Ideas for Medium-Scale Edits

I decided to make this thread for a bunch of reasons.

First of all, there are a lot of great ideas here. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and, like most, I've had my different thoughts on how things would be if I had the ability to make, or change things.

That being said, I have zero editing skills nor do I have the means to do any editing. So I decided to create a thread for ideas, kind of like the Prequel Radical Redux thread... except to discuss changes not quite so radical.

For instance, if I were to make an edit of TPM: I'd cut a lot of Jar Jar's dialogue, and I might even have him re-dubbed, but I would not have him completely removed from the film.

I wouldn't change any characters or merge planets, or make any radical changes to the plot, with one MAJOR exception, however... the portrayal of Anakin's character in general. As it stands, his portrayal is inconsistent and choppy.

The difficult thing is, I would want to add more than what I would want to cut. Because I feel like, particularly with episodes 1-3, there was not enough time to properly portray Anakin's fall to the darkside. Palpy's rise to power was depicted impeccably well, imho. However Anakin's story seemed neglected, and well, he's kind of the main character.

I feel like I'm rambling now... so I'll just leave this open for ideas. Sorry if the thread seems ambiguous, but I want to contribute some ideas in some way, and I want to hear what other ideas people may have as well. I just felt that a lot of times the Radical Redux would go a little too far with some of the changes. Again, all imho.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention; I'm a firm believer in what I believe is called the machete order of watching the movies. 451236. If I were to make an edit, I'd plan it according to that order.

Going by the mission brief I would start TPM with the end of ESB.

Have a recap of Luke asking, "Why didn't you tell me?" and maybe have Luke arrive on Dagobah Yoda die and have an altered more ghostly intro from ghost Ben.

"Anakin was a good friend".

It could even break with tradition by being a pre-crawl prologue.

Then start the story from Anakin's entrance into the story as a child and rejig the opening scenes so they slot into points near the end.

At the end of the film old Ben could tell Luke he was wrong to train him.

The last scene of ROTS could be Ben telling Luke he must face Darth Vader again because Anakin is gone for good.

This would set the scene for a pacier less silly ROTJ.

That way it we would be reminded that it's all about Luke trying to save his father.

I like the idea. I should have specified though; I want to keep as many surprises as I possibly can.

Therefore, in ESB (since it's the second movie being watched), I would cut the mention of Luke being "the offspring of Anakin Skywalker". I don't want Anakin's name mentioned at all during ESB because I want people to wonder still, after the big reveal in ESB, 'Is Vader really Luke's father?' And upon starting TPM 'Who is this Anakin fellow? Surely he's not... could he be? Nah' But then at the end of Episode III it'll be like 'O_O No way... he IS Vader...'

I want there to be an element of surprise in the big ESB reveal, as well as surprise in the transformation into Vader in Episode III. Of course, a lot of people will still be able to put two and two together, but, it can still be made to have some punch to it. Does that make sense?

if you are trying to link prequels more to the OT, maybe you could switch Ben's line in ESB from:

"Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me"

to

"Yoda, A Jedi Master who instructed me"

or even....

"Yoda, the Jedi Master"

I like that idea. That would make for better continuity for sure.

Bingowings said:

"Anakin was a good friend".

Thanks for pointing this out. This is something I'd like to see brought out more in episodes 2 and 3. Particularly episode 2. Too much squabbling between Anakin and Obi-wan.

Hal 9000 said:

I am interested to hear any and all of your ideas, man. I sympathize with not feeling up to tackling a fan edit. I, fortunately, am in the process of doing a set right now. I'd love to give more ideas a hearing!

Awesome! Well, to start off simply, Episode 4 would probably get the least amount of treatment, because Adywan's already done such a superb job, there isn't much from his version that I would change. Only things I would do is maybe saturate some of the color inside the Deathstar interior (only a bit, not nearly like the special editions and certainly not like the dvds) and see if there'd be a way to add in one or two of the deleted scenes with Luke and his Friend on Tatooine. 

A lot of the editing would be done to the prequels, understandably. I love them, but they have a lot of issues. lol

For Episode 1 ... Jar-Jar's screentime would be reduced by about 50%. He may possibly get a re-dubbing.

Boss Nass's dialogue would be snipped a bit so that he doesn't drawl on and on seemingly forever.

I would /not/ reinsert the Anakin fight scene, however, if I'm not mistaken, there is some extra footage where Anakin shows a little bit of aggression on the pod-race... am I right? If so, I would insert that back in. Anakin is a flawed human, not an angel.

I would cut most of the two-headed announcers at the pod-race. They drive me insane. lol Honestly I tolerate Jar-Jar better than those two.

Some of Anakin's unnecesarry line's would be cut: "... and they blow you up! BOOM!!! ... We could try spinning, that's a good trick! Woahoahoah! ... Yippieee!! ..." ... you get the idea.

Anakin destroys the droid control ship on purpose. He does not use auto-pilot to happen to get there. He flies there. He's the best starpilot in the galaxy, remember? So lets see him be just that.

Obi-wan no longer talks about Anakin being a "pathetic life-form". Come on Obi-Wan, you're a nicer person than that.

There's more, but It'll come to me later. lol

I'll post more on Episodes 2 and 3 later. They are the ones that need the most treatment, I think.

The whole exposition puddle regarding retaking the palace is dead weight.

Everyone phones in their lines and we see what happens later it's pretty obvious so the shine of watching it happen is removed by having it explained before hand.