Possessed Return of the Jedi-* Resurrected!!* — Page 6

Yay! :)

Hey Possessed. I just found this thread and got excited about your edit.

I LOVE the idea of cutting the first Ewok scene with Leia. I've dreamed of what that would achieve-- it would definitely pick up the pace at that point and keep our focus on Luke where it belongs.

This is probably too late, but I had some other ideas that might suit this project:

1. What if the first things we see in Jabba's palace wasn't from the droids, but was actually the capture of Chewie and failed rescue of Han?

This would improve the "plan" that Luke et al seem to be enacting. My question has always been-- what if Leia succeeded? How would they get Chewie and the droids? Or was Leia's failure part of the plan? Anyway, starting with Chewie gives the plan a more logical escalation and gives Jabba a stronger sense of menace.

This would mean cutting around 3p0 for that scene.  Use subtitles to replace his lines.  Then I'd cut to an even whackier idea:

2. What if Luke's trip to Degobah came next?  Luke isn't on Tatooine yet, he's busy with another errand first-- Yoda. This would get us right into the main story earlier and remove a big kink from the storyline that occurs when this scene is saved for later.  The idea that Luke would go to Yoda before saving Han would indicate the level of pain Luke is still going through over his fight with Vader. 

Both of these changes would bring a dose of darkness to the opening of ROTJ. In my mind, that brings it closer into alignment with ESB.

After Luke leaves Yoda and Obi Wan, we would get the scene of the droids walking up to Jabba's palace and the stage would be better set for their scene, the death of the first dancer, and then Luke's arrival and the reveal of Leia as Jabba's new bikini girl.

3. A minor note is that I would certainly recommend cutting the chatter between Han and Luke as they ride out to the Sarlaac pit. There is way too much "humor" that both falls flat and deflates the tension in that sequence.

I know you most likely want to finish your edit and I'm not sure why these ideas would make you want to hold off-- but I offer them in case they can be of any use.

I love what I'm seeing here and thanks for all your hard work!

Now I'm just saying this to say it, but if one were to start with the capture of Chewbacca and then Luke seeing Yoda die, then it might work best to cut away to Luke before the failed rescue of Han.

That way things would really look bad-- first Chewie is caught with no apparent hope of rescue (avoiding the silly reveal of Lando); then we find otu Luke isn't even there --and Yoda dies; then Leia gets herself caught... Jeez!(cut the Han/Chewie reunion scene). With the darkest possible music over all this, it would feel as suspenseful as it was supposed to.

Then come the droids walking right up to the mouth of the lion... Their presence indicates that Luke has arrived, but he's already way behind.  But at least his plan now makes a little sense-- gift the droids, go in and try to get everyone else out -- if it all fails, R2 has his light saber hidden away as a second chance. (Provided Jabba makes R2 a drink server and takes them all to the Sarlaac pit and etc... I will never really understand Luke's plan).

BTW: Thanks, Sluggo-- Starkiller Ranch lives!

Great ideas, MTHaslett!

You should get some editing skillz of your own, so you can execute these ideas of yours.

I just saw the Dan edit of ROTJ and see that he cut the Leia/Wickett intro scene too. But I noticed that the tension is low because he cut the whole thing so there's absolutely no hint of what happened to Leia.

I think it's important to keep the first part of the scene where the feet and the spear come into view and approach Leia's helpless body.  Let the tension build in the music... DAH DAH DAHHH... and then cut to the next scene.

That way we know there's something out there, it's hunting us, and when the net catches everyone there's more suspense over finally seeing what it is.

Thanks for letting me add all this to your thread, Possessed. I totally understand that it's late in the game. As Erik says, it would be best if I could do these ideas myself. (Can these fan-edits be done on Mac yet?)

No prob. Glad it wasn't at least too late. 

I wouldn't want to change the plot -- really it can't be changed. My problems with ROTJ boil down to the basic fact that it's a decent story, poorly told.  It's the story of Luke getting clear about who he is and forcing his father to wake up a little.

But it starts with Luke as inexplicably overconfident-- declaring himself a "Jedi" when the last thing he did was bail on Yoda and have his ass handed to him by Vader.

Then it veers into every major character as if it might just turn into their movie. At any given moment it feels like it's Han's movie, then it's Leia's movie, then it's Luke's movie again.

As opposed to ESB which really had 2 stories, ROTJ is just one story-- but it's told as if it were many.  

So cutting down on the extra "I've got a problem" beats (like Han's yearning for the Falcon and Leia's being alone in the woods) helps put the focus where it belongs: on Luke.

The idea of shifting the trip to Degobah into the opening was to let that story begin where it's supposed to begin-- at the start of the movie. But if it's too radical, I understand. ROTJ has been the way it is for a long time. I wonder though: Have you tried just throwing it into the opening just to see what it does to the flow of things?

How much training did Luke actually get from Yoda? "A few weeks" does seem to match the amount of growth we witness in Luke-- but how much time actually passes between Han and Leia escaping the base on Hoth and then Han being frozen in carbonite?  Weeks? That feels more like a couple days. And Luke arrives on Bespin in time to watch Han's march from the freezing chamber to the Slave 1.

I guess if we grant that the cross-cutting between Han and Luke is not meant to be simultaneous then Han could have been tortured and imprisoned for weeks before being frozen.  But that's not what it seems like.

From what we actually see in ESB, it seems Luke could only have trained for as much time as it took Han to fly to Bespin, miss dinner and then get frozen. What's that, like two days?  Three?  Leia does fall in love, so maybe it's a week?  I don't know.  Still, pretty clearly less time than one should need to become a self-declared Jedi.

But that's just part of the whacky charm of the OT. The individual Star Wars fan has to mend the inconsistencies of the movies each in his own way.  I do believe a great movie is  hiding inside of ROTJ and I think Possessed is digging it out.

I wonder if the whole glove thing was to remind the audience about Luke's robotic hand - which becomes important at the end of the film. The movie does the kinds of introductions (Leia takes off the bounty hunter helmet and Han says "Leia") and exposition (3PO explaining about how Han was frozen in carbonite) that you might expect for a first-time viewer.

I really like your thoughts on the glove, Possessed.

I think the trick is to have a good establishing introduction to Degobah. It can't just wipe to Luke's x-wing on the ground after Vader on DS2. But I wouldn't want to see Luke flying there either.

Some images from ESB would be good-- ones of just the swamp environment, maybe reversed to be unrecognizable.

Another important issue would be music-- the cues in the Luke - Yoda scene after it has been moved up front need to be "...And here is our HERO!" "This is DRAMATIC and TENSE! because being here is not a vacation! It's a dangerous RISK..."  The subtle quiet cues that are in that Luke - Yoda scene now probably won't fit the bill (but I'm not guaranteeing that-- music can be a funny thing that way.)  I do believe the first time we see Luke needs a bit of picture/music massaging since it's now an introduction.

Don't mind me. Just pointing out the obvious. I am excited about this.