Return of the Jedi - Remastered (Released)

RETURN OF THE JEDI: REMASTERED, v3.0 (FANEDIT BY DARTHRUSH)

VERSION 3.0 OF THIS EDIT HAS BEEN FINISHED AND UPLOADED. PM ME FOR A LINK 😃

MAIN PURPOSE OF EDIT:

When it comes to the Star Wars movies, I consider episodes 4 and 5 to be nearly untouchable masterpieces. The prequels were lacking for myself but there is a massive selection of wonderful fan-edits to choose from. Return of the Jedi on the other hand has always stuck out like a sore thumb for me. It was good but disappointing compared to the cinematic heights reached by the previous two in the original trilogy. Han Solo acted completely different and lost all of his swagger. Strangely enough, he was jealous of Luke. The Ewoks presented an illogical solution to the threat of the Empire and they sucked up a lot of the tension in the third act. And there were just a handful of moments that take the viewer out of the experience. Overall, I felt that Return of the Jedi has not been done justice in the fanediting field. I felt it necessary to provide a streamlined experience which mitigates the Ewoks, improves the character of Han Solo and trims the more distracting elements of the film. I hope you all enjoy this fanedit!

RELEASE INFORMATION:

-720p with 5.1 Surround Sound

CUT LIST:

[THIS WILL ALL BE USING THE THEATRICAL VERSION OF STAR WARS. NO SPECIAL EDITION ELEMENTS ARE RETAINED EXCEPT FOR THE SE MUSIC/CITY CELEBRATIONS AND VADER’s EYEBROWLESS FACE]

-Use retro fox fanfare
-removed 3PO’s captain obvious moment where he says “Oh look, it’s Captain Solo, and he’s still frozen in carbonite.”
-remove droid screams in droid torture scene. (Lovingly borrowed audio from Ziggy’s edit here)
-cut out disintegration of the past protocol droid.
-Both Jedi Rocks and Lapti Nek are very bad, so neither of those survives my edit, but I did retain the nice little musical piece that the harmonica-playing turtle was doing. This also means that Jabba’s servant doesn’t fall down the pit. This makes it more of a surprise when Luke falls into the Rancor pit himself.
-Rescored Chewie’s getting taking away with “Bounty for a Wookie”. (This idea is borrowed from the Dan Edit)
-removed Boba Fett’s nod at Boush.
-We no longer see Lando pull his mask down.
-cut out the frog burping outside of Jabba’s palace
-added force choke sfx when Luke approaches the two Gamorrean guards. (Lovingly borrowed audio from Ziggy’s Edit here)
-Trim Luke and Han’s dialogue scene on the skiff so it ends on Han saying “you’re going to die here, you know”
-added music to the scene between Luke and Obi-Wan on Dagobah for improved emotional effect.
-cut Han and Lando’s conversation before rebel briefing starts.
-took out Han’s line of “good luck, your gonna need it.”
-took out 3PO’s line of “exciting is hardly the word I would choose.”
-took out the entire scene of Lando and Han talking in the hangar
-removed the beat of Han worrying about the falcon
-cut out Han’s “Keep your distance Chewy. But don’t make it look like your trying to keep your distance. I don’t know, fly casual” during shuttle sequence.
-cut out the useless exposition scene in the throne room where the Emperor tells Vader to go on the executor. It slows down the plot and is not needed.
-remove Leia and Wicket scene
-took out Han saying “I hope she’s all right”. It’s far too on the nose.
-cut out Han grabbing Ewok’s spear and his “proper” line. This helps make the Ewok’s seem more scary. Han easily manhandling the spear of an ewok greatly reduces any tension that might even be present.
-cut out cutesy shots of Ewoks when 3PO is being floated in the air on his chair
-cut out R2 electrocuting the Ewok.
-Threepios storytelling cuts off at “I was just getting to that”. We cut to Luke outside from there. That god awful laughably delivered line from threepio saying “we are now part of the tribe” and the following celebrations is just so damn SILLY! Watch that part again and you will giggle whether it be on the inside or the outside.
-cut out Han talking to Leia after Luke leaves. This cuts out Han acting jealous of Luke.
-I cut out ATON of the ewoks in the battle. They arrive as an early distraction, then when you see them the rest of the time, they are usually getting there asses handed to them by the Empire.
-Take out Chewie’s tarzan yell
-remove the cringeworthy “I love you—I know you” callback.
-have Vader’s head fade away when he dies. This now is consistent with Obi Wan and Yoda dissapearing when they died.
-Han and Leia’s conversation after the death star explodes, is as follows:
Han- “I’m sure Luke wasn’t on that thing when it blew.”
Leia- “He wasn’t…I can feel it.”
Han gives a very confused look
Leia- “He’s my brother”
The scene flows REALLY well now, and is a huge improvement over the original. In my edit, there is absolutely no trace of jealousy in Han.
-Thanks to Q2, the ending scene has the SE music (“Victory Celebration”) and it has Sebastian Shaw as Anakin. Also, the “wesa free” line has been removed. I think the SE music is more grand and emotional, I despise the “wesa free” line in the Naboo shot, and I hate hayden’s ghost, so this ending works PERFECTLY for me!
-And I’d also like to add that I have released a version with Yub Nub as the ending music instead of Victory Celebration.

VERSION 3.0, ADDITIONAL CHANGES

(Cutting out the Extra Rubbish)

-cut out all of salicious crumb laughing
-cut out the laughing of Jabba’s creatures when Han and Leia are captured
-cut out scene of Han and Chewie reuniting
-cut down rancor scene to avoid some of the poor special effects and get the story along since the scene doesn’t serve much purpose besides “hey, look at this cool monster fight”.
-cut out Jabba pulling Leia back from sail barge window and talking to her
-cut out C3PO asking why R2 is serving drinks
-cut out 3PO asking them if they want to plea and Han’s cheesy response. Now 3PO just says Jabba hopes they will die honorably and then Luke warns Jabba it is his last chance.
-cut out Boba Fett completely from sail barge fight
-remove Salicious pulling out 3PO’s eyes and R2 zapping him
-remove more shots of ewoks after Han, Luke, Chewie, R2, and 3PO cut themselves out of the booby trap.
-remove more cutesy shots of ewoks during feast

(Make Vader more independent and his turn more believable)

-remove Vader saying “I must obey my master”. Now he just says “You don’t know the power of the dark side”. Vader should be confident in what he believes is right like in ESB, rather than doing it just cause of the Emperor. For goodness sakes, he was plotting to take over before this film.
-remove Vader saying “It is too late for me son.” Way too obvious of foreshadowing, cheapens his eventual turn, and makes Vader seem like he already knows that what he believes in is wrong and misguided. This moment of self revelation for our characters is meant to happen at the END of the arc.
-remove the Emperor saying “You must know by now your father can never be turned from the dark side.” This just sounds plain stupid and makes the Emperor think of Vader as some prize that he has fooled. Vader should feel like a respected ally and learner of the Emperor.
-remove Vader saying “It is useless to resist.” What is this, some sort of shiny object called the Dark side being dangled in front of Luke. This makes the dark side feel less complex.
-remove the Emperor saying “You, like your father, are now mine”. Again, my point stands. Why is the Emperor talking about Vader like some fool he tricked and has under his leash right in front of Vader? There should be more respect between such two powerful and ambitious men who have similar goals.
-cut out the Emperor telling Luke that if he picks up his saber that his journey towards the dark side will be complete. This just makes Luke look like an idiot. Instead the Emperor basically just tells Luke his friends and the alliance will die and that there is no hope. This actually now makes more sense as to why Luke would fall into the temptation of attacking the Emperor.

(Restructuring the third act)

I always felt it was odd that the Endor/Space battles are basically about to be won by the time we see Luke and Vader have their heroic triumphs in the throne room. Those triumphs should be followed by things looking better in Endor and Space so the new scene order reflects that.

AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AND FEEDBACK THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN! IT MEANS A LOT 😃

To be clear first, I am willing to alter things depending upon what the feedback is. And I am thinking something like cutting the entire Naboo shot. I want to get Q2’s edit so I can splice my edit so far with his ending which is practically what I want to do with mine. And yes, Han pestering 3PO is gone. Do you like it?

Another possibly controversial change I am pretty sure I’ll be adding now that I think about it would be taking out the “I love you, I know”. It’s cheap, forced, and just a shoved in callback to a much more emotional moment IMHO. Thoughts?

Hmm good thinking. I forgot about that “old buddy” line And just thought of his line “we’ve gotta give him more time”. That would be fine cause it shows he’s still in his debt but that line you mentioned might have to go. Do you like the idea of cutting their conservation before the briefing and in the hangar. Yads implemented it also.

Ugh I’m trying to remove just the gungan audio but to no avail

I think I just solved it. I cut out Naboo entirely and worked with it so audio transition is seamless. Getting video transition down. To get shaw back in I use 2011 audio but cut to Depseiclaized once ghosts appear. I cut a bit of Leia walking up to Luke, just a bit of them walking back because the original scene is longer than the blu ray. I saturate the Depseiclaized video color to match up a bit better with the blu Ray color. Only for end.

Since I removed Han walking out to talk to Leia which includes “You told Luke, is that who you could tell” to complete the element of removing any jealousy from Han his conservation with Leia after Death Star destruction is as follows… Leia says she knows Luke didn’t die, Han has confused look, she tells him Luke is her brother and they kiss YAH! Doesn’t feel abrupt, edited well to good effect.

just to reassure I will have shaw ghost and no eyebrows during unmasking scene. Those are the only SE elements I am keeping. Currently downloading digital 1997 SE’s and will use ending from those which has city celebrations, no wesa free, new music and shaw. I’m also going to look at that Vimeo link mikeluv

I decided to not use sarlacc or Bantha pherd shots due to the fact that they stick out like a sore thumb effects wise. The door as noted before is an obvious digital zoom and not compatible with other shots. Jedi rocks up my ass. Hayden’s ghost and Vaders Nooo are undeniable travesties. The only SE changes I do like is removal of Vaders eyebrows (continuity while not sacrificing quality of film overall) and the new city celebrations/end music. Yub nub was too anticlimactic and the city shots are believable (holonet) and effective at portraying a maximized effect that the Rebels victory had. That is my take on the SE changes for Jedi.

Mike Luv, I skimmed your edit and watched as many of your cuts aspossible and thought that your ideas are great but sadly the source material just isn’t there. The speeder bike arrival stands out, as does the boba fett escape (fantastic fan trailer though). Deleted Scenes from prequels when up scaled correctly can be used without too much notice but sadly the same is not for the OT. I do like the ideas of many of the deleted scenes but they stand out too badly in quality, color, and grain, which is why I withdrawed from using deleted scenes. By the way, I hope to have V1 uploaded by Friday.

Hmm. I think I’ll use SE rancor scene. It does look better

UPDATE:
Rancor updated SE effects are in now. Still downloading 97 SE (for ending) with tight bandwidth. Any more changes u want then tell me and we can discuss. SE rancor scene was good idea.