The Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 139

What if, when we first enter Coruscant and see that long shot of Valorum and Palpatine on the landing platform, instead of the exciting music we have, we have that dark monk-choir-thing from ROTS ("Palpatine's Teachings" on the soundtrack)?  There are no real happy scenes that take place on Coruscant, or at least not many, and I think having a darker-toned introduction to Coruscant, the place where all of the galaxy's screwing-over comes from, might make it more serious.  Especially since our heroes are going there because of a dire situation in the first place.

You actually could open TPM with the crawl suggesting that Naboo has been invaded and then pan down to the Queen's ship escaping the blockade.

shanerjedi said:

You actually could open TPM with the crawl suggesting that Naboo has been invaded and then pan down to the Queen's ship escaping the blockade.

 I think that'd be too abrupt.  By that scene in the original film, we already know the characters and their personalities.  With them just being thrown at us so abruptly, it would be too hard to get into it, imo.

I think starting on a battle would be really good. Would start the film off with a lot of momentum.

SilverKey said:

I don't mind that TPM starts as "small" as it does. It works really well since the blockade of Naboo seems a small and insignificant event, even Qui-Gon says as much, but turns out to be a major catalyst for the events that will change the entire SW Galaxy. I think this quiet, unassuming opening reflects perfectly how Sidious has conducted all these events. The OT didn't have any big wow openings either, other than ANH, in my opinion. For the PT, ROTS is the one with the big opening.

Well said - I agree completely.

And sitting in the theater watching TPM for the first time, I really did enjoy my first look at the jedi in their prime, cutting down helpless droids.  It didn't start off the movie, exactly, but it wasn't too long before we got our first bit of action.  I actually kind of like how TPM starts off (other than the Nemoidian's accents, of course).

Bingowings said:

Yeah, here you go :

Thanks man. Is that the highest res version you have?

No sorry.

The ships were sampled from out of the window while the Queen's ship breaks the blockade,  the planet is from the matte painting (not very well cut out I'm afraid "It's hard to stay inside the lines!") and the starfield is a generic element so it should be possible to remake it in higher definition if someone had access to captures from the HD broadcasts.

My idea for restructuring the film is to have the invasion happen while the Queen is on Coruscant and have her on her way there when her ship is shot down and they are forced to land on Tatooine.

Naboo takes the place of Yavin in Episode One as the final destination and location of the big battle.

It's interesting. How do you suggest this be accomplished?

Bingowings said:

No sorry.

The ships were sampled from out of the window while the Queen's ship breaks the blockade,  the planet is from the matte painting (not very well cut out I'm afraid "It's hard to stay inside the lines!") and the starfield is a generic element so it should be possible to remake it in higher definition if someone had access to captures from the HD broadcasts.

My idea for restructuring the film is to have the invasion happen while the Queen is on Coruscant and have her on her way there when her ship is shot down and they are forced to land on Tatooine.

Naboo takes the place of Yavin in Episode One as the final destination and location of the big battle.

 

Huh?

The film starts with a crawl.

Pans down to Naboo.

The Trade Federation Fleet jumps in.

They send a message to Coruscant where the Queen is going about her duties as a representative of the planet (with Jar-Jar re-dubbed as the Gungan representative) before transmissions are cut off.

Palpatine still has his meeting where he warns her that Valorum isn't going to be able to help them.

She asks for a vote of no confidence, getting Palpatine set up to be made chancellor and she decides to try and sort it out herself, the Jedi send two of their own to act as arbitrators.

Her ship is attacked on route.

They are forced to land on Tatooine to repair the ship.

They pick up Anakin.

They arrive on Naboo and after a battle drive the Federation off.

No more darting around from one planet to another and another and back again, the film has a single threat which the whole film is structured towards removing.

What stays in and what goes depends on what can be made to fit but that structure is more like the one in ANH where all plot threads led to Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star.

Bingowings said:

The film starts with a crawl.

Pans down to Naboo.

The Trade Federation Fleet jumps in.

They send a message to Coruscant where the Queen is going about her duties as a representative of the planet (with Jar-Jar re-dubbed as the Gungan representative) before transmissions are cut off.

Palpatine still has his meeting where he warns her that Valorum isn't going to be able to help them.

She asks for a vote of no confidence, getting Palpatine set up to be made chancellor and she decides to try and sort it out herself, the Jedi send two of their own to act as arbitrators.

Her ship is attacked on route.

They are forced to land on Tatooine to repair the ship.

They pick up Anakin.

They arrive on Naboo and after a battle drive the Federation off.

No more darting around from one planet to another and another and back again, the film has a single threat which the whole film is structured towards removing.

