Possessed Return of the Jedi-* Resurrected!!* — Page 9

Possessed said:

Sluggo said:

The music sounds great!

 I think the clip works fine without the orbital shot of Tatooine.  It is R2 and 3PO out in the desert.  Where else would it be other than Tatooine?  If you wanted to announce it is Tatooine through the music instead of a visual, you could drop in a very small segment of music from the original Star Wars score from when the droids were wandering in the Jundland Wastes.

Well, see from a storytelling point of view it looks fine.  The main reason I added it was just to slow things down a bit.  Imagine how fast that would be, that would have the story literally jumping from luke and r2 on degobah and r2 and 3p0 on tatooine in the span of about 9 seconds.  Now with the orbital shot, it's at least 15! lol.  You're right tho, it doesn't look very good.  Maybe I should replace it with a generic shot of just a desert of tatooine?  Would be a better establishing shot and still slow the pace down.

What about a slow zoom in on the matte painting of the X-Wing and Falcon parked in the desert? Could that work as an establishing shot?

This is the painting, though this file is small.

http://www.starwarz.com/tbone/plugins/p17_image_gallery/images/1140.jpg

I'm sure a larger version exists somewhere.

EDIT: Little bigger: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vKkO-Vg3VbQ/THU7d5iE2HI/AAAAAAAAAlQ/YRRnJ9FT-KA/s1600/paint1+(1).jpg

Cool!

Possessed said:

Erik, nice idea indeed!

So I'm going to make you guys a nice little preview for waiting so long.  I was thinking just the edited film as is right now from the beginning up until the droids enter the palace.  (Now remember, this now includes the degobah scenes as well)

Fantastic. I haven't been able to come around a couple days. But this is exciting.

Erikstormtrooper said:

Possessed said:

Sluggo said:

The music sounds great!

 I think the clip works fine without the orbital shot of Tatooine.  It is R2 and 3PO out in the desert.  Where else would it be other than Tatooine?  If you wanted to announce it is Tatooine through the music instead of a visual, you could drop in a very small segment of music from the original Star Wars score from when the droids were wandering in the Jundland Wastes.

Well, see from a storytelling point of view it looks fine.  The main reason I added it was just to slow things down a bit.  Imagine how fast that would be, that would have the story literally jumping from luke and r2 on degobah and r2 and 3p0 on tatooine in the span of about 9 seconds.  Now with the orbital shot, it's at least 15! lol.  You're right tho, it doesn't look very good.  Maybe I should replace it with a generic shot of just a desert of tatooine?  Would be a better establishing shot and still slow the pace down.

What about a slow zoom in on the matte painting of the X-Wing and Falcon parked in the desert? Could that work as an establishing shot?

I love this shot too.

Another source for this transition is the classic "pan down" to Tatooine from the opening shot of ANH. Cut it or loop it for a beat before the Blockade Runner comes into the shot, then wipe to the unused matte painting. Poetically speaking, that classic image of Tatooine could work as a visual cue to this "rhyme" from ANH of going back to Tatooine.  Lucas constructed ROTJ with many such rhymes.

ANOTHER IDEA: Later, once the Ewoks join the final battle, there is a lot of visual joking in the original cut. But there seemed almost a beat of real gravity when one or two Ewoks die. Can the dead Ewoks move up, timewise, in the battle? The sooner we see Ewoks die, the more real the battle will become.

EDIT TO ADD: The DanEdit does a great job of this. His work on the Ewoks is terrific! I would only add to his work the little bit when we first encounter them by showing Ewok feet and a spear stalking up to Leia's unconscious body to leave her in a sense of impending danger before cutting away to the others.

Erikstormtrooper said:

This is the painting, though this file is small.

I'm sure a larger version exists somewhere.

EDIT: Little bigger:

Grab this ;)

Im sure you will find it useful :)

(right click for full size)

It sure needs some post and clean up (i would prefer DE's camera projection technique)

-Angel

My first instinct was a straight dissolve/cross fade.  I just watched ANH and counted two in a row in the sequence where Luke and Ben are being shadowed on their walk to the Falcon.

I said "wipe" to avoid having to defend what I thought would be a losing suggestion.  Honestly, I think a cross dissolve of this kind (from outer space to long shot) will work great.

Dan mentions the trouble of not having any Luke shots after the story rejoins the Rebel fleet (meaning, no shots that will work with the idea that Luke went to Degobah before going to Tatooine). I like Possessed's attitude toward fixing this by truncating the whole briefing. I want to suggest the obvious, that the Luke/Han/Leia reunion can be moved to the front of this briefing and that the lack of Luke coverage can be disguised by choosing a clever place to cut out of the scene.

The scene begins with a hand-held shot walking into the briefing room. Then a shot of Ackbar up on the command bridge. I suggest the next shot be Luke coming downstairs to join Leia and the others. After they all greet each other, then hearing the first words of the briefing over that image ("The Emperor's made a critical error...") would allow a cut directly to the woman giving the briefing. We can presume that Luke and everyone sits down while she's speaking.

Then she finishes speaking and Ackbar takes over. He finishes and then General Nadine speaks. Then let Leia set up a reveal with "I wonder who they got to pull that off" and then Nadine says "General Solo, is your Strike Team assembled?" -- with one last awkward look from Solo we can cut out of the scene. We don't need to see Chewie and Leia volunteer after that-- we know they would and seeing them on the shuttle will simply confirm what we knew without the (imho) lame bits of "I didn't want to speak for you" and "Count me in".

