Hey Bester,
Glad to read you enjoyed the edit. I agree that it's fairly conservative - it was supposed to cut the stuff I didn't like rather than change the tone, or do anything more ambitious.
After you watch the experimental cut, if you could let me know what you think of it I'll be really grateful. Personally that's my current 'go to cut', but I doubt many people would agree.
Ask and ye shall receive....
I like the new crawl, but I’m not sure how I feel about the movie opening on a shot of empty space. The lack of a ship is very evident, but is really unavoidable when the next scene takes place on Dagobah. I like the idea of Luke completing his training before going to recue Han, but visually, it feels very much like a fan edit.
I’m a big fan of the lightsaber construction scene. But I’m not sure it really works given the structure of this edit. After this scene, the next time we see Luke he is entering Jabba’s palace and using a force-choke on the guards. I believe the purpose of these scenes is to show a darker tone to Luke, to give the audience the impression that he skirting the edges of the dark side. However, with the chronological re-arrangement of this edit, we have already seen his chat with Yoda and Obi-Wan and therefore are shown that he is still firmly on the side of light at the beginning of the movie.
The sandstorm scene is very interesting. I had no idea that some of the audio in the final cut was lifted from this scene. I think the briefing room scene is edited well, with the sandstorm scene in mind (the heroes have already had their kiss and cuddle on Tattooine, so no need to have another in front of the other rebels). I really hope this deleted scene can be cleaned up somehow.
I love the new shot of the Tydirium entering Endor. It really adds to the feeling of the rebels sneaking into the lion’s den (so to speak).
I’m in two minds over Vader’s force-choke of Jerjerrod. It is a nice little reminder of Vader’s intolerance of his underlings (after his killing spree in ESB, we could certainly use a few more scenes like this in RotJ!) But, on the other hand, I am a little unsure of Jerjerrod’s motivations. Does he get some kind of pleasure out of butting heads with Vader? Together with Jerjerrod’s reluctance to fire on Endor, you can almost see a sub-plot involving his ‘good guy’ personality – but this maybe doesn’t came across as well as it should do. As such, it may be better simply to leave these scenes on the cutting room floor for the sake of pacing.
The new shots of the Endor battle between the rebel Commandos and Stormies give a very chaotic feel, akin to the final shots of the Droid vs Clones battle on Geonosis in AotC. They are well done, but I’m not too sure if they really fit into the visual style of RotJ. I’m probably being a little biased here, as I have never liked action shots done entirely in close-ups.
There are probably loads of other changes I haven’t mentioned, but these are the ones that really stuck in my mind. Again, well done for producing such an interesting edit!
Spoiler free for the ST
Cool - thanks a lot!
I'll answer the points one at a time:
"I like the new crawl, but I’m not sure how I feel about the movie opening on a shot of empty space. The lack of a ship is very evident, but is really unavoidable when the next scene takes place on Dagobah. I like the idea of Luke completing his training before going to recue Han, but visually, it feels very much like a fan edit."
I'm on the fence about starting the film on Dagobah, but this edit is all about the father-son conflict, so starting with Luke asking Yoda about his parentage, then cutting to Vader, and then back to Luke was a way to get the main theme into the first scene (scriptwriting 101). Highlighting the father-son conflict was also why the lightsaber scene HAD to be in this edit, although I'm sure it would work better as Luke's introduction in the film.
"The sandstorm scene is very interesting. I had no idea that some of the audio in the final cut was lifted from this scene. I think the briefing room scene is edited well, with the sandstorm scene in mind (the heroes have already had their kiss and cuddle on Tattooine, so no need to have another in front of the other rebels). I really hope this deleted scene can be cleaned up somehow"
The original audio in the sandstorm scene is totally unusable - I took the audio from the space scene that replaced it in the film. I much prefer the sandstorm scene though, and I think the way I changed the order of the scenes "fixes" the pacing problem that made Lucas scrap it in the first place.
"I love the new shot of the Tydirium entering Endor. It really adds to the feeling of the rebels sneaking into the lion’s den (so to speak)."
Totally agree. It adds a cinematic moment that really helps the film.