What stays in and what goes depends on what can be made to fit but that structure is more like the one in ANH where all plot threads led to Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star.

Ok, I'm just going over everything you mentioned... I agree, it's a better idea,  but there might be some difficulties.

We would have to figure out how to get the trade fleet to come out of hyperspace without it looking stupid. I'm sure it's possible but I've never tried it myself.

Jar-Jar being a representative will be complicated as well seeing as he's wearing his common clothes and in ep. 2 he's wearing his Rep. clothes. We would have to figure that out.

The rest of this could be done quite easily. Please know that I am NOT shooting your idea down. Just looking for feedback from those who could help us accomplish the complicated parts.

I'm not sure if there is a definite dress code for senatorial meetings, the Wookiees and the little ET guys turn up practically in the nude.

Jar-Jar may be dressing down because as a Gungan he doesn't represent the planet officially at this point (I was working on him being seen as a bit of a sell-out by his people for even mixing with the humans who see the Naboo as unwelcome off-worlders with no legitimate claim to the planet).

By being a representative of the Gungans he could advise the queen but not address the Senate.

After the battle when the Gungans and the Naboo start to get along Jar-Jar would have equal footing as joint Naboo Senator something Palpatine could later exploit.

It would give him a better reason for being distrusted by his fellow Gungans than just being clumsy, something which needs to be watered down but could be kept to some extent.

Think more "Fish out of water" than "Crazy Frog".

Bingowings said:

I'm not sure if there is a definite dress code for senatorial meetings, the Wookiees and the little ET guys turn up practically in the nude.

Jar-Jar may be dressing down because as a Gungan he doesn't represent the planet officially at this point (I was working on him being seen as a bit of a sell-out by his people for even mixing with the humans who see the Naboo as unwelcome off-worlders with no legitimate claim to the planet).

By being a representative of the Gungans he could advise the queen but not address the Senate.

After the battle when the Gungans and the Naboo start to get along Jar-Jar would have equal footing as joint Naboo Senator something Palpatine could later exploit.

It would give him a better reason for being distrusted by his fellow Gungans than just being clumsy, something which needs to be watered down but could be kept to some extent.

Think more "Fish out of water" than "Crazy Frog".

Ok I get you now Bingo. You want the narratve moving forward from planet to planet rather than going back somewhere. Yes, that is a good idea.

I think it would be cool if we could somehow place the jedi action on the federation ship at the end, including the duel on Naboo. Just make it a federation hanagr and the open space some reactor room for the federation engines.

We seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet now.

When I first saw the set photos and the footage in the trailer I always thought that the duel was on a ship, the power station under the palace seemed a very weird mash-up of architecture.

I'm even thinking of looking again at turning TC-14 into Threepio (not as I originally pictured him a Trade Federation droid but a Senate protocol droid coming on board with the Jedi setting up the talks and gets caught up in events).

If those scenes are near the end of the film he needn't be in it for long.

Yeah, the power station architecture even looks more neimoidian than nubian. You could even insert 3PO into the end celebration at the end along with Bail Organa and R2, among others.

But now new questions:

What is Padme doing during this battle? Where is she? Does she stay at the palace and chase another new objective? Is she on the ship too? If so, who are our eyes on Naboo? Is there even a ground battle now?

Okay, I was thinking: how do the jedi get onto the ship? Well, they fly in with their red ship. Maybe the footage could be sped up and lasers added so it looks like the jedi go right into the bay. Then you cut to the ship being blown up...the viceroy is happy. droids up to the door. insert conference room footage of jedi coming though smoke-filled hangar with sabers drawn.

All of that could be done with existing footage...and no drawn out footage of Qui-Gon having tea.

shanerjedi said:

I think it would be cool if we could somehow place the jedi action on the federation ship at the end, including the duel on Naboo. Just make it a federation hanagr and the open space some reactor room for the federation engines.

Blankfist did something like this in his 3-in-1 trilogy fanedit.  Details here:

http://images.fanedit.org/fanedits_coverart/blankfist/falloftherepublic/ep1thru3blankfistcutlist.doc

It's a neat idea, but it unfortunately falls apart when you watch it.  It's way too obvious that the two parts (the jedi on the trade ship and Maul in the Naboo hangar) don't belong together.  But having said that, it was just a simple cut and paste job.  Someone with more tech skill might be able to pull it off.

Incidentally, Blankfist also removes the podrace and does a similar cut and paste so Qui-Gon frees Ani by winning the dice roll with Watto.  From the cutlist script, with deletions removed for easier reading:

EXT. MOS ESPA - JUNK DEALER PLAZA - DAY

The group walks towards the shop.

