Return of the Jedi: Ewokless Edition (Abandoned)

I'm working on an edit that removes all the Ewoks in 'Return of the Jedi.' To be honest, I don't have a huge problem with Ewoks, but getting rid of them without disrupting the plot sounds like a fun editing challenge. I know this has been attempted before -- for instance, the somewhat controversial Spence Edit -- so how does my edit differ?

One major difference is that I've isolated the dialogue from the score, so I was able to chop and rearrange the Endor scenes without it be too jarring.

But what about the Ewoks who take out the AT-ST Walkers? Or the Ewoks who help the Rebels fight the scores of Stormtroopers? Without them, the plot doesn't make sense.

That's why I've significantly abridged the battle.  Every wide shot revealing a shitload of Stormtroopers and/or AT-ST Walkers (aside from the one whose pilot gets shot by Leia) are removed -- meaning the Rebels are more evenly matched.

3PO's "Are you looking for me?" bit is now edited to look like a diversion that gives the Rebels an opportunity to strike the (now) evenly matched Imperial soldiers. And when R2 tries to unlock the entry to the shield generator, it's edited to show that he's successful. The music around these scenes have been changed to accommodate transitions and make them properly dramatic.

And, just like that, the Rebels are able to blow up the shield generator without any help.

Here's a very rough preview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZiVphpQ_Qc

(It's missing some sound and it's not fully cut properly to the music, but you get the idea.)

Other Ewok-related cuts include the post-speeder chase scenes. The whole "Where's Leia?" mystery and the subsequent introduction to the Ewoks (such as Chewie and the gang being captured) are cut. I added an establishing shot of Endor's forest, suggesting that the next scene (Luke and Leia's conversation) takes place on a Rebel camp.

Some of the initial run up to the shield generator is kept, but the parts involving the four moronic Stormtrooper guards are cut (such as the Ewok hopping on the speeder and Han doing the "Hey, look at me!" maneuver). I always found this part to be hilariously stupid, so we'll just go directly to the heroes falling into the Emperor's trap.

And 'Yub Nub' is obviously out. The "other worlds" celebration is in, but all the dancing Ewoks are cut. The Sebastian Shaw ghost is kept (from the ADigitalMan edition), and is the last shot of the film.

Thoughts?

It would mean losing the line from Palpatine about an entire legion (that's a thousand troops on top of the troops already there to guard the base) of his best troops (unless you are adding more in).

There aren't enough troops on the ground as it is and to cut the ones taken down by the Ewoks makes them look even less.

Having them all brought down by a really small band of Rebels (especially if Fay Tony is the tipping point) on their own turns them even more into the Imperial Keystone Cops than having them beaten up by little Ewoks with sticks.

This too creates a problem as the Emperor using this as means to fire up Luke's anger is a key point in the film.

Don't want rain on your parade but I'm not sure this is something that can be done in a satisfying way with editing alone.

The preview clips look good but as you know we can still hear the teddy bears in the background.

That's a great point. I forgot to mention that I was going to take out that line by the Emperor.

EMPEROR 
Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends up there on the Sanctuary Moon...

Luke reacts. The Emperor notes it.

EMPEROR (cont)
...are walking into a trap. As is your Rebel fleet! It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. [CUT: An entire legion of my best troops awaits them. ]

Luke's look darts from the Emperor to Vader and, finally, to the
sword in the Emperor's hand.

EMPEROR
Oh...I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

 I think it's enough to smooth it over, and it makes Luke react to the shock that the Emperor planned this all along.

Are there any other inconsistencies that my edit would cause? This is why I decided to ask the wise people here before going any further.

i would be interested in seeing this, please keep uploading stuff to youtube!

I'm just not buying the Emperor knowing about the Rebels being enough to fire up Luke angle.

If the only troops there are the ones that would be guarding the base if the Rebels had accurate intelligence didn't Luke let that cat out of the bag himself by handing himself over to Vader?

Also without the Ewoks and their village Luke's decision to hand himself over comes out of nowhere.

He knows Vader is sensing him so he waits around long enough to get into a speeder bike chase and then hands himself over without any warning to the other Rebels and the audience?

It might work and I'm interested to see how far it could work but I'm not sure if I've got any good ideas yet to make it more plausible.

If the only troops there are the ones that would be guarding the base if the Rebels had accurate intelligence didn't Luke let that cat out of the bag himself by handing himself over to Vader?

