Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 182

That was so bad it was actually pretty good.

The happy ending is that the Rebels win, I don't think anyone wants that to change.

Most people proposing changes just want them to earn the victory rather than having it handed to them by the Emperor's Keystone Legion and the Coruscant People's Front Crack Suicide Star Fleet.

Making the Ewoks tougher, making the land battle more brutal, making the space battle more gripping and maybe having the Rebels take some more losses will end the finale on a more believable high.

I'm sort of digging the idea of restructuring RoTJ a bit more as time goes on.

Anyway - here's my 2 cents.........

I like the idea of moving the Yoda death to the opening of the movie (even if it spoils the palace reveal, we can't have everything).......and then how about placing the Ben scene sometime on Endor before Luke speaks with Leia?

Best of all - since Luke originally speaks to Obi Wan in a dark swampy area, that wouldn't be hard to edit/alter into the Endor forest at night. Maybe we could even hear the ewoks very quietly in the background as they speak. That would be a million times easier than putting Luke in Ben's home from AnH and squeezing the scene into the beginning of the movie somewhere.

What do you guys think?

DF Shadow said:

 

I like the idea of moving the Yoda death to the opening of the movie (even if it spoils the palace reveal, we can't have everything).......and then how about placing the Ben scene sometime on Endor before Luke speaks with Leia?

 

 I think I've had a change of heart on this point. If the hologram of Luke is kept, the Palace Bad Ass Reveal isn't a reveal of LUKE so much as it's a reveal of LUKE IN ACTION, so it wouldn't be compromised by having Yoda bite the big one at the start of the film.

I myself wouldn't restructure it that way, but I don't see Yoda/Luke placed before Tatooine as taking any steam out of Luke on Tatooine.

DF Shadow said:

I'm sort of digging the idea of restructuring RoTJ a bit more as time goes on.

Anyway - here's my 2 cents.........

 

I like the idea of moving the Yoda death to the opening of the movie (even if it spoils the palace reveal, we can't have everything).......and then how about placing the Ben scene sometime on Endor before Luke speaks with Leia?

Best of all - since Luke originally speaks to Obi Wan in a dark swampy area, that wouldn't be hard to edit/alter into the Endor forest at night. Maybe we could even hear the ewoks very quietly in the background as they speak. That would be a million times easier than putting Luke in Ben's home from AnH and squeezing the scene into the beginning of the movie somewhere.

 

What do you guys think?

There isn't a place to put it there.

They land, the get into a fight, Leia seems to be captured or worse, they are about to be eaten, then Luke tells Leia.

It makes more sense for him to talk to Luke on Tatooine because it serves a purpose, if you do it on Endor it's a bit like Ben just popping up to give him the exact piece of knowledge he needs to get beaten by Vader.

If Luke doesn't know Leia is his sister Vader can't use that knowledge to try and turn Luke so having Ben turn up just as he is about to hand himself over to Vader seems like a very cruel cock-up on Ben's part.

Leia has just walked straight into Jabba's palace to save Han (dressed in a costume that makes her sound like dad). She is doing the Skywalker thing of allowing her emotional attachments get in the way of her larger responsiblilities, she has no patience.

Luke has just lost his master, he is the last of the Jedi and is about to go into battle alone (both at the palace and into the larger battle later).

Ben turning up there makes sense because he's giving Luke a pep-talk and warning him that Leia is in very specific danger because of her genetic predispostion to rush in thinking more with her heart than her head.

I don't get why the conversation would take place in Ben's house at all. On Tatooine, before Luke goes to Jabba's Palace, sure. But why Ben's house? I don't think a Force "ghost" would have any reason to cling to its living domain, he's not a ghost in that sense, surely.

Darth Venal said:

 

I don't get why the conversation would take place in Ben's house at all. On Tatooine, before Luke goes to Jabba's Palace, sure. But why Ben's house? I don't think a Force "ghost" would have any reason to cling to its living domain, he's not a ghost in that sense, surely.

Maybe put the scene into a Jabba's prison cell... after he killed the Rancor? Coud be easier to do cause Dagobah is kind of a dark place too. (I did not think about all the consequences on the other scenes though, just a quick thought).

Darth Venal said:

I don't get why the conversation would take place in Ben's house at all. On Tatooine, before Luke goes to Jabba's Palace, sure. But why Ben's house? I don't think a Force "ghost" would have any reason to cling to its living domain, he's not a ghost in that sense, surely.

 It's placed there for a number of reasons it bookends the start of Ben talking about Anakin in ANH so there's a visually poetic reason for it being in the same place, Ben has the tools for building the new lightsaber, it's a convienent out of the way place for the heroes to meet up and as I described before it makes the discussion serve a purpose beyond just closing the door on the inconvienient Han, Luke, Leia love triangle.

TMBTM said: Maybe put the scene into a Jabba's prison cell... after he killed the Rancor? Coud be easier to do cause Dagobah is kind of a dark place too. (I did not think about all the consequences on the other scenes though, just a quick thought).

