BedeHistory731

RogueLeader, I really like what you proposed! It does involve some creative redubbing, but it seems doable (Auralnauts’ videos made good work of it). Keeping the surprise does eliminate some of the more “emotional” parts of III, but I like that it keeps Anakin’s fate ambiguous while also presenting some ambiguity over Vader. There are a few points I’d suggest:

I: You mention the idea of making Obi-Wan a full-fledged knight - I think that you can make the element of doubt work through redubbing the council to hint that they’re aware of Obi-Wan’s failure with “Vader” and are reluctant for him to teach again. Heck, Maul/“Vader” could be evidence that “too old” apprentices go bad. It would be Qui-Gon vouching for his former pupil instead.

II: I’m not sure what exactly you’d cut from the Anakin stuff on Tatooine (easing PT-OT inconsistencies. It would likely depend on what you do with TPM.

III: I would suggest showing Grievous or Palpatine looking at a bacta tank at some point. If it’s clouded enough to hide the person inside it, you can imply that it’s either the apprentice or Grievous’ empty tank. That way, it keeps up the mystery. I like the idea of calling both Dooku and Grievous “Darth Tyranus” and Maul/Anakin “Darth Vader.” It does prove to be an issue with the “Rule of Two,” but removing said rule really isn’t a problem for editing (compared to the redubbing and some visual changes).

Adding Obi-Wan picking up Anakin’s lightsaber while examining the temple ruins could also work to explain how he gets it for IV.

While I do agree that this is far more work than simply changing around some episode numbers on the crawls to make it go ANH-ESB-ROTS (or a three-in-one edit)-ROTJ, it’s still a worthy venture. Good work, RougeLeader!

JEDIT: Perhaps Mace goes to face Palpatine, cutting to Anakin’s flight to the office once we see Palpatine draw his lightsaber. We keep the ruminations scene in, as it’s an important emotional beat.

Oh my, that’s amazing! I really like the color swap.

Hal 9000 said:

But why would Vader head a criminal organization?

He has his hobbies. 😉

I like it, Snooker! I’m curious to see where you’ll go with the edit.

TNT, I always likes 3-in-1, so I’m curious about how you’ll handle it. I’m a Blackened Mantle guy, an edit where I liked the decisions made (fake subtitles paired with the Japanese dub, Grievous is Maul, etc.).

snooker said:

I don’t even care about preserving the Yoda reveal in Empire, it’s just that he’s sooo boring in the prequelsssss.

Indeed! I like having the situational irony in ESB with Yoda (who we know from I, II, and III) screwing around to test Luke. You can even argue that Yoda gets a character arc as the result of his prequel appearances (pompous, dogmatic ass in the prequels becomes a humbled, humorous, wise, but still dogmatic master in the OT).

Still, my attitude towards prequel rewrites is to keep all of the OT twists intact. We never see Yoda, we assume Anakin (and/or an additional Obi-Wan pupil) is dead at the end of the trilogy, and we only see the birth of one kid.

snooker said:

I’ve got a hot take: Yoda should only appear once in the prequels, and it’s in his scene with Obi-Wan near the end of The Phantom Menace

Exactly! Whenever I’ve done prequel rewrites, Yoda has been exiled by the Jedi for dogmatic disputes. Only Obi-Wan (and Qui-Gon/Dooku) know where he is (Dagobah). That way, the ESB surprise is enhanced (instead of us laughing with Yoda, knowing he’s just messing around with Luke).

While it’d be impossible to totally cut Yoda from the three movies, one could chop him out in a three-in-one edit with some difficulty.

I’m just annoyed they couldn’t find a woman VA to dub the female pilot in ROTJ. Also, what changed to allow Dennis Lawson to use his own voice in ROTJ as well?

Matt.F said:

“We weren’t doing anything that I think Peter Cushing would’ve objected to. I think this work was done with a great deal of affection and care. We know that Peter Cushing was very proud of his involvement in Star Wars and had said as much, and that he regretted that he never got a chance to be in another Star Wars film because George [Lucas] had killed off his character. This was done in consultation and cooperation with his estate. So we wouldn’t do this if the estate had objected or didn’t feel comfortable with this idea.” John Knoll, VFX Supervisor.

Please feel free to go ahead and be outraged anyway, and create an ‘ethical’ cut of the movie!

Meh, ethical or not, it still looked awful. Prosthetic makeup, like in ROTS, would have been fine. Either way, I like this cut sparing us having to look at it.

Also, just chill. Don’t try to write off OP as “whiny” and “outraged” because he disagrees with you and has different values from the filmmaker.

Matt.F said:

Peter Cushing was an actor.

Tarkin is a character. Do you see the difference? I can assure you Peter Cushing’s ‘corpse’ as you emotively wrote is quite undisturbed. Perhaps you should issue a fatwa on anyone who makes an image of someone who has passed?

Seems mock moral outrage is all the rage online today though.

It’s entirely normal to think that the CGI face looked terrible and may have been disrespectful, so it’s not “mock moral outrage.” There are serious ethical issues around this practice.

I like the editing as it is, but I’d recommend rotoscoping in appropriate backgrounds for the cutaways. It might help fix the issues that Rouge Leader described. I’d also recommend getting to the Tantive IV through a dissolve instead of a wipe.

JEDIT: Now that you’ve moved 3PO and R2 to the end, would you consider cutting out their Yavin appearance?

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Matt.F said:

Actually talking of voices, and from the same opening scene with the ‘ungloved hand’, the blond Imperial Officer who says “Inform the Commander that Lord Vader’s shuttle has arrived” speaks with a very noticeably American accent.

If you watch ESB and ROTJ back-to-back its actually quite jarring to hear the US accent from an Imperial officer right at the start of the film - in ESB the British accent was the voice of the Empire’s officer class and it gave the Empire a certain haughty aristocracy that worked very well.

Hardly a game changer but I think redubbing a British accent for that officer would be a nice little improvement to the movie.

Excellent point. I always thought that dub wasn’t very well done anyway. Doesn’t this dude show up later to deliver another line to Piett too?

Actually, other than Piett, are there any other officers that DO have a British accent? The “send three squads to help!” guy might be quasi British…I don’t know.

The Moff guy is also British in ROTJ, as is “Sir, we’ve lost our bridge deflector shields.” Still, some redubs would be good for ROTJ (adjusting dialogue).

joefavs said:

Forever baffled by the apparently common impulse to show fan edits for someone’s first viewing. Maaaaaaybe for the prequels, but the OT? Seriously?

It mostly applies to ROTJ. I’d rather kids not have to see “jealous Han,” too much Ewok chicanery, and some really clunky dialogue. They can watch the original alongside it, of course.

With ANH and ESB, I say have the fanedits as additional viewing (since it’s the best way to see the SE’s).

SilverWook said:

I thought Jabba was well developed for a slimy piece of worm ridden filth. 😉

If it had been Gene Roddenberry directing, he’d have gone on a tangent about how the Hutts reproduce.

Part of me wouldn’t mind waiting, see how much they absorb from pop culture osmosis alone.

I saw fans on Reddit wanting Witwer to overdub Peter Serafinowicz’s work in TMP because Serafinowicz isn’t “part of the franchise.” These fans are dicks.

Of course, you can make up a canon reason for switching actors, say “Witwer is Maul’s voice after Maul lost his lower body to Kenobi.” As for McDiarmid redubbing the lines, I’m glad they got Witwer’s permission.

I’m curious, will the audio changes be a replication of the ones done for the SD version?

JEDIT: Also, will you be restoring Leia’s reaction shot before Alderaan’s destruction? Much like the Tarkin shot at the end of the film, it adds some much-needed emotion to the scene.

ANH (4K77 and Revisited), ESB (Despecialized and Revisited), Clone Wars series, ROTS (Hal9000’s latest version), ROTJ (4K83 and DarthRush’s fanedit - I like his cutlist), TFA (Starlight Project, when it comes out finalized), TLJ (Rekindled, latest version), and ROS (whatever fanedit I like most).

Only show them TMP and AOTC with the Rifftrax, or through the excellent Lego Star Wars videogames. Blackened Mantle is also appropriate, if your kid likes reading subtitles.

If you’re rendering these frames on 4K83, I must say that you’ve rescued the original rancor composites! My biggest complaints about Despecialized 2.5 and Sanjuro’s grades were that the Rancor scene was too dark in the composite shots. Consistency looks pretty good as well, from my untrained eye.

RoccondilRinon said:

FWIW, the crying rancor keeper is one of my favourite moments. It’s the most creative moment in the whole Jabba sequence, IMO. It adds a bit of depth to the world, and it’s just plain hilarious.

I can understand why it’s polarising, but my vote is for keeping it. I also love the ironing droid in TLJ, so maybe I just have a thing for bathos.

I can see where you’re coming from with that, but I think it’s my least favorite moment in that whole movie. It’s silly, adds to a very bloated part of the story without contributing to the plot/character arcs, and is just kind of uncomfortable. With Adywan tweaking the droid torture, it’s time to get rid of the crying rancor keeper.

Had the Jabba’s Palace stuff been its own movie (which I think it was, correct me if I’m wrong), then you could keep it. The third parts of each trilogy have all had pacing issues, owing to the need to wrap so much up in a short span of time.

FreezingTNT2 said:

I have an idea: when Vader witnesses Luke being electrocuted by Palpatine, he should say “Leave my son alone.” instead of “NOOO!!!”. What do you think?

Correction: “Let that child alone!” 😉

Seriously, though: no dialogue from Vader for that scene.

ChainsawAsh said:

We have theatrical DTS audio for all six pre-Disney movies (1997 SEs and all three prequels).

Good to know!

Unpopular suggestion: can Ady cut the crying rancor keeper? I’ve hated it since I first watched the film and its removal would help reduce the bloat of the Jabba section.

It’s nice commentary on where Adywan thinks the Prequels belong (a large, junk-collecting tank). I’m happy that it’s the only real prequel reference, unless there’s a skeleton of a prequel species in the rancor pit.

Broom Kid said:

Almost anything you hear on the soundtrack referring to Jabba the Hutt doesn’t exist in the movie. I do wonder if there’s a way to get all of that music back in the film - and there’s a lot of it - without it feeling cut-up and disrupted.

I think it would be a testament to Ady’s sound mixing abilities to restore some of it to the film. Luckily, sound effects shouldn’t be an issue.

While he’s likely using the ‘04 mixes as a base (with insertions from the OOT), maybe the ‘97 DTS would be a better starting point (if we have the DTS of it/if there’s a marked dynamic/separation difference between it and the ‘04/‘11).

Adywan didn’t restore any of the missing ESB cues, so I doubt he’ll restore any here. I do think that there are some cues that could work in the film. “Bounty for a Wookie” instead of the Max Rebo outro music would be nice, as would using the Obi-Wan/Luke music.

My write-up has no sequel trilogy. If it did, it’d be the Thrawn Trilogy.

That sounds like a good idea to me, keeping Vader within the Empire and taking things down from the inside. Perhaps the Mustafar confrontation could be Luke surrendering to him?

I’m not sure you need to kill off a big-name hero. ROTJ was satisfying without it. Maybe include Akbar in III and kill him in IV? Take inspiration from the story of Admiral Yi, with him dying on the bridge and his subordinates commanding the battle for him.