Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 311

Footage like that could be good for a rough and ready edit but ideally shooting some new footage and some new model work and merging it with the current footage would really pull it off.

For years Jerjerrod's twitchy performance has bugged me, to the point of suggesting replacing his character altogether but it would really fit with this scenario.

It would create a whole new tone.

Where first you think it's going to be a doable but difficult task for the rebels, then you sense a tangible new threat, then it seems easy, then it seems even more difficult and then it becomes a bit of more even sided.

It's almost like the entire galaxy has become the inside of Luke and Vader's heads as the swing each other back and forth on the puppet strings of Palpatine. 

I guess one thing ROTJ lacks is the Deathstar killing Yavin IV scenario. There is a missing threat level to the battle, as there is no killer countdown.

WHAT IF

In the opening crawl, it is established that a collective of rebel groups have, in a decisive and surprise attack, captured Coruscant. (bonkers I know). The crawl could also suggest that the rebels have been going from strength to strength since ESB.

The Emperor however has escaped the rebels, and his location is unknown.

The Empire, now being under threat by the rebels, moves to take back Coruscant, and the rebel command move to defend it.

A twist later on in the story though, is that a second deathstar has been under construction, and the emperor plans to use it on coruscant itself.

In the novel, the Death Star begins to rotate in order to take out Endor after the shield generator was destroyed.  This isn't so radical, but it could capture the tension you mention.  Also, if more capital ships are destroyed and the fleet in greater apparent jeopardy because of the Death Star and star destroyers, this might better capture the tension without the film having to be too dramatically altered.

Personally I think the Rebels could never muster enough troops and ships to take Coruscant in the conventional way.

It would make more sense to me that it's a popular uprising like those currently seen in the Middle East and were also seen in Eastern Europe.

Riots, tanks on the streets, fires lapping at the crystal spires and the Imperial fleet keeping the place locked down.

The Rebels could take advantage of that chaos but I doubt if they would themselves be the cause of it.

I know this has already been extensively covered, but I wish that someone would create some CGI AT-STs for the Battle of Hoth.  It would only make sense that the Empire would employ more than just one type of vehicle, and it would improve the continuity between shots.  They wouldn't have to be close up and detailed, just some little chicken walkers hanging around the legs of the AT-ATs, with maybe a couple of close flybys from the snowspeeders (and here we would only need one of the existing Hoth scout models as seen below; no real motion would be necessary, nor would the whole walker necessarily be visible).

It has been covered already on the ESB:R thread (Ady is not doing it) but I could imagine and still dream that other editors will give it a pop.

Making it look like 'stop motionesque' would be a plus though.

One of the few little touches I liked about the walkers in AOTC and ROTS was that did at least try to match the spindly movements of stop motion, even if they didn't quite get there.

Yeah, I know Ady won't do it, but like you said, maybe someone else will take up the challenge.  I truly wish I had half the skills of the many brilliant editors who frequent this site.  This would be a definite project, and I would likely donate it to Ady in the hopes that he would incorporate it.  But alas, my skills in this field are pretty pathetic.

timdiggerm said:

Small note: I was thinking about the DS explosions, and about how most of us want to see the shockwave gone from ANH.

I'm actually not sure I feel the same way about ROTJ. The collapse of the reactor makes the shockwave make more sense in ROTJ, it looks pretty cool the Falcon at the end, and it makes a nice visual distinction between the DS and DSII explosions.

I don't like neither of them, we've seen cruisers blowing up (or almost) in TPM (the "donut" spaceship), ROTS (the invisible hand) and ESB (in Hoth, when the ion cannon fires, the star destroyer kinda sinks in space), so it's pretty un believable that a space station that's like a thousand times bigger than a star destroyer could blow up in the same amount of time that a TIE fighter does...

I'd rather go for little explosions here and there until it starts to blow up seriously; in both movies (if there's no way to change the DSII plot in ROTJ).

True, you got me there ;)

I'm moving this over from the Save Lando! thread as it has potential over here.

I suggested recently that the underground bunker scenes be adjusted so that they are actually up under the dish which would now collapse rather than vapourise with half the forest.

That would leave the exploding bunker entrance rather redundant. You could imply Han, Leia and Chewie have all died or are critically injured in the collapse which coupled with Vader's taunts would make Luke's snap the ultimate reaction shot as he is tied to his friends through the Force.

If you added more injuries to Leia, Chewie on Han on some kind of gurney and Rebel rescue crews digging out survivors it would really make the ending very bitter sweet.

It would mirror Artoo's damage in ANH but these aren't droids and their injuries while treatable may carry scars for the rest of their lives.

It would mean adjusting the celebration scenes at the end. Maybe even removing them in their current form and focusing more on the funeral pyre of Anakin Skywalker.

I would assume Ady will be making shaw the old anakin ghost again.

But if Hayden were to be left in there I thought of an idea to make it work better.

Perhaps at some reflective point in ROTJ Luke could somehow be shown viewing an old photo of his father when he was young. During the time span in ROTJ Luke is heavily thinking about his father and turning him back. It wouldn't be that out there to see him checking out an old image like that as it might be part of his way of coming to terms with his family history. 

Then when he sees the ghost at the end it would be a better tie-in.

DF Shadow said:

But if Hayden were to be left in there......

 He dies as an older man, not his younger self. It makes no sense for the ghost to come back as his younger self. It was a cheap gag thrown in by Lucas to try and tie the OT in with the prequels. Instead of actually showing some effort and making the new "films" work with the pre-existing material he goes back and tries to make the films that have existed for 30 years work better with the new ones he's making. Its backa$$wards and its wrong

^Amen

If you watch Hayden's face, the movement is very similar to when he says farewell to Obiwan during the middle of ROTS.

So cheap he didn't even film original footage!

ben_danger said:

If you watch Hayden's face, the movement is very similar to when he says farewell to Obiwan during the middle of ROTS.

So cheap he didn't even film original footage!

Interesting theory that.

The official story is that the head is test footage for ROTS which is (obviously) plopped onto Sebastian Shaw's shoulders.

Though it's more a question to be posed over on the Star Wars Discussion Boards.

A minor change, along the same lines as the minor change to Ben's gift to Luke of his father's lightsaber mentioned recently on the ANH:SE redux thread could be slightly altering Ben's ghost's dialogue in ESB so he says, "There you will learn from Yoda, a Jedi Master who instructed me."

It goes against my principles of changing the PT to match the OT and not the other way around but I thought I'd mention it after reading it here.

It would be the easiest way to get around why Qui-Gon is Obi-Wan's master in the PT and not Yoda (they both taught him).

New blu ray trailer up.

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/234525/star-wars-the-complete-sagaexclusive-trailer.html

The only thing that looks noticablly different to me is at 0:57 the sabers look tweaked. Other than that I am still looking for more to be done to this set.

Further to my earlier suggestion that the underground bunker be moved up into the air under the dish.

The entrance could now be the backdoor to the dish complex and not the main base with the hanger.

That way when the Rebels go through the bunker entrance they could enter a service elevator taking them though up through a cliff and into the tower (like a mountain lift).

Once again forgive the crudity of this mockup.

Hopefully more skilled hands can do the concept more justice.

When the supporting structure for the dish collapses the Rebels would have a short time to descend and debris could litter the forest and possibly create injuries.