Then you can cut right to the hanger and Han getting on the shuttle-- just like in the Dan Edit (if you don't want to keep the Han/Lando farewell).

By the way, I keep looking at the DanEdit (Great work, Dan!).

He has some terrific ideas and beats. Some actually point to even better ones, in my opinion and I thought I'd suggest a couple here.

One happens when Han is trying to sneak up on the forest troopers -- Dan eliminates the twig snap by using the cut away to Chewie barking. I think taking that a step farther, you could use that cut away to come back on Han grabbing the trooper by the arm and flinging him into the tree. Then the second trooper sees the attack and tries to get away-- but Chewie steps up and shoots him down... mission accomplished. That way these two can look totally competent like they did taking out the probe droid in ESB. Work in the cut away to Luke and Leia where appropriate-- Luke's comment can take on a less sarcastic tone and the action can continue.

The other idea is a little earlier, when Han is sending the clearance code over to the Super star destroyer. As Dan has it, Leia sighs and says "Now we find out if that code is worth what we paid for it" and Han replies "It'll work. It'll work," while looking back at her and then looking forward.

I'd suggest the tension would work even better without this "Remember, we paid for this code and this is sure risky, huh?" type expository dialogue. I suggest the shots be short, quick reaction beats-- Han sends the code, then Leia breaths her sigh, then Han turns from glancing back at Leia to looking out the front-- then Luke says his line, "Vader's on that ship..."

 If these are good ideas, they are thanks to Dan's work.  I know that, if they can work, they are good bits for improving the tone of these scenes.

WHEE!

Hey everybody, another post from me! Yay!!

Anyway, does it bother anyone else when Vader says lines to Luke that underline his growing weakness? To me, the scene where Luke surrenders to Vader is nearly ruined by having him say two particular lines: "I MUST obey my master" and "It is too late for me, my son."

On the one hand, they lay bare a yearning inside Vader-- on the other hand, that yearning would be more powerful as an unspoken subtext.

Particularly the line "You don't know the POWER of the Dark Side" would stand better without the next line "I MUST obey my master."

And the last part of the scene will work way better without the totally false line of "It is too late for me..." -- I mean, is Vader a tough guy or an unwilling pawn?

My 2 cents. (added to all the others, I supposed).

Ah, I didn't know about that clip. I just went and looked at it and I agree with you: those lines that I dislike so much work better in your cut. You've made the scene play very well.

However, I have a hard time with these lines which state in no uncertain terms that Vader's a guy who would say: "I'd go with you if I could, but I am not able to do what I want." I can't accept them as something Darth Vader from ANH and ESB would ever say.

"He will join us or die, my master." That's how Vader talks. Cutting off Luke's hand to get Luke's attention-- that's what Vader does. This movie is about Vader changing, yes. But that change will be more effective without these lines. The impact of seeing Luke surrender this way (which Vader has admitted is a surprise to him) is HUGE. Vader should be happy, making his best pitch to bring Luke into the fold, not confessing his inner doubts.

The original scene tries to have it both ways.

You've cut it to the most effective presentation of Vader's doubts. I feel like both of these strategies fail to match up with Vader as we know him from the earlier movies.

For me, this scene could be made to match that character from the earlier movies-- if he emphasizes how great it is to be on the Dark Side and if he doesn't say "It's too late for me" and "I must obey my master."

These lines introduce an idea that isn't in the other movies-- that Vader doesn't like being who he is and that he wouldn't be this way if he had a choice. That's different than showing us how the Vader we knew is changing-- it's showing us a Vader that never was before and pretending that's who he was all along. I never met anyone who sensed that about Vader in ANH or ESB. 

I hope you can see where I'm coming from. I think this is a choice about who Darth Vader is in your edit. I understand if you don't want to go my way-- but I think this is the most important scene about who Vader is in ROTJ.

Possessed said:

And thanks alot Angel that's perfect.  And this edit's going to be a DVD, so being displayed at 720 X 480 I don't see why it should need clean up.  Just color altering.  And would you care to enlighten me to DE's camera projection technique?  Because the slow zoom doesn't work that well, it still just looks like a slow zxoom in on a still image.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Darth-Editous-Episode-IV-DVD-Info-and-Feedback-Thread-a-partially-de-specialed-DVD/post/406851/#TopicPost406851

I think it will work well for a subtle shot like this.

Still tho if you want to go with the pure OT route, any matte is static with a fake zoom with it.

Blowing sand some moving clouds or some human elements from an other source placed in the distance might give life to the matte.

I hope you will consider to erase/replace the black hole in the mountain (where supposed to be a cave?) because it distracts the eye from the ships.

-Angel

MTHaslett makes some very good points about Vader's personality in ROTJ. Between ESB and ROTJ, Vader has had a radical change of perspective, and he's switched from overthrowing his master to blind obedience.

If there's a way to edit this so Vader appears stronger and more consistent, I'm all for that. But it's such a prevalent feature of the movie that I'm not too positive it could be pulled off.

And Possessed, cropping the matte painting to focus on the ships would be perfect, as long as the resolution holds up.

The matte is enough big to crop and zoom as much as you want ;)

Zooming tho will definitely need some clean up.

Elements like sand and simple moving clouds can be found from various other movies or stock footages like videocopilot's one

-Angel