Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 78

shanerjedi said:

That's right. Open it on Dagobah and walla

 

I still disagree with this - opening the film on Dagobah causes pacing problems.

To solve this, my solution is:

- Open the film with Vader visiting the Death Star
- Cut to Leia in bounty hunter disguise delivering Chewbacca
- THEN Luke on Dagobah

It sounds stupid, but that really does fix the pacing problems encountered with moving the Dagobah scene.

Some people complain that opening the film this way doesn't give you enough of an introduction to Jabba's palace, but I disagree - you can easily establish that it's Jabba by changing Leia/Boushh's subtitles ("Greetings, mighty Jabba.  I bring you Chewbacca" or something), and if you start it with the dancer falling into the pit (but please for the love of God, no Lapti Nek!), it gives the opening a much more dark, foreboding feeling.  I think it works very well.

ChainsawAsh said:

shanerjedi said:

That's right. Open it on Dagobah and walla

 

I still disagree with this - opening the film on Dagobah causes pacing problems.

Totally agree, as I found out in recent "story rewrite" experiments in my ROTJ edit:
the problem with restructuring the "Yoda on Dagobah" scenes to the beginning is that the following "Tatooine/Jabba" subplot has nothing to do with the "Jedi/Yoda/Vader/Emperor" subplots (which dominates the majority of the story) - for story purposes, it's better to get the "Han's rescue" part out of the way at the beginning so that the remaining 2/3 of the movie can be focused on the Rebel/Empire struggle and Luke dealing with Darth Vader & the Emperor.

In every form of the Fan-O-Matic style reworking Luke is on Dagobah at the beginning of the story (his first scene is the death of Yoda) what order the scenes play out in is a matter of experimentation.

It appears I might be getting my (long mythical) new computer this week so ASAP I will try different combinations.

My instincts point to the Vader scene coming after Yoda confirms who he is as it serves as a reminder of the end of ESB but it may work out differently in the wash.

The most important aspect of the story is the Emperor/Vader thing but it doesn't hurt to remind the viewers, save Han and then go back to it.

Aunt Beru, the Sand people etc have nothing to do with the Death Star but they fill in a story where the Death Star has already been flagged up in the beginning.

The Wampa, Han's tiffs with Leia etc have nothing to do with Vader tracking down Luke but they don't get in the way of a story where that was flagged up in the beginning.

Also I suggested a few ways where the Jabba scenes could be tied into the main story (Vader having the planet watched to see if anyone attempts to save Solo, Fett selling the plans to the Rebels, Fett tipping Vader off that the Rebels are in the Palace etc).

The key advantage with starting Luke's end of the story on Dagobah is he is a fully trained Jedi (all be it still a crash course of about a year) by the time he faces the Emperor and tries to save his friends.

In the current set up he has had about a days worth of training from Ben and a few days from Yoda (presumably everything else was done via Ouija board) and Yoda just hangs on and dies a few miniutes into Luke's return visit.

Bingowings, if you are planning on doing a little more with Boba Fett in your edit, maybe the mockumentary Return of the Ewok could be of some use. If I remember correctly, there is some footage of Fett in the hallways of either a Star Destroyer or the Death Star.

There is a video of it on YouTube. The quality isn't very good, but maybe you can use it to see if there is any material worth salvaging in there. I'm sure there is a better quality of the video floating around on the web ;)

I believe Return Of The Ewok was subject of a preservation project.

Ripplin, I think that might've been the original longer PBS version of Making the Saga specials back in '83 or '84 that you're thinking of.

Perhaps you could restore gravitas to the Jabba reveal by remixing the Boussh and droid arrivals.

If Boussh is a bounty hunter delivering Chewie why does he come in guns blazing anyway?

You could still have the grenade method of price negotiation but just have him turn up to deliver his prey and things turn nasty when he doesn't get the agreed price.

The scuffles might be recycled as attempts to escape the new guy with the bomb once things get hairy rather than trying to stop him from getting into the room in the first place.

 When the droids turn up it could be in the middle of Jabba's strip show and having Oola drop then would give the droids more of a reason to be fearful.

But that would mean that the droids must still turn up before Leia's failed attempt to revive Han which wouldn't fit in with the idea of Luke rescuing a failed rescue attempt (unless a clever lad or lady out there can work out a way of reconciling the two concepts).

Just watched ROTJ today and I noiced that the cockpits in the AT-ST's are pretty weak. With all the mockups I have seen of jedi fighter and x-wing cockpits, I thought these would be omething new to fix.

Also there is some great CGI of the Falcon and other fighters entering the Death Star II in one of the menus for the chapters.

Double post. Gahhh!

What I want to know is why 3PO thinks Lando and Chewbacca never returned from Jabba's palace?

Boushh then shows up with Chewbacca.

?

Take Luke out of it completely at first. Have him leave Dagobah and then go to Tatooine once Leia's plan goes to hell.

It would also give Jabba more weight as a villain if he screws up the heroes plans initially and Luke has to go in and rescue them.

Have the heores split up in the beginning. Luke is on Dagobah finishing his training. Leia and the rest are off rescuing Han.

But Jabba forces Luke to come to the rescue.

I dont know. Im making it up as I go. :p

That's sort of what I was suggesting a few pages back. With Leia becoming impatient waiting for Luke and going in on her own forcing Luke to have to rescue the lot of them.

I missed that suggestion bingowings. But it would seem to add a little gravitas to the whole thing if things don't quite work out for them.

The existing cut is too cookie cutter, A,B,C, by the numbers if you know what I mean. The heroes outwit Jabba too easily IMHO.

And you could still start off with Jabba's palace. Then go to Vader/Dagobah. Then back to Jabba's with Luke arriving.

shanerjedi said:

What I want to know is why 3PO thinks Lando and Chewbacca never returned from Jabba's palace?

Boushh then shows up with Chewbacca.

?

Take Luke out of it completely at first. Have him leave Dagobah and then go to Tatooine once Leia's plan goes to hell.

It would also give Jabba more weight as a villain if he screws up the heroes plans initially and Luke has to go in and rescue them.

Have the heores split up in the beginning. Luke is on Dagobah finishing his training. Leia and the rest are off rescuing Han.

But Jabba forces Luke to come to the rescue.

I dont know. Im making it up as I go. :p

funny, i was going to suggest something similiar. i think though luke should go back when he notices a disturbance and realizes its his friends who are in trouble.

Now I assume Adywan is going use the GOUT version of Darth Vader "bring my shuttle" in ESB and not the revised "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival " crap, where we see a pointless detour of Vader returning to the SSD with ROTJ Vader exiting his ship and a shitty CGI hanger room.

that mockup is really nice vaderios, it really brings it to life a bit more.

the colour correction works well too, replacing that green hue with a yellowy one.

That would make sense (I kind of liked the front it just never looked switched on) but the back doesn't do anything for me.

vaderios said:

I like the new lights, but I think that the displays could show crosshairs over heat-vision images of the forest ahead. Have the crosshair move around, searching for ewoks to shoot.