Idea: 'The Never The Same Saga Twice' Thread.

doubleofive posted the germ of what I think is a brilliant idea over on the SAVE LANDO!!! thread :

doubleofive said:

OK, this would be the coolest compromise ever:

Two versions: Lando lives / Lando dies

As the movie starts, choose “Original Ending”, “Revisited Ending”, or “Random Ending”.

The last choice would be the way I would watch it.  That way, you’d be on the edge of your seat wondering if Lando is going to die this time!

This could be a whole new revolution of fan editing (not just Star Wars) and indeed film production altogether.

Imagine a saga where everytime you put the film on key plot points were different.

We all watch certain films over and over again but imagine if everytime there was a surprise thrown in.

For single films it would be anything goes (as long as you had the time and the disc space).

For film series like the Star Wars saga it would require isolating key scenes that could change without messing up the continuity of the rest of the films (in whatever random permitation they may be shown in).

It would be a great way of taking elements from one fan edit and using them as plot variations.

It could also be a way of putting many radical changes into one project.

Does the technology exist to do this?

Could it work beyond just a novelty and become an artform of it’s own?

Beyond editing films could be at some point written with this in mind and with digital projection the idea of throwing in random elements could enter into the production stage of a film and be shown in theatres encouraging people to visit again and again to try and experience the film afresh each time.

it reminds me of the jedi knight game series, where you ultimatley choose between light and dark. annoyingly though it rarely changes much. if you are a light sider you save the <item of incredible power> from evil, or if a dark sider you decide to fight for the <item of incredible power>

so what kind of crappy alternatives could we have?

• luke chooses to join vader, but looses his footing and falls from the gantry anyway
• yoda cant decide what colour lightsaber to use in ROTS when beheading the clone troopers (green, blue or purple)
• does han shoot first?
• should boba fett bother going to jabbas party?
• should vader help luke? they will get blown up anyway so what the hell.
• does luke get the xwing out of the lake the first time?
• does yoda drop the x-wing on top of luke?
• should dooku turn to the darkside?
• what food does chewie want? animal or stormtrooper head?
• does the gunner on darth vader's stardestroyer shoot the escape pod that has no life signs?

JasonN has Dooku as a Jedi in his PT edits, where he is a Sith in the theatrical edition and a Sith still masquerading as a Jedi in the magnoliafan edit.

In an ideal world DVD and Blu-Ray players would all come with a memory card which would record which branch you took on one disc and carry it over onto the next but the plot changes need not be crappy ones.

They could change the mood and flavour of each performance without changing the final outcome (in Dooku's case he still dies after being used by Palpatine to stir up a phony war as a means to take control) until the final episode.

The only problem I can really see is one of disc space, all this branching would (I imagine) take up a lot of memory.

Maybe some of you more experienced disc spinners could come up with a solution.

It might mean having to split the films in half to make room for more branches (which would bring up again the problem of continuity).

As the style evolved perhaps technology would adapt with it making more radical branching possible.

I always wanted to see a Biggs lives version where he and Han became rivals for Leia's attention.

What about a Biggs is Lando and survives the attack on the Death Star and goes off to take over Cloud City branch?

Darn it! I thought it was return of the living thread week :-D

Could DVD quality clips on blu-ray pull this sort of thing off?

I must apologize again for necromancy. :P

This is a great idea. But thinking that this is possible on a disc is quite silly. Furthermore, it is much less possible to be done by fan editors in no official capacity.

What I would suggest is a very simple coded program. You'd program an expandable list, let the user fill it with his fan edits. That way, fan editors could also create alternate versions of their fan edits, and those could be added to the list. Then you just press the "Play Random" button.

Four years ago optical discs were pretty much all we were playing with.

It's certainly the sort of thing a computer program linked to media player could do.

Think Dragon's Lair but with continuity protocols making the decisions.

YES