The Unofficial Complete REVISITED SAGA Ideas and Random Discussion Thread — Page 11

Maybe his Force Ghost only appears as Vader when he is feeling guilty for what he did in that shape.

Lapti Nek AND Jedi Rocks (dumbest name ever) are BOTH out. To be replaced with...???

muddyknees2000 said:

Lapti Nek AND Jedi Rocks (dumbest name ever) are BOTH out. To be replaced with...???

THIS

Actually this is rather good.

        The droids and then Leia and Chewie (or just disguised Leia) quickly enter the palace and then Leia is made a slave and taken out on Jabba's ship to find the others arriving? ;/ ;\  Could save a little time.

        90 minutes to the escape from the DS and the turret battle with the fighters and then 23 to medals. If the DS is shown looming behind the MF before the fighters engage and maybe shooting at it with turrets of DS there could be a cliffhanger ending with the fighters attacking and then pick up again with the escape and DS just before the fighters. ;/ ;\

       90ANH cliffhanger----  23ANH 67ESB 8-o cliffhanger---- 20ESBROTJ 45TPM 25AOTC cliffhanger----  65AOTC 25ROTS cliffhanger?---- 90ROTS---  90 ROTJ opening with discovery of DS2  ;/ ;\

thejediknighthusezni said:

        The droids and then Leia and Chewie (or just disguised Leia) quickly enter the palace and then Leia is made a slave and taken out on Jabba's ship to find the others arriving? ;/ ;\  Could save a little time.

However it is done I would love to see that whole escape effort tidied up and made less ridiculous....the whole plan (if there IS one) is just convoluted as hell.

I suggested it was convoluted because it's not Luke's original plan.

Luke stays on Dagobah to become a fully trained Jedi Knight after learning his lesson from rushing off in the previous episode.

Leia is tired of waiting and rushes to rescue Han herself after convincing Chewie.

Luke arrives at Ben's hut (where they were planning their rescue) only to find Leia gone.

Threepio explains.

Ben's ghost turns up and explains to him that Leia is his sister (she has that Skywalker reckless streak when it comes to people she loves).

Luke then has to plan a rescue attempt for the rescue attempt.

Well no I would start with Luke already on Dagobah.

Yoda dies after finishing his job.

Leia enters the palace in disguise to a calm palace and hands over Chewie which gets the attention of Lando.

Luke goes to Tatooine finds Ben's hut empty but for Threepio.

He talks to Ben's ghost and sends the droids on their way.

They enter during the party and witness the death of Oola (no song number).

Han is defrosted Leia is captured.

Luke comes to save them all.

Most of this can be done with the existing footage and redirecting sound samples from other sources.

I framed it that way so the audience knows not only the lay of the land but also a rationale behind Leia's actions.

She is in the position Luke was in during ESB.

She is rushing off to save the man she loves and putting at risk everything she has held dear.

Having Luke know she is his sister before entering the palace raises the stakes.

It also creates narrative resonance to have Luke get the full truth about his father in the same room he first got some of the truth about his father (with a few fibs thrown in).

If the room can be reconstructed from clean plates and/or models it would be beneficial to set the scene at night.

Bingowings said:

I suggested it was convoluted because it's not Luke's original plan.

It is convoluted because everyone seems to be acting on their own, no-one working together (even though at the end of ESB they seem to have a basic game plan), and everytime you turn around they're giving Jabba ANOTHER hostage....while trying to free the original hostage (Han). 

Lando infiltrates first....but what does he do? Nothing....he waits for Luke's last ditch desperation plan before unmasking himself...so why was he even there in the first place?

Luke sends the droids (hostages +2), asking for an audience....Jabba refuses, but no-one informs Luke. (one might say that Jabba's silence IS his answer...I guess)

Leia shows up, sells Chewie (hostages +1) (who by the way does NOTHING) (infiltrate, do nothing...I don't get it), infiltrates, attempts to free Han (something Lando could have tried), fails, and gets captured (hostages +1).

Luke finally shows up, sans lightsaber, tries to negotiate, fails, tries to not be a total noob who fails at everything, fails, gets captured (hostages +1).

Jabba drags everyone out to a hole in the ground, threatens to throw Luke, Han and Chewie in....Luke reclaims his lightsaber which he smuggled into the palace via R2......goes psycho, kills everyone, then blows up the sail barge just to make sure.

If this was the plan.....if in all honesty Luke's plan was: "Wait and see if everyone else sucks so hard that I have to go in and save the day".....why didn't he just go in with his lightsaber in the first place...try diplomacy, and when that failed...go psycho and kill everybody (NOT above a giant hole in the sand that eats people and has a really really slow metabolism)

The whole thing is an excuse for exactly 2 things.....Leia's reveal, and the action sequence that follows.