The problem there is that there is no photographic evidence for what the cell Luke is kept in looks like, it serves no purpose because Luke has already pressed ahead with the rescue and he is now, as far as the audience is concerned, is as much of a mess as Leia is and it slows down the story just as it's picking up.

But anything happening beyond the dialogue is implicit anyway, and I find it highly unlikely that Luke only constructs a new lightsabre at this point. A whole year of training without a lightsabre and then he races of into battle and managed to destroy Vader?

And you also have the problem that R2-D2 needs to have the lightsaber before Luke goes to the Palace. I don't remember any opportunity for R2 to collect it from Luke before that.

Also, a convenient out-of-the-way place for them to meet isn't necessary. Ben can appear to Luke anywhere he wants. I'm not saying I would dislike a scene taking place there, but it just seems a bit contrived and unnecessary.

I meant it was a convenient out-of-the-way place for the heroes to land and plot the rescue, Obi-Wan picked the place because it was out of the way, landing in Mos Eisley or somewhere similar is bound to attract attention.

Obi-Wan is essentially a wizard in the OT, it connects with that mythic side of Star Wars to have Ben's ghost appear strongest in places of power. He is only a voice after his death in ANH, he is a pale ghost on Hoth, he barely appears on Dagobah in ESB but in ROTJ he has a full on exposition scene where he sits down and finishes the story he began in his home in ANH.

It's a place where Ben has a connection and a place Luke will associate strongly with Ben.

The stongest case for setting it there however is the story.

The only way to get Yoda's death to work is to start Luke's journey on Dagobah but to have such a long expositional passage without a break creates a drag in the beginning of the film.

Moving Ben's half of the story creates a new level to the rescue.

In the theatrical cut it looks like Luke has put all his eggs into one basket and it's impossible to imagine what would have happened if things had gone differently.

Having Leia impatiently rushing in to save Han takes some of the responsiblity of them all being in that mess off Luke and makes Leia more believable as being from the same stock as Anakin in ROTS and Luke in ESB.

His expostition begins to serve a purpose within the story instead of just a cop out for the writers who had painted themselves into a corner.

His glove isn't in every shot and I'm sure it could be removed in the few it is in.

I just don't find any of those reasons compelling enough to make such a substantial change. Luke only ever visited Ben's house once, and Ben was only there taking refuge and watching Luke, hardly a "place of power", as opposed to other places he's resided. 

I think all this circularity is very contrived. It can work in some stories, but Jedi is already too much of a rip off of Star Wars, so I think adding to that is just not a good idea. Why can't the conversation just take place on Dagobah?

There's just no reason to move it, unless you want to make a change for the sake of it.

Once again I think we will have to agree to disagree, I think the reasons are very compelling but you don't and we could argue for ages about it getting nowhere slowly.

It's an idea out there which I think will work and you don't.

The only way to be sure is to see it in action but even then we might not agree, that's part of the enjoyment of and also one of the risks of making changes to a film like this.

There are people who think Jedi is perfect already and no changes need to be made at all.

I didn't say it won't work, I said it's not necessary.

"If it ain't broke..."

ROTJ is broken though, that's the point of proposing the change.

Luke returning to Dagobah to finish his training after rescuing Han only to have Yoda die in the middle of a sentence and Ben suddenly drop the Leia bombshell is a major problem for the story.

And moving the entire sequence slows the pace of the beginning down to a crawl and creates few cut away points to deal with the various characters arriving at the palace.

Breaking that scene in half and putting Ben's side in his hut progresses Luke from Dagobah to Tatooine (where he needs to go next) and maintains the momentum of getting him to rescue his friends from Jabba.

It also makes Luke look less like a headstrong idiot who has learned nothing from his encounter with Vader by shifting some of the blame for the predicament to Leia who hasn't been trained as a Jedi.

It's not just change for change sake, it's change to make the story make more sense.

It's not just change for change sake, it's change to make the story make more sense.

That part of the story makes perfect sense. Jedi has many issues, but a slightly exposition-heavy scene isn't one of them. In 26 years I never heard a single complaint about the Dagobah scenes.

Anyway, I thought we were agreeing to disagree :-)

It makes no sense at all.

Luke getting a crash course in about a year I can kind of handle, from the theatrical cut we are lead to believe that Luke gets a few days, maybe a week training with Yoda, doesn't come back for about a year and Yoda drops down dead in the middle of a conversation after waiting that long???

Then Ben turns up and just throws in that Leia is Luke's sister at a pointless point in the story.

It sums up everything that's wrong with ROTJ and there are plenty of people who feel the same way (it's lets finish this thing and hope the audience doesn't notice it doesn't make sense).

Sure I said we should agree to disagree but you brought it up again by saying the scene wasn't broke and doesn't need fixing.

From my point of view it needs fixing, it really, really does, much more than special effects or tints if the story doesn't work why bother changing the surface details?

Okay, if that's what you really think, let's leave it there.

Darth Venal said:

 In 26 years I never heard a single complaint about the Dagobah scenes.

Have you heard nothing I've been saying?  Where am I?