"I’m in two minds over Vader’s force-choke of Jerjerrod. It is a nice little reminder of Vader’s intolerance of his underlings (after his killing spree in ESB, we could certainly use a few more scenes like this in RotJ!) But, on the other hand, I am a little unsure of Jerjerrod’s motivations. Does he get some kind of pleasure out of butting heads with Vader? Together with Jerjerrod’s reluctance to fire on Endor, you can almost see a sub-plot involving his ‘good guy’ personality – but this maybe doesn’t came across as well as it should do. As such, it may be better simply to leave these scenes on the cutting room floor for the sake of pacing."
Yeah I agree that Jerjerrod's motivations are a little unclear, but it seems like he's trying to compete with Vader for the Emperor's attention. I like the idea of trying to add to Vader's internal conflict about Luke, but it doesn't come across as well as I'd like. Still, him choking a minion is pure Star Wars, so it'll probably stay in.
"The new shots of the Endor battle between the rebel Commandos and Stormies give a very chaotic feel, akin to the final shots of the Droid vs Clones battle on Geonosis in AotC. They are well done, but I’m not too sure if they really fit into the visual style of RotJ. I’m probably being a little biased here, as I have never liked action shots done entirely in close-ups."
I hadn't thought of the Geonosis comparison for that scene, but yeah, it definitely feels like that. I agree with both your criticisms, but I wanted to show the stormtroopers being all hardcore, and that's the only footage I could find that fit at all. I'm not sure how well mixing the forest battle works with Jerjerrod telling the TIE bombers to napalm the forest, but I'm keeping it. Beats Ewok traps anyway.
Again, thanks for the comments.
Hey Dan,
Just finished downloading and watching your edit. Thanks for all your hard workI really enjoyed it, I thought it was a very bold edit with lots of interesting ideas. I do prefer it to the theatrical version. Will give you my few thoughts, I do agree with Bester on a few points;
Firstly the lack of a ship in the opening credits, I think is a real miss. I can think of two solutions; a re-arrange the opening crawl, so that the beginning starts as normal (swapping the death star sentence, and the Luke on Dagobah sentence) or perhaps as foreshadowing and not sure where you could get it from, but have a derelict partially destroyed Star Destroyer be the ship in the foreground just floating around Dagobah.
I liked Luke being on Dagobah, think it makes a lot more sense. I know you don't like the whole Luke and Leia sister thing, but I wonder if too much is lost from cutting it? I certainly missed the Obi-Wan conversation on Dagobah about Leia and Vader.
Jabba's palace I think flows much better; rancor scene is much tighter, though I wonder if it could be cut even tighter, and just have Luke run through the rancors legs and kill it quickly? Would give even more impression of how powerful he has become.
Really liked what you had done on the sail barge, hated Boba's death in the original; he either shouldn't of been there, or killed by Luke. The slapstic in RotJ is stupid, and sadly Lucas does it a lot in the prequels.
With regards the sandstorm scene, a suggestion I had made in another thread was either Vader or the Emperor could be watching it on a view screen (presumably from a probe droid) explaining the poor quality (or perhaps adding vision. Dream like ripples do it. Would add an extra dimension, either Vader is tracking Luke and holding it back from the Emperor. Or the Emperor is really aware of much of what is going on in the galaxy.
Not sure about cutting some of the briefing room stuff such as Leia saying "a general", "count me in" etc; but maybe I just need to get used to it.
I liked Vader partially and the stopping strangling Jerjerrod, but I'd move it till after the Emperor orders Vader to his command ship and then Vader comes back. I think it would make more sense then and gives more impression that Jerjerrod is just following orders, and could also explain the Emperors irritation with Vader coming back.
"I love the new shot of the Tydirium entering Endor. It really adds to the feeling of the rebels sneaking into the lion’s den (so to speak)."
- Couldn't agree more, think its a wonderful set of shots, great work!
One observation, was the source types weren't the same, so I did notice Vader going very fat at some points, due to the difference perhaps between NSTC and PAL or full-screen and wide-screen?
Ewoks are well trimmed, think it's a lot better now; could the scene of wicket and Leia gone on a little longer? Perhaps as long as they seem a threat?
I really liked what you have done with the battle on Endor; one thought I had with added video footage of Stormtroopers vs Rebels, was you could of put a display monitor around it, to give even more of the impression that was the feed on the monitor, to explain the difference in footage.
Finally, I'd suggest using Harmy's RotJ for the Vader vs Luke lightsaber fight, his lightsabers look much better than Vaders pink one in the DVD's.