The whole thing needs to be tightened up, and no amount of changing the order of who goes in first, or having Luke go to Ben's hurt on tattooine, or changing the order of the dagobah scenes in the film is going to fix these issues. No-one's actions make any sense.....why do they give Jabba so many NEW hostages while trying to free Han? What were they going to do if they succeeded?...run away with Han, regroup and then come up with a new plan to go free Chewie? "Ok, step 1...Han, you go and give yourself up as a prisoner....that way we have a man on the inside....but don't do anything..."

What I had suggested is that instead of Leia showing up and selling Chewie, make it seem like that was done around the same time as Lando getting a job as a guard...and that Jabba has had Chewie fighting for him as a gladiator....so leia's entrace with Chewie on the chain is just her returning (as the bounty hunter) from a fight.....Jabba asks for his winnings, she tries to stiff him (attempting to keep in character)...the thermal detonator conversation takes place.....and then all goes back to normal.........it just makes it seem like they've all infiltrated (and have been there for a while, getting the lay of the land before springing their plan) to help Luke when he finally shows up.....makes it seem like they have a plan.....instead of just showing up one by one, and giving themselves up as hostages.

That's why I made my suggestions.

If you think about it there is a theme of shamblicism running through all the OT rescues.

Luke is attracted to Leia and manipulates Han and Chewie into rushing into a rescue which paints them all into a corner that Leia has to improvise a backdoor to escape from.

Luke rushes off head first into what he already knows to be a trap to rescue a group of friends who mostly rescue themselves and end up having to risk their lives saving him.

At least in my take Luke is trying to fix someone else's cockup rather than setting up an elaborate series of coincidences which lead to eventual success but at every turn look as if they are going to fail.

Thats exactly what I'm saying....the writing is so bad in ROTJ that I don't think your suggestion covers it.....I think it needs to be dealt with on a more direct level....the actual events IN Jabba's palace.....not events before it.

These ARE B movies...and they're cheesy and the acting is ham fisted at times, but ROTJ goes well beyond that...in that it flat out doesn't make any sense.

The sequence you describe from ANH....on a character level they definitely COULD have looked back at it and said "wow, we kinda screwed that up"...but from a writing standpoint it makes sense.....characters rushing in based on emotional reactions and whatnot. 

The ESB situation again makes sense from a writing standpoint....showing the cockiness of a character who was not ready to face such challenges (which should have also led into the begining of ROTJ....but they failed there as well) who then needs to be rescued by the very people he was supposed to save.

ROTJ makes no bloody sense at all....because people keep coming in, giving away more of their friends as hostages or prisoners....in an attempt to get one hostage back......from a writing standpoint it makes no sense because the characters should be smarter than that, more logical than that. 

Now, if Lando and Chewie had gone in, guns blazing, got caught....then Leia goes in, with another plan, hoping to rescue all 3, and gets caught herself......then Luke comes in to save them all(minus the hiding of his lightsaber...like he knew he was going to fail)......THAT makes sense. The way it is now is just so badly written that there is no way to reconcile any one characters actions with any one else's.

Lando infiltrates...but then forgets why he's there.

Luke gives away the droids, to accomplish nothing (message delivered, thats all)

Leia gives up Chewie to infiltrate and get Han back (how does that make sense?)

Luke uses almost none of his Jedi abilities to help himself...and is only able to master the situation when he gets his lightsaber back.

ALL of these circumstances go against the way the characters have been written. Lando was cocky, and would have done something (especially since he is motivated to make himself look better after basically handing Han over to vader in the first place), Luke (having come into his jedi abilities) would have had a plan for giving up the droids and his lightsaber (he clearly has NO plan and just fumbles along until "oh hey, lightsaber...now lets kill everything!"), Leia (being loyal to her friends) would not have given up one friend for another, or if her and Chewie had a plan then at the very least Chewie should have accomplished something on the inside....he does not......

All of these problems....all of them need to be fixed at their source, which is in the Jabba's palace scene. 

Additionally....if R2 showed up with Luke in his X-Wing, and Leia showed up with 3P0 in a Y-Wing (proof of this in the deleted sandstorm scene) then it stands to reason that they all met up, as Luke was shown building his lightsaber while with the 2 droids. So why oh why...with all his impressive ability to see into the future using the force did Luke wait for literally everybody to get captured, and everything to be as bad off as it could possibly get before venturing out himself to go to Jabba's palace? (This argument relies more on the intention of the written script than in the final editing of the film.....some of the scenes didn't make it for various reasons, but they WERE written and were intended to be a part of the story...and as far as I can tell they just make things more convoluted.)

Your right about certain players in the scheme (or schemes in my scenario) not playing an active campaign role.

I can get everybody there together, working on the same plan (though my only idea so far is nowhere near as good as I think we could get)...but the droids is where I get hung up as well. The footage we have to work with is extremely limited if we're hoping to change everyone's purpose. One would almost need costumes and droids to reshoot some basic material just to make it seem like everyone is in on the same scheme....

ex: Lando being in a head to toe costume makes it easy to fake new footage and have it fit seamlessly with whats already there. You could build a miniature hallway set, and film a double on greenscreen, from behind, walking away from the camera, down the hallway.......couple that with some of his trademarked suspicious glances and some new shots of hands doing "something"....maybe he's sending a signal to Luke, maybe he's rigging something specific for the escape attempt....hell, if you cobble together some dialogue from ESB you could maybe even have him passing by Han's cell and mumbling an encouraging message to him that Luke is coming soon to rescue them all.

If you wanted to fake something with the droids that would be even easier...or Leia in her bounty hunter costume......all of it is primed for shooting new material as they're almost ALL unrecognizable...only Lando has a bit of a facial restriction for what one could possibly shoot....but even that is minimal.

Ok, after some thought, I think this should be simple enough. There are only 2 basic objectives one would need to achieve in order to bring some sense to this part of the film:

1. Everyone that comes in needs to have a role in THE plan (multiple plans just makes things too confusing with all that is going on....we're trying to simplify this part of the film, not make it more complicated). BUT if we manage to make it look like everyone is working together then many of them can almost stay the way they are now and the changes we make elsewhere will make it all seem like it flows as a more cohesive plan (this reduces the amount of work that needs to be done). This means that everyone has to have a reason for being there....Lando can possibly remain unexplained as he would have been the advance scout...getting the lay of the land, and then signaling Leia...this can all be assumed, so his role in the film need not change necessarily (though I would remove his knowing look to Leia when Luke gets dropped into the pit as it makes it seem like he's letting her know that he's there, like she previously didn't know).

Chewie needs to be put into a jail cell for a reason...and this is another one that possibly need not be changed. He tells Han about Luke in the film as it stands now....so if we make it look like they're all working together then the meaning changes slightly and it comes off more as Chewie telling Han "Don't do anything stupid, we've got this one.". 

Leia needs to be unfreezing Han not to escape necessarily (because Chewie is still in a cell and Lando deep undercover)....but just to have him unfrozen so that when Luke shows up everyone is mobile and ready to go. Leia then gets chained to Jabba as a slave but this is just incidental and means they must improvise a bit....I would also add a shot of her signaling Luke that she's going in (this sets in motion the end game part of the plan....and is accomplished easiest when she is still in costume....before we see her sneaking over to unfreeze Han).

And 2. R2 needs to be shown trying to get up to the main throne room...(perhaps after Luke sends him a signal of sorts) and failing.....that makes it seem like the plan was for Luke to smuggle in his lightsaber in case he was searched for weapons but for him to grab it back as soon as it was clear that Jabba wouldn't be reasonable. When R2 fails to get up to the throne room that sets in motion the need for the entire sail barge fight....as at that point they would be improvising...but sort of sticking to the original plan....just in a different place and time.

SpilkaBilka said:

Given ROTJ, should we really have expected anything good from episodes I-III?

I think alot of us felt that Lucas had slipped a little....that he was just lazy with the last installment of the trilogy....it happens in many film franchises...even when they manage to hold on to the magical formula for a second film the third one usually deviates and ends up being crap (Robocop comes to mind). Budget also often comes into play in this type of situation....sometimes what made a film great is that on a lesser budget it becomes necessary to make a character film instead of a special effects film.....when you get to number 2 or 3, the success of the first one makes it so that more money is being thrown around and this changes the feel of things greatly.

What we had no way of knowing was that ROTJ was what a SW film would look like if George was totally hands on, controlling all aspects.....he wasn't lazy, quite the contrary, he probably worked himself to exhaustion...controlling everything and thus making a less interesting film (in that it had fewer influences and individual visions behind it). Hindsight is 20/20....but we had no way of knowing without first having seen TPM.....it was then that it started to dawn on people that George had lost what made him great all those years ago (and only later that we started to get snippets of info that made it seem like the first 2 films were only successful because of some of the other people that were around to temper George's raw visions into workable scripts, scenes, shots, etc.

          ^I think that less time for hindsight and revisions made ESB superior to ROTJ (though I like ROTJ very much.) ESB remained linked to ANH in spirit, though darker. I wish that ROTJ was produced the year after ESB, in '80. We would have had a younger cast and no time for second thoughts. I think it could have been financed, even though sequels were considered risky.

I have not....though as far as I know the lightsaber construction scene is of too low quality resolution-wise to be included in Revisited.