Sorry, but could you clarify what you're saying here? I didn't cut the scene where Luke talks to Leia about turning himself in. I only replaced the establishing shot. Correct me if I'm wrong, whatever motivations he has doesn't change whether or not there were Ewoks.

But I could be wrong. 

That then poses a new set of questions, where is this scene taking place? Who built it? If the Rebels built it, it seems like a big waste of time when they should be getting ready to storm the base in the morning.

You could paint out the village and the bridge and put the scene in a Rebel encampment but that is more than pure editing.

As I said in my first post to get this to work would mean a lot of hard work (not that I putting anyone off I'm just pointing out the difficulties).

Yes but that isn't enough, in the footage as it stands it's a huge major structure built within the tree line high above the ground.

To turn it into a quickly assembled encampment would require a major reworking of the current material beyond just adding a new establishing shot.

One possibility would be to simply zoom in the footage to get it a tighter two-shot, hiding the torches and (most) of the bridge. 

If you watch this crummy version here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthKf434YRU

(from 7:36 onward)

...with this aspect ratio, a lot of the setting just looks like "ambiguous forest area" when it's tighter. 

Actually that might work.

If you cut out Luke asking about his mother and Leia's response (which is problematic to the larger saga anyway) then all of it is just talking heads.

You could start with your new establishing shot, have Leia ask Luke what's wrong and he could tell her that Vader can sense him because he is his/their father.

You could even cut her somehow always knowing which makes the smooch in ESB extra creepy and Han's rather out of character possessive hissy fit (no more bridge's or large structures in shot).

It would mean losing him walking away which is a bit jarring but it would create the impression of it all being on the ground.

Those are great ideas, Bingowings! Cutting those definitely keeps the bridge out of the shot, and improves the story significantly.

I know you've said the youtube clip is only a rough cut but the music really brings me out of the segment. Lando's space battle with Empire's Han & Leia's love theme playing for example.

J

I know you've said the youtube clip is only a rough cut but the music really brings me out of the segment. Lando's space battle with Empire's Han & Leia's love theme playing for example.

That's understandable. I put those two scenes up because they'll be the biggest deviations from the original film. I think it's the cleanest way to do it, but the soundtrack as-is doesn't work -- because the characters resolve the situation right then and there, it needed to have climactic music to match it. 

The music was used to mirror the R2-opening-the-Cloud-City-doors scene in ESB. I pushed it into the previous scene to make the music flow better, as it'd be too jarring otherwise. 

Are there any other recommendations for music? I may try other choices if anything strikes me as an improvement. 

Theres the unused composition 'Sail Barge Assault (alternate)' which is upbeat on the double Sony ROJ soundtrack (also called 'The Return of the Jedi (Alternate)' on the Bonus disc of the Star Wars Trilogy Boxset) it is just over 5 minutes long so there should be something you could use of it.

Can't wait to see more of your edit,

J

I've tried the alternate 'Sail Barge Assault' track for the first scene, but I didn't think it had the right amount of heft. I may give it a shot again later.

Anyone else have any objections to the preview? Or -- dare I ask -- like it?

While we're on the subject, I've noticed Moth3r's pinned list of fan edits mentions CowboyPriest's "No Ewok" version of Episode VI. I can't find any information about this whatsoever. Has anyone seen it, or know how it was done?

itsatrap said:

One major difference is that I've isolated the dialogue from the score, so I was able to chop and rearrange the Endor scenes without it be too jarring.

Am I the only one who noticed this? How did you do this?

I noticed too and forgot to ask about it - isn't that kind of the holy grail of SW fanediting? (and why people are so interested in the soundboards?)

Actually, I found out how to do that by searching the forums here. Moth3r's post on it sums it up:

With 5.1 audio, dialogue in the centre channel, it can be done with BeSweet by decoding into separate WAVs and extracting just the front left and front right channels. You will be left with music and effects, but dialogue should be mostly gone.

BeSweet (which is free, but a pain in the ass to set up) can take a .VOB file and (provided that it's 5.1 audio) output six WAV files: one of them being mostly dialogue. It's not perfect, as there's still some faint music on the track, but you can cover that up by mixing in some John Williams on top.

So in my editor, my audio layers are:
* The original audio
* The BeSweet extracted dialogue track
* The ROTJ soundtrack synced with the film

So, actually nothing new. And I think you'll find (if not already) that it's more than just bleed through in the central channel, that sometimes it's being blasted into the channel.