BedeHistory731

My idea for a Palpatine appearance would be after the Battle of Yavin, where he contacts Tie Advanced-riding Vader via hologram. Palpatine would inquire about the pilot and Vader would say he felt “a presence I’ve not felt since” (reused from earlier). One can imply that Vader is talking about the “son of Skywalker” and it sets the stage for their conversation in the next movie (where both guys know Vader is Luke’s dad). Distortion of the hologram can cover up whatever syllable mixing or speech synthesis is needed to complete the interaction.

Turn the Vader-Palpatine confrontation in ROTJ into the Prophet of Regret boss-fight from Halo 2. As in, Vader just punches a hoveringchair-bound Palpatine repeatedly.

Anakin Starkiller said:

I don’t see why you’d skip ahead a single season like that to Terror of the Autons.

Get to Delgado’s Master earlier?

Anakin Starkiller said:

Nice!

Series 1 is not really the beginning, but as a good a place to start as any!

Spearhead from Space is my recommended starting point. Either that or Terror of the Autons, because no more missing episodes (some in lower quality than others) and it’s a fun show at that point.

I’m really enjoying what you’ve done thus far! I’m curious, how are you accomplishing the audio changes regarding Greedo’s voice being “less digital?” Will it be a transplant from the '97 SE or '77 stereo mixes or is it a purely EQ effort?

Meh, the hallway scene still sucks. The Fandom Menace’s adoration for the moment ruined it for me.

4throck said:

NeverarGreat said:

As others mentioned the scene is important to complete Vader’s arc from the PT, so it should be in if possible.
Thanks for the suggestions and discussion, it’s helpfull.

Except it really isn’t. Like, at all.

On an idealistic level, I hate that scene with a burning passion. It represents all that the meatheads of the fan base want from the movies – two hours of people getting chopped up by lightsabers with no sense of magic or wonder in the fictional world. No proper character conflict or development, just Vader slashing people up for the pure visual spectacle. Heck, Luke’s re-introduction in The Mandalorian commits the same sin and those same people cling to it.

The hallway scene is the worst moment in the saga and deserves to be cut.

Anakin Starkiller said:

I watched Batman & Robin yesterday and I loved it!

I’ll defend the heck out of that movie. It’s so delightfully goofy and a genuine breath of fresh air after the DCEU nonsense.

I saw Young Frankenstein, Phantom of the Paradise, and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story with a friend of mine recently. He really enjoyed each of them and I enjoyed having a new perspective on these films (I like all of them for their comedy style/aesthetic). Maybe it was unwise to show him Walk Hard before Bohemian Rhapsody or other formulaic musician biopics, but Walk Hard will give him a roadmap to tear those movies apart.

Phantom of the Paradise really is the best film version of the Phantom of the Opera/Faust story, if only because it feels more in-tune with the medium and very much sticks to its aesthetic. It doesn’t try to stick too closely to the source, but it gets similar ideas across. Young Frankenstein, outside of a few jokes, held up remarkably well. Wilder’s comedic stylings do transcend their time (e.g., the mood swings and the build-up to them).

SparkySywer said:

I kinda don’t see how it would improve the PT enough for it to be worth the effort

Make characterizations more consistent with TCW?

Neerb said:

BedeHistory731 said:

Replace all of the soundtrack with Spongebob music.

This is my favorite.

It’s beautiful!

Replace all of the soundtrack with Spongebob music.

I just wish Trevorrow incorporated the Sun Crusher into his script. Either that or the Galaxy Gun. 😉

fmalover said:

My only issue with TLJ is Rose’s overt idealism, as I dislike that sort of thing and also because it reeks of SJW.

🙄

G&G-Fan said:

sade1212 said:

The hard part really is just finding appropriate footage of Hayden to use. I’ve scanned through ROTS a few times (and the various deleted scenes) and never found anything at the right angle or which wouldn’t be a super obvious lift.

There’s the scene of him saying goodbye to Obi-Wan, or the balcony scene with Padme.

I mean this is a pretty great smile

Eh, it looks better later in the shot and a few shots later, with teeth showing. This nails it more:

Still, the lighting would make it very obvious that it’s not from the original. Some method of fixing it would be needed, but that’s simple.

Still, I’d say manipulation of more straight-on shots, interview footage from now, and/or deepfakery would do the trick.

Pretty much. Just do the subtle aging that Ascendant had in the close-ups and keep the outfit consistent with ROTJ/Ascendant. The change’s main goal will be to give the Hayden ghost a warm and proud expression akin to Shaw’s, as well as a less jarring link between head and body (i.e., maybe don’t use Shaw’s body).

Anakin Starkiller said:

I mentioned this in the Resurgence thread for the Shaw ghost, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a 3D model of Hayden’s head (with photorealistic textures) to better incorporate the Hayden ghost into ROTJ? Either that or convincingly deepfake Hayden’s head onto a similarly-sized costumed body double (with ROTS-like wig) duplicating Shaw’s expressions.

Ideally you’d do both, but we’re not exactly Corridor Digital.

Really, like hinventon said, the Ascendant Anakin ghost looks great, and it didn’