PADME: (to QUI-GON) Are you sure about this?

QUI-GON enters the shop.

WATTO: You! You swindled me!

INT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - MAIN HANGAR - DAY

WATTO: No pod is worth two slaves, not by a long shot.
QUI-GON: The boy, then.
WATTO: Hmm. Uh Well...

INT. WATTO'S JUNK SHOP - DAY

QUI-GON looks at ANAKIN, who looks back. QUI-GON looks back to WATTO.

INT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - MAIN HANGAR - DAY

We'll let-a fate decide, huh? (pulls cube from pocket) I just-a happen to have a chance cube here. Blue, it's the boy, red-uh...his mother.

QUI-GON nods acceptance. WATTO tosses the cube down. QUI-GON follows the cube with his eyes and lifts his hand slightly; the cube lands on blue.

INT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - PRIVATE BOX - DAY

WATTO: (defeated) Take him.

INT. WATTO'S JUNK SHOP – DAY

QUI-GON and ANAKIN share a smile and QUI-GON leaves.

***

Again, the cut and paste is too obvious.  But it's an interesting idea.

How about this?

The queen lands in secret and after her meeting with Gungans the Jedi take the ship to negotiate with the Viceroy who is still on his ship.

They try to kill the Jedi with gas and droids but they still escape, this is inter-cut with the Gungans fighting the droid army.

The droids defeat the Gungans who surrender, the Viceroy lands claiming victory.

Padme's team storm the palace allowing the royal flight (and Anakin who deliberately jumps into a ship) to escape as the Jedi face the Sith Lord on the command ship and the royal flight take on the blockade with Anakin destroying a communications jamming ship (not the command ship) deliberately.

Threepio transmits the ships surveillance back to Coruscant who send a taskforce.

Padme captures the Viceroy who orders the droids deactivated.

Akwat Kbrana said:

Ok, I see where you're going with that, but it begs the question: why? What possible reason could Sidious have for issuing such an order?

Well perhaps once he has the chancellorship, the droids are useless to him? Just thinking out loud here. In fact, if we went with the idea that Dooku is a maverick jedi and NOT a sith led around at the nose by Siddy, then this "betrayal" of the viceroy would fit right in with Dooku's discussion with kenobi in AOTC about the viceroy coming to Dooku about this dark lord's betrayal.

Sets up the next movie and the motives of the viceroy for giving Dooku, in our cut a well-intentioned good guy, the federation resources to fight the republic.

I've just posted this idea on my own thread, but thought I'd post it here too as more people read this.

Well I've just had an idea about a possible way to fix the whole Jango/Boba issue in the film. As it stands, he's clearly affiliated with both sides, both being the host for the clone army and being on geonosis with Dooku (which not only makes the jedi look ridiculously stupid for still using the army, but also poses its own problems in an edit where Dooku is a good Jedi)

So here's my idea - after escaping Obi Wan on Kamino, we use one of the existing P.O.V Slave 1 cockpit shots, and have a hologram of a hooded, obscured faced Palpatine/Sidious come up. We then have him say (either through sampling existing dialogue, or voice modulation, or a combination of the two) something like "very good, now lead them to the seperatists. We will have our war." (or something cleverer than that - I haven't really thought about the line much).

The point is, Jango/Boba now has a reason to lead Obi Wan to Geonosis. We then never see him again after that (he is not in the arena) and Dooku's line of "there are no bounty hunters here that I am aware of" becomes truth.

brash_stryker said:

I've just posted this idea on my own thread, but thought I'd post it here too as more people read this.

Well I've just had an idea about a possible way to fix the whole Jango/Boba issue in the film. As it stands, he's clearly affiliated with both sides, both being the host for the clone army and being on geonosis with Dooku (which not only makes the jedi look ridiculously stupid for still using the army, but also poses its own problems in an edit where Dooku is a good Jedi)

So here's my idea - after escaping Obi Wan on Kamino, we use one of the existing P.O.V Slave 1 cockpit shots, and have a hologram of a hooded, obscured faced Palpatine/Sidious come up. We then have him say (either through sampling existing dialogue, or voice modulation, or a combination of the two) something like "very good, now lead them to the seperatists. We will have our war." (or something cleverer than that - I haven't really thought about the line much).

The point is, Jango/Boba now has a reason to lead Obi Wan to Geonosis. We then never see him again after that (he is not in the arena) and Dooku's line of "there are no bounty hunters here that I am aware of" becomes truth.

Not a bad idea. The hologram might be tricky, and finding a voice actor.... but honestly anyone who can do a descent brittish accent would work, then you could do some vocal modulation... As if he's trying to disguise his voice anyway.