Anakin Starkiller

fmalover said:

The Star Wars franchise has been inconsistent in their portrayal of Dark Side corruption.

In the OT the only instances of Dark Side corruption are Vader and the Emperor, with both having very pale skin, and in the Emperor’s case in particular, yellow eyes. Later we meet Darth Maul, who has the yellow eyes characteristic of the Dark Side, but retained his youthful appearance throughout the twenty years leading up to the Battle of Yavin. Count Dooku shows no signs of Dark Side corruption implying his fall to the dark side has been relatively recent or he doesn’t draw from the Dark Side as much as others do. ROTS really screws up the whole notion of Dark Side corruption by revealing the reason Palpatine looks the way he does in the OT is because of Mace Windu deflecting the Force lightning back at him (I always assumed it was because of his many years immersed in the Dark Side), and finally we have Anakin Skywalker whose eyes only turn yellow when he’s really angry or something. Finally we have Snoke and Kylo Ren, with Snoke looking very old and decrepit but doesn’t have yellow eyes even though he’s established to be a longtime practitioner of the Dark Side, and Kylo Ren who been a Dark Side practitioner for at least ten years yet doesn’t show the slightest hint of Dark Side corruption.

This franchise seriously can’t make up its mind regarding the whole dark side corruption subject.

FWIW, my headcanon is that Palpatine has been alive as long as Yoda using the Force. In fact, I guess Yoda’s probably alive that way too, albeit for more selfless reasons.

To better set up the ST and make it feel less like it invalidates the OT, I’d remove the SE celebration montage, and add a scene of the remains of the Empire ominously retreating into the Unknown Regions.

The fact that the War has no name is a testament to how underdeveloped this setting is.

I’d say the Emperor looks fine while hooded. Just shouldn’t have shown his face. Also, the recast TPM scene really took me out of the experience. I agree about the Emperor’s throne room. Too small and plain.

I think it’s utterly ridiculous. How are they gonna cram all the inevitable spinoff material?

Yeah but this edit is mean to be watched before the OT.

You’re totally right about that legendary feel.

I forgot to mention that just like the film itself, the title “The Last Jedi” pours salt in the wound TFA created by undoing the accomplishments of the heroes in OT.

Oh and “The Empire Strikes Back” sounds cheesy as hell, but it fits with the other films enough that I don’t care.

Besides, how exactly is having been in a previous crawl a good thing?

Yes it’s the Great Hall clip. It’s so brown you could mistake it for a flashback.

The thing is that realism is, to certain degree, subjective. I don’t see Prizoner of Azkaban as any more realistic than Chamber of Secrets. Thus, I thought of the most prominent change - the color palette - and assumed that must’ve been what you were referring to. I see people (falsely) equating grit to realism all the time, so I figured you were doing just that.

That said, I should’ve thought of the costuming. I can definitely see how you would consider the post-Columbus films to have more grounded, realistic costumes. The early films have wacky wizard robes the later films have students often wearing muggle clothing (a pretty big and easily avoidable plot hole, IMO). On a more subtle level, the way the uniforms look changes from uniform (no pun intended) and well-kept to messy and personalized. As usual I prefer the lighthearted unhinged fanytasy of the Columbus films for this, but here my opinion isn’t strong, as I’m not to bothered with either style

Consistency on par with LotR (which it had because it was shot all at once with the same production team) is definitely a good thing strive for.

If you really want to preserve the twist, I think the best option is to have Luke be Luke Lars for the first two OT films, as that would hit two birds with one stone, preserving the twist while simultaneously solving the issue of how Vader never figured out the guy named Skywalker living with his step-brother was his son. Granted there’s still the step-brother bit, but that’s something you’d fix in the Prequels themselves. Anyway, the only problem with my idea is Lars has got to be the lamest name in the Galaxy. Most notably, you’d lose “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

What are the other two?

Well the main goal of your HP edits AFAICT is to make the brighter, more colorful, lighthearted films (the Columbus ones and to a lesser extent the Newell one) more in line with the darker, more drab, “serious” (no pun intended) films (the Cuaron one and the Yates ones). You keep comparing your take to LotR, but I don’t recall any scene in those films looking like sepiatone the way your second clip here does. Look at the color of the Shire! And even in the darkest time, on Mount Doom, there’s still a thousand times color than in anything Yates ever directed.

Seeing this thread being posted reminded me to buy the full Blu-Ray set (I only had DVDs of 1-4) to make edits of them that are just the opposite, so I went and did just that. Now I just gotta rip 'em and get to work. Granted, I should probably rewatch them first. I guess I could do that once I finish Series 1 of Doctor Who, which I just started. Still, I could do some preliminary work on things like color grading, openings, and credits. I’m thinking of watching the extended editions for my rewatch so I can see everything I have to work with in action.

And here I thought you’d leave them untouched, since they already have the dark lighting and dull color palette.

I’m just gonna look at the saga films, but feels free to discuss the titles of any Star Wars content you want.

I don’t think I could pick a best Star Wars title, but I can definitely pick a worst: The Last Jedi. Now I’m not one of those people who hated the film, I thought it was pretty good (although it’s no exception to my rule of “movies shouldn’t be much more than two hours”), but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. I really dislike that title. Every episode up until that point had been entirely unique. No nouns were recycled. Then The Last Jedi comes along and now there’s a second film with Jedi in the title. It just feels so, so wrong in an intangible way. I guess it suits the film’s love of subverting expectations, but to me it’s equivalent of skipping the opening crawl. It just irks me to a probably irrational degree.

Had it been up to me, I think I would’ve called it The First Order Makes Chase. It fits the plot of the film as well the theme of retaliation second parts tend to have in the saga. Although I don’t want to adhere to closely to “poetry” if it becomes restrictive, I think it’s nice to have when possible. If we follow this logic, I’ve determined that the best title for IX would be…Rebirth of the Bendu. Not sure it’s actually the best, but within the context of matching Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, it fits perfectly. I figure it’d be about Rey and Kylo uniting to revive the ancient order of the Bendu, Force-wielders who use both sides of the Force.

Now I’m guessing some people will say Attack of the Clones is a bad title because the Clones don’t technically attack anything, but given how vague SW titles are, I don’t have an issue with it, as it still fits the gist of the film.

On a different note, am I the only who kind of wishes we had a “Rise of” title? I’m sure many of you will say it’s too generic, but I like and think it would fit in incredibly well among the titles. I guess we could take my earlier suggestion and make it Rise of the Bendu, but really, the final chapter in the saga, or any story for that matter, should not have “Rise” in the title. It’s more appropriate for the beginning or middle of a trilogy.

It’s definitely not Matt Smith.

Sounds like fun, but like you say, we have TCW for that.

I think the Yoda scene in ESB is more fun if the audience is in on it. Besides, cutting huge swashes of the Prequel to preserve a twist that’s executed within a few minutes of meeting the guy in ESB just doesn’t make much sense to me.

nevertheless I don’t think it’ll be an issue as Rian didn’t stray too far from TFA’s style to begin with.

Actually, I was very confused as to why people acted like the arguably out-of-place humor of TLJ was new. To me, it was just a continuation of the sometimes borderline parody tone of TFA. Totally seamless.

John_ said:

Near perfect film.

To each their own.

It’s sad that Disney pushed Solo forward, but I guess I did see an Alden Ehrenreich film for December after a- never mind it’s not him.

I’ve been wanting to see Into the Spiderverse, even though I’m not into superheroes. I guess it’s just my fondness for animation…and Peni Parker.

Saw Goodfellas today, and it just never seemed to end. I guess I can add that to list of things to respond to “How many seconds in an eternity?” with. I think the movie would’ve been much better off as a TV show.

Not an idea per say, but an interesting tidbit of edit-related information. If you add them all up and divide the total into two hour movies, The Hobbit is four parts and The Lord of the Rings is six. Granted most sane people would rather not have full unfiltered cuts of The Hobbit, but it’s interesting to note even extended they didn’t stretch it to the length of LotR.

You don’t need to move all these things around for a time skip. My plan is to just have Rey and Chewie spend a year roaming Ach-To questioning locals for hints on Luke’s exact whereabouts.

The whole “This place seems familiar.” is such an unimportant throwaway line that I only remember it exists because of this thread. Besides, it’s not like Luke would remember the place he was born at. How many of you remember being born?

Feige is intimately familiar with the Marvel franchise and is actively shaping its cinematic universe. Kennedy on the other hand hasn’t displayed much familiarity with Star Wars and the decisions thus far have all seemed strictly reactionary. Should Kennedy leave? No not at all but it would probably be a good idea to appoint a Narrative Lead to figure out where Star Wars can go from here.

That’s because Kennedy isn’t the creative lead. You know who is? The Story Group.

The only reason the ST has a chance of feeling like its narratively cohesive is that Abrams is returning. Had Trevorrow headed IX as was originally intended, it would have ended in disaster.

On one hand, Abrams directing IX will make VIII the awkward Johnson film sandwiched between two Abrams films. On the other Jurassic World was the first bad Jurassic Park film IMO, and I loved the original “trilogy”. In the end, I’m happier with Abrams at the helm, but it’s worth remembering his strength lies in setting up plots, not resolving them. I remember someone on this forum saying they’d get a “sadistic satisfaction” out of seeing Abrams resolve his own story. Man, I wish I’d saved that quote. But for what it’s worth, Abrams is also great at imitating the style of others, so there shouldn’t be too much issue belnding with VIII.

Disaster because Trevorrow sucks, not because having another voice in the mix is inherently disastrous.

What he said. ^