Some things I’ve been mulling over.
Payoff to Anakin/Vader craving Immortality
I’ve felt like I need to have a payoff for Anakin becoming Vader because he wants immortality, to coincide with the payoff with Padme. The OG film is constructed to have his arc revolve entirely on Padme, while my goal is to make that part of a whole.
I considered using footage from the Kenobi show of Vader speaking to Palpatine, but I didn’t want to contradict the Fortress Vader comic arc unless I had to.
Today, I realized that there already kind of is a payoff: Vader surviving getting burned.
By diving his soul into the deepest crevices of the dark side, consumed by rage, hatred, his now blood cold, he achieves what Plagueis had to learn to do (bc he’s the Son of the Force).
It makes sense, as in the new Canon especially, Vader is this nigh unstoppable monster (putting emphasis on nigh, however), symbolically like the Grim Reaper.
He can be pushed off a cliff, lose limbs, have a lava lake thrown at him after fighting an army, and then fighting an ancient Sith lord, and still comes out victorious.
I need a way to emphasize this power specifically in this edit. Some kind of visual. Maybe even have him actually fall into the lava like originally planned, so the audience will straight up be like, “There’s no way he survived that without a supernatural element”. Probably in conjunction with something else, because otherwise they might just straight up lose suspension of disbelief.
The power only works when actively using the dark side, which is why Plagueis was able to be killed in his sleep and why it’s ultimately useless to resurrect Padme.
After you’ve successfully use it to survive something, it remains “healed” even if you let go of the dark side, but you have to be consistently using it in order to keep surviving things like that, to stay that powerful.
It meaningly reinforces OT lines, such as, “If you only knew the power of the dark side!”, “You don’t know the power of the dark side.”
It’s also why, in ROTJ, he loses to Luke due to internal conflict, and when Anakin finally redeems himself, he succumbs to the injuries from the lightning and the disabling of the suit. Letting go of the dark side leaves him in this weakened withdrawal period, like a drug, which would last for days or even weeks, meaning he wouldn’t be able to survive the lightning in that state. He knew saving his son would kill him (which is the point of that scene in ROTJ).
This ties into his arc of accepting the natural course of life. No longer using the dark side, a twisted perversion of nature.
This is a general theme with the Sith: their usage of the dark side corrupts their appearance. Vader’s cybernetics (and his overall symbolic “undead” nature), Palpatine’s monstrous appearance, etc.
Darth Vader, in a twisted irony, essentially he gets part of what he wants, in terms of power for himself, but it costs him everything else. His wife, his mentor/older brother, even much of his flesh. He’s almost this Force demigod, yet deep down, repressed under his cold hardened persona, he’s miserable.
In Canon, Vader is more powerful then Palpatine, in terms of raw power; Palpatine’s hold over him is mostly psychological and based on contingencies; he has skills, such as his sorcery, that compliment Vader’s. Ultimately, despite all his power, he’s still unhappy.
Palpatine’s Monster Face
Speaking of the dark side corrupting the appearances of Sith, I really want to remove the element of Palpatine’s face being a result of lightning from Windu; his face needs to be dark side corruption related. That’s far more interesting and doesn’t create inconsistencies.
I personally go with the head canon that it burned off his “Force mask” or whatever, but for this edit, I want to remove any implication that it’s due to Windu.
Labyrinth of Evil does this by excising the entire force lightning beat, but at the expense of Anakin’s deliberation that emphasis his turn as a choice. Perhaps I could excise that but re-edit the scene in other ways to emphasis a conscious choice as opposed to a spur of the moment decision (which is not in line with my goals)? I’m gonna have to do some tests, but I’m open to suggestions.
New Final “Cold” Darth Vader Scene (ambitious)
Now that I’ve decided to keep his angry reaction to losing Padme (which I do believe is in-character, when presented correctly), I would ideally like some scene, with dialogue, showing that Vader is now completely hardened, like in the canon comics and the OT. I don’t know specifically what or how, though. Just something on the backburner of my mind.
I do feel that final scene on the Star Destroyer does convey this concept visually, but I still feel some kind of interaction would make it better. Not life or death though.
Even more ambitious would be to straight up film new suited Vader material, both bc the ROTS suit is odd, and I’d love to adapt a couple scenes from the comics. But that’s not really likely, especially in the near future. It won’t hold back this edit from being released.
More OT Tone/Aesthetic (ambitious)
This is more radical side, pushing the limits of what I’m capable of. While I can’t and don’t necessarily desire to remove all CG in the films, it’d like to do things to make the entire trilogy more OT-like. I’ve grown majorly attached to the theatrical OT, the practical models, costumes, and sets, gorgeous matte paintings, more classical designs and music, less over-the-top overall. The OT has some cartoonish comic relief that’s a part of Star Wars’ whimsy, but way too much in the Prequels. There’s much more of a balance of all of these elements that the PT doesn’t have.
In this movie in particular, the fights, often, are too much. I feel this way about most of the Prequel action. Even Duel of the Fates, when the time comes. It’s so overstimulating to me I often can’t even keep track of the characters.
In my opinion, the peak of Star Wars duels is Darth Vader vs. Luke in ESB and ROTJ. Perfect blend of ferocious fighting and character work. Not too over or under stimulating.
I also really need to make them not so extreme so as to allow for Vader, Luke, and Obi-Wan to shine as the amazing duelists they’re canonically supposed to be. Obviously Vader’s always been more of about brute force, this walking tank, with little agility, but I still need to tone down the speed of the PT duels so the OT duels don’t look so weak.
I definitely feel like I can edit down the duels, tone down the color grade, remove overly cartoonish stuff and the overly busy nature of so many shots (we don’t need random shit constantly thrown on the screen). Perhaps I can find the resources on the internet to make OT style mattes too. However, some ideas are beyond my capabilities.
A lot of this stuff will also not hold back release of this edit. Because even without it, I feel I’ll make something pretty good. But it’s a dream.
