shows him being more normal but her acting there is so bad. It almost felt like that first shot of her speaking was shot later it’s so disconnected.

Anakin

Not a lot to say about Anakin that hasn’t already been done, but there is one idea I recall regarding how Anakin gets connected with Qui-Gon and company. This was an idea I had back years ago, but I’m pretty sure the Phantom Editor also mentions in his commentary having this edit when he did his edit, but decided to not go with it. Basically, the idea would be that you would replace Jar Jar getting accosted by Sebulba, with Qui-Gon seeing Anakin in a fight and breaking it up. This deleted scene originally takes place after the pod race, and the Rodian thinks Anakin cheated at the pod race, but if you could assume they are just talking about a game they were playing. One benefit is that it would help you avoid another of Jar Jar’s goofy antics, and it also lets you see another side of Anakin that we mostly see as sweet and innocent. I think one of the reasons he didn’t use it was because of the quality of the scene, but perhaps there is a better quality version of the scene available now.

On the other hand, I do like Mrebo’s idea for the scene, which gives Anakin a little extra agency. Maybe you could use both ideas, since you would need to invent a way for Anakin to pair back up with the others (unless you just assumed Anakin caught up with them after Watto let him leave).

I’m having Watto tell Anakin to follow them after they leave the shop, which adds to showing Watto as a minor villain and Anakin a good natured kid when he basically forgets he’s supposed to be a spy. That works if you want to leave out Jar Jar’s snack.

Feels weird to talk about edit ideas that have been discussed for the past twenty years…

Yes but a welcome opportunity 😄 While there cannot be a single edit to satisfy everyone, I can imagine that if there was an organized effort, a very good compromise edition could be done. Like the Corridor Digital team but focused solely on editing each movie, different people doing sound, effects, color, etc.

Despite the straightforward logic of making Episode I as the first community focus month, I think this one is the most hashed out.

But so far it sounds like there could be some old, classic ideas resurrected and perhaps completed.

littlev87 said:

On the topic of changing Jar Jar dialog

Honestly, these might be the best redubs I’ve ever seen. Also, I love how Jar jar is now a completely different character but his vocals still match the physical performance. I have posted this before in other threads, but I try to get these videos as much exposure as possible. I would love if the community could convince this guy to finish the dub for the whole movie. Unless of course, someone has a link to his complete edit, if it exists. Maybe I’m crazy but I think these dubs are phenomenal, and fix the biggest annoyance to watching this movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58yrGVFDHc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDs0Y4krCqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FRqQt7N4q0

Those are fun and well done. Works for him to have an accent from down under 😛 I think that’s the right direction, to make him basically an opportunist. His opportunism takes him to the galactic senate, as a sort of mirror image and facilitator of Palpatine. I’m not sure how I feel about him being clumsy with Boss Nass’s wife…

Yeah, I do like that dub a lot, he actually managed to make Jar Jar genuinely funny. I’m also kind of iffy on the wife bit though, Star Wars never really had double entendres or sexual humor until the Disney era. It should be pretty easy to cut, though.

I think he actually did make a full edit, but you can only get it by PM’ing his Reddit account. He also did a TLJ edit, which is most well-known for having Ackbar survive the bridge explosion and do the Holdo maneuver (not Ivan’s edit though, this guy’s version of that was actually good).

StarkillerAG said:

(not Ivan’s edit though, this guy’s version of that was actually good)

lol

I still think if they’d done that they’d never hear the end of the “Allahu Akbar” jokes.

I really want to see how Ackbar instead of Holdo would be even possible to pull off visually.

Also, as much as I’m against losing Ahmed Best and Brian Blessed’s performances, Australian Jar Jar is done incredibly well. I didn’t know it existed, and in a case of convergent evolution and unintentional national nose-thumbing, I’d kicked around the idea of dubbing Jar Jar as a Kiwi (but retaining his original “nervous everyman in over his head” characterisation).

What’s the reddit account to message?

RogueLeader said:

Jar Jar Binks

In regards to Jar Jar, instead of totally dubbing him, I’m curious if it would be possible to play around with his dialogue to simply tone down his sometimes confusing Gungan dialect. A few examples:

“I spake” to “I speak”
“You saved my again” to “You saved me again”
“More did you spake?” to “More did you say?”
“Ex-squeeze-me, but de mostest safest place would be Gunga City” to “De safest place would be Gunga City”
“’Tis embarrassing. My afraid my’ve been banished. My forgotten. Da bosses would do terrible things to me. Terrrrrible things to me if me goen back dere” to “Tis’ embarrassing. I afraid I’ve been banished. I’m forgotten. Da bosses would do terrible things to me. Terrible things to me if I go back dere.”
“Wesa goen underwater, okeyday?” to “We go underwater, okay?”
“My warning you. Gungans no liken outsiders, so don’t spect a warm welcome” to “I’m warning you. Gungans don’t like outsiders, so don’t espect a warm welcome.”

Obviously how doable this would be would depend on how easy it is to isolate Jar Jar’s dialogue, and if you could find the right pieces to frankenbyte the dialogue changes. I recall Brian Blessed (who voiced Boss Nass) gave an interview where he said “I tried to make sure my noises didn’t interfere with dialogue”. He basically said that he thought that Jar Jar sometimes made noises on the line, and he has a lot of plot, so the audience would go, “What’s he saying? What did he say?” Anyway, I’m not saying Brian Blessed should be the authority on this, but I think it is a fair point.

And of course, basically every TPM edit in the past has toned down Jar Jar by cutting certain scenes or lines whole cloth, or muting Jar Jar’s voice, but I’m curious how possible it would be improve the dialogue that is necessary without overdubbing Ahmed Best’s performance. Because I think one issue with cutting a lot of Jar Jar is that if you cut too much Jar Jar, the edits feel less invisible as they should if you’re going for an edit that could pass as a theatrical release. This method might allow an editor to keep more Jar Jar, but make him less annoying. Another positive thing about this route would be that you probably could get away with these dialogue changes without Jar Jar’s mouth movements being noticeably off, since the CGI twenty years ago wasn’t as true-to-life as it can be now.

I think this idea has legs. I don’t think it’d be too tricky to start - one could watch through TPM and Jar-Jar’s couple of other appearances, taking notes in a spreadsheet of each line, timestamped. You’ve then got that for quick reference to identify your available replacement sounds. Isolate those lines in a working project to create common source replacement words (“I’m”, “I”, “Me”, etc), then take each line in place and replace what you can to tidy it up whilst preserving the meaning, ideally against the video to check for acceptable lip-sync.

CaptainFaraday said:

What’s the reddit account to message?

His reddit account is reddit.com/u/giggawattboy.