Overall I liked the edit, good work.
Hope that helps!
"Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation." - Rabindranath Tagore
"Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth." - Kahlil Gibran
Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
A couple of quick points: your idea of making the sandstorm scene look like probe droid footage is interesting, although I'm still holding out hope that all the Jedi deleted scenes will be cleaned up (this edit won't be released until that happens). Re: the different source types - that's something that needs ironing out. It's the same source but there are a couple of shots of Vader which have been zoomed in too far to cut out stuff that shouldn't be in frame, so it ends up making it look wacky like that. It was done in a hurry, and is the kind of stuff I'd fix up before this edit was properly released.
The thing with Harmy's edition is that it's in NTSC so I'd need to convert it to PAL to match up with the rest of the edit - and whenever I try and do NTSC-PAL conversions they always end up "jittery" for some reason.
Did you think the increased emphasis on the father/son conflict worked?
Hey, yeah I entirely understand that its an unreleased version, was just commenting on it as, it's one of the few things that detracted from my viewing of it.
Yeah, I think the father/son conflict worked very well; it was well done. And gave much more emphasis between Luke and Vader (who the film should really of been about, opposed to cute fricking Ewoks). Nothing I'd really suggest for changes to that; though I wouldn't cut to a picture of Leia during the duel; but obviously the problem is conveying who Luke is thinking about without the sister side plot.
"Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation." - Rabindranath Tagore
"Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth." - Kahlil Gibran
Yeah that cut to Leia was something I had to add - when I watched the edit without the cut to Leia's face it made me laugh out loud, kinda like how Anakin's wet dream in Ep2 made people laugh. A "bad laugh". Vader says "especially - " and then stops, and just doesn't say anything for a pregnant pause... and then Luke attacks him for no reason.
Cutting out the brother-sister plot is great, IMO, except that one moment. It's not that I hate the brother-sister plot, but I thought in an edit about the father and son it's better to cut out the brother sister stuff.
Cool that you liked the father-son stuff - some of the new scenes were based on an incredibly limited amount of usable footage, and some of the composite work is horrible and needs to be redone, but I like the edit overall despite the flaws.
I've been working on this so-called experimental edit of ROTJ again the last few weeks, and have made some pretty big changes.
Here's the new opening of the movie to show what I mean:
http://www.mediafire.com/?f9p83mns4kkudz8
To put it in context, here's the crawl that immediately precedes that opening:
Relentless in their pursuit of the Rebellion, Imperial forces led by Darth Vader have pushed the Alliance to the fringes of the galaxy.
Meanwhile Luke Skywalker has returned to Dagobah, believing that only a fully trained Jedi will be powerful enough to rescue Han Solo from the clutches of vile JABBA THE HUTT.
While the Rebellion appear doomed, the Empire has begun construction on a second DEATH STAR.
In their most desperate hour, two Rebel Spies have successfully penetrated Imperial defences on the capital planet of Coruscant, and stolen plans to the terror weapon. Now they must flee the system and safely deliver the plans to the Alliance....
This edit now includes footage from the following Star Wars fan films:
Broken Allegiance
Vader Extincion
Revelations
Seeds of Darkness
Knightquest
SW:THX
Tydirium
Also, there is footage from the ROTJ deleted scenes, from the Interactive Board Game, and from Star Tours 2.
The edit is online now. If anyone wants it just PM me.
I really enjoy the opening to this new version of your experimental edit. I recommend it to anyone. Some of the other changes are quite interesting as well. This is a fantastic edit, and though I know daneditor plans on doing more to it as sources improve, as it stands now, it's a pretty fun take on ROTJ.
daneditor said:
I've been working on this so-called experimental edit of ROTJ again the last few weeks, and have made some pretty big changes.
Here's the new opening of the movie to show what I mean:
http://www.mediafire.com/?f9p83mns4kkudz8
To put it in context, here's the crawl that immediately precedes that opening:
Relentless in their pursuit of the Rebellion, Imperial forces led by Darth Vader have pushed the Alliance to the fringes of the galaxy.
Meanwhile Luke Skywalker has returned to Dagobah, believing that only a fully trained Jedi will be powerful enough to rescue Han Solo from the clutches of vile JABBA THE HUTT.
While the Rebellion appear doomed, the Empire has begun construction on a second DEATH STAR.
In their most desperate hour, two Rebel Spies have successfully penetrated Imperial defences on the capital planet of Coruscant, and stolen plans to the terror weapon. Now they must flee the system and safely deliver the plans to the Alliance....This edit now includes footage from the following Star Wars fan films:
Broken Allegiance
Vader Extincion
Revelations
Seeds of Darkness
Knightquest
SW:THX
Tydirium
Also, there is footage from the ROTJ deleted scenes, from the Interactive Board Game, and from Star Tours 2.
The edit is online now. If anyone wants it just PM me.
This looks absolutely fascinating.
I'm not entirely on board with starting the movie with the rebel spies escaping. It seems like too much of a rehash of the opening of ANH. But I'll leave judgement until I see the rest of the edit.
Let me take a stab at the opening crawl. I'd like to keep the traditional three paragraph format, and shorten it up a bit to be consistent in length with the other movies.
After his disastrous duel with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker has returned to complete his Jedi training under Master Yoda.
Impatiently waiting for Luke, Lando Calrissian has infiltrated the palace of vile gangster Jabba the Hutt in hopes of rescuing Han Solo.
With the Rebel Alliance scattered across the galaxy, the Empire has begun construction on a second Death Star. In a daring mission, two rebel spies have stolen plans for the weapon and now flee carrying the last hope for the Rebellion....
darth_ender said:
I really enjoy the opening to this new version of your experimental edit. I recommend it to anyone. Some of the other changes are quite interesting as well. This is a fantastic edit, and though I know daneditor plans on doing more to it as sources improve, as it stands now, it's a pretty fun take on ROTJ.
Thanks for the kind words.
gobalicious said:
This looks absolutely fascinating.
I'm not entirely on board with starting the movie with the rebel spies escaping. It seems like too much of a rehash of the opening of ANH. But I'll leave judgement until I see the rest of the edit.
Let me take a stab at the opening crawl. I'd like to keep the traditional three paragraph format, and shorten it up a bit to be consistent in length with the other movies.
After his disastrous duel with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker has returned to complete his Jedi training under Master Yoda.
Impatiently waiting for Luke, Lando Calrissian has infiltrated the palace of vile gangster Jabba the Hutt in hopes of rescuing Han Solo.
With the Rebel Alliance scattered across the galaxy, the Empire has begun construction on a second Death Star. In a daring mission, two rebel spies have stolen plans for the weapon and now flee carrying the last hope for the Rebellion....
I take your point about the opening being a rehash of ANH. For me, I like the similarity - and no, I'm not about to start talking about rhyming and poetry, and such crap. But it sets up the climax of the movie in the opening scene, which is scriptwriting 101. And starting a SW movie with a space battle always seems more appropriate.
I like your crawl, BTW. The truth is I wrote the one in my edit in about 5 minutes, and it shows. But as you'll see when you watch the edit, the words aren't the only problem with the crawl.
I spent the afternoon playing around with restoring some deleted scenes in Avisynth:
https://vimeo.com/62509661
(the first half is the original deleted scene, then the cleaned up version)
password: password
Nice! Definitely looks better.
If you have the time/resources, I'd replace that long shot matte though. One of ROTJ's many terrible matte paintings.
timdiggerm said:
Nice! Definitely looks better.
If you have the time/resources, I'd replace that long shot matte though. One of ROTJ's many terrible matte paintings.
Sadly, replacing matte paintings is way beyond my skill level.
daneditor said:
password: password
Hey, you stole my ot.com password. :-(
Your workprints are pretty good but for me it's all about your original V1.0. That is by far my favorite way to watch ROTJ. There's just one problem with it, the poor video quality. When I watch the OT in HD a lot of times I want to finish it with your V1.0 but it's such a drop in quality I usually don't. I know you said you don't have what it takes to make an HD version but maybe someone else could. It would be ideal if someone could take Harmy's upcoming ROTJ 2.0 in all it's despecialized, color-corrected, high-definition glory and use your V1.0 to make the ultimate HD edit of Return of the Jedi. I know you probably would want to move the Yoda scene to the beginning and make other alterations but I think V1.0 is great as it is and if it was upgraded to HD would just be the HD V1.0 also and you could go from there with other HD edits.
stretch009 said:
Your workprints are pretty good but for me it's all about your original V1.0. That is by far my favorite way to watch ROTJ. There's just one problem with it, the poor video quality. When I watch the OT in HD a lot of times I want to finish it with your V1.0 but it's such a drop in quality I usually don't. I know you said you don't have what it takes to make an HD version but maybe someone else could. It would be ideal if someone could take Harmy's upcoming ROTJ 2.0 in all it's despecialized, color-corrected, high-definition glory and use your V1.0 to make the ultimate HD edit of Return of the Jedi. I know you probably would want to move the Yoda scene to the beginning and make other alterations but I think V1.0 is great as it is and if it was upgraded to HD would just be the HD V1.0 also and you could go from there with other HD edits.
I'm working on an HD version of Jedi right now - but it's the radical edit, not the original one. Do you have the DVD of version 1 or the AVI? If it's the AVI it's an Xvid, which would certainly explain the poor quality. Thankfully I've discovered x264 since then.
daneditor said:
stretch009 said:
Your workprints are pretty good but for me it's all about your original V1.0. That is by far my favorite way to watch ROTJ. There's just one problem with it, the poor video quality. When I watch the OT in HD a lot of times I want to finish it with your V1.0 but it's such a drop in quality I usually don't. I know you said you don't have what it takes to make an HD version but maybe someone else could. It would be ideal if someone could take Harmy's upcoming ROTJ 2.0 in all it's despecialized, color-corrected, high-definition glory and use your V1.0 to make the ultimate HD edit of Return of the Jedi. I know you probably would want to move the Yoda scene to the beginning and make other alterations but I think V1.0 is great as it is and if it was upgraded to HD would just be the HD V1.0 also and you could go from there with other HD edits.
I'm working on an HD version of Jedi right now - but it's the radical edit, not the original one. Do you have the DVD of version 1 or the AVI? If it's the AVI it's an Xvid, which would certainly explain the poor quality. Thankfully I've discovered x264 since then.
But I wish you could go back to the original or the first workprint and make that HD. All the post-1983 stuff ruins it for me, it doesn't look right in ROTJ IMO. What would you think of making two HD edits? One could be radical and the other one without any stuff after 1983. If not, could I get version 1 from you; the DVD version because I only have the Xvid. I'm sorry to bother you it's just that your Version 1 was awesome and IMO the best edit of ROTJ. Your first workprint 'Father and Son' edit was great too, but I thought all the radical stuff after that was going to far.
I've been going through old hard drives looking for the original Vegas files, and can't find them - which rules out redoing it in HD. So the best I can do is upload the 4 gig mpeg, or convert that down to around a 2 gig x264.
The footage in it's raw state does match up much more than I expected it to.
It does feel like much of it is there just for the sake of it though.
The story is about our heroes and villains so concentrating suddenly on these new characters is jarring.
Maybe if the Tydirium sequences were linked to some shots of Mon Mothma listening to transmissions from Home One, when we see the briefing the footage will plug in more to the stories of Luke, Leia and Han.
Bingowings said:
The footage in it's raw state does match up much more than I expected it to.
It does feel like much of it is there just for the sake of it though.
The story is about our heroes and villains so concentrating suddenly on these new characters is jarring.
Maybe if the Tydirium sequences were linked to some shots of Mon Mothma listening to transmissions from Home One, when we see the briefing the footage will plug in more to the stories of Luke, Leia and Han.
Apologies, but I'm not sure what footage you're referring to. Do you mean the opening scene of those two people getting away from Coruscant? If so, that scene has since been cut from the edit. You're right - starting with two complete strangers was very jarring.
If you mean the brief shots of Tydirium landing on Endor, that's still there, but it's only a few seconds, and IMO it adds some atmosphere to the scene.
I meant the beginning which you have cut, sorry, hard to keep up.
It could be made to work, we hadn't a clue who Captain Antilles was in the first film and never found out much more about him in the prequels or sequels.
If we saw a mysterious woman monitoring their escape and then met her at the Rebel briefing.
The shuttle landing on Coruscant is great stuff.
It reminds me of a mockup I did years ago of the throne room on Coruscant.
I've reupped 'ROTJ: The Dan Edit' to Mega, so if anyone wants it PM me.
I'll start a new thread at some point for the other, more radical edit, it's getting too confusing in here.
Watched you clip Dan and it's pretty good...
I would like to see more.... Check out this If you can find a higher resolution there is some good stuff to use in that clip.