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Idea: Star Wars - What Might Have Been

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 (Edited)

Ok what I have always wanted to see was all three original films cut into one film, now I here you saying ‘heard it, done it’ however has it been said in this way.

We all know Star Wars wasn’t intended as a series of films and Lucas had one 3hr (or so) film in his head and scripted, it was too long so it was split in three, sort of, I say sort of because Lucas didn’t think it would be a hit so the ending (Death Star battle) was brought forward and then of course the film did very well. So we get to Jedi and Lucas is left without an ending so what does he do? Re-uses the original. The only Star Wars film that works in my opinion is Empire because that was shot the way it was intended, as the middle part of a story.

What I’d like to see is something close to that original arc. Whether it means you would have to move the original Death Star battle to the end of Jedi or drop it completely in favour of the Death Star II battle I don’t know. I’d also like to see the Wookies from Sith put in because in the original 3hr script it was they who helped in the last battle not the dammed Ewoks, cos Lucas couldn’t afford to use Wookies, so he shrunk them instead. That idea could be very hard of pull off though.

I haven’t worked out any major details yet and no-doubt the Starkiller edit might have some things that might help (if they don’t mind me stealing). I am forgetting the prequels exist so any footage from those films is fair game if it helps my edit.

Anybody got any ideas, like a name for the project, plot points, what the one and only opening crawl will say?

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Well...

The footage doesn't exist to do the story properly. I am asuming that you are thinking of the 1st drafts of Star Wars that Lucas wrote back in '74 or so, with the Jedi Bendu and all that.

However...

It might be possible to recreate the story or the early drafts through a narrative presentation, kind of like Move Along's The Story of Star Wars project. You could re-write the early scripts into a narrative and speak over edited together existing footage, using the original audio where it fits. This might be one approach.

-The Sluggo
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It would very much be possible to re-edit the films as one film.
It would, however, require the elimination of the first Death Star battle from ANH, which is quite a loss. It would also require that that perhaps all footage of the DS from ANH be altered so that the DS is actually the under-construction one from ROTJ. Not a huge job but some minor skill is needed. Then, perhaps all the DS footage from ROTJ would have to be altered so that the DS is actually the complete one from ANH. Much trickier here since it is seen so much and because of all the activity and ships around it.
As an alternative to losing the Battle of Yavin in ANH you could either eliminate the space battle from ROTJ, or combine them--once the shield goes down some of the Yavin battle footage could be used. This however, is kinda pointless, since Luke is not part of the battle and the Lando footage already is long enough.

A more ambitous and interesting one is make all three films into one three hour film. Replace the DS with the ROTJ one, cut out a few minutes of the Death Star rescue footage from ANH, plus the TIE fighter fight that follows, plus the Yavin battle. So now ANH is roughly 90 minutes long. From here, perhaps go to the Echo base escape, maybe making it seem like the fighters are fleeing the Yavin base, and put the Obi Wan instructions about Dagobah as voice-over in Luke's head (a nice substitue for the voice-over in ANH, since the Yavin battle is now gone and this is what is replacing it). Now comes the tricky part. Eliminate everything after the asteroid chase, but keep anything involving the characters (ie the romance), and keep all of Luke's Jedi training. Now you have to jump mid-ESB to mid-ROTJ. The entire Bespin section is elminated as well as all of the Jabba the Hutt sequence. Han solo isnt frozen and rescued and Vader and Luke don't duel. Instead, Luke's jedi training continues as it does--however, the father-revelation is needed. So, expand Luke confrontation with Vader in the cave. This obviously changes the meaning of the sequence somewhat, and it sounds clumsely and nonsensical but I'm sure with some tinkering and clever writing it could be possible to have the phantom-Vader reveal to Luke the fatherhood secret. Luke emerges and talks to Yoda about it in the ROTJ scene. Maybe some kind of flash-forward would have to be used for this, as if Luke has now completed his training and is now a Jedi (hence the new black uniform). Then Yoda confirms what Luke learned before in the cave--perhaps this was Yodas way of telling Luke to prepare him for his duel with Vader. Obi Wan's subsequent conversation would have to be edited to remove "face vader AGAIN" to just "you must face Vader."

Then Luke finds the rebel fleet and meets up with them. They are just getting ready to finally destroy the death star. Alter it so that it is the completed one from ANH. The rest of the film proceeds mostly as in the final film, but with some minor editing maybe to take down the run time (I'm thinking Ewoks here).

The final product would be just over three hours. Unfortunately most of ESB is lost, but stuff like that is inevitable when making a 7-hour trilogy into a 3-hour movie. But i think my outline is very, very feasible and would be very interesting. I would do it myself but i have yet to solve the whole "using MPEG-2/DVD with Adobe Premiere" thing.
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^^that might be the way to go. I think that you should use all the footage you cna from the prequels if you have to. Wookie would be a stretch to put in but I think it can work. Well either way I can't wait to see this edit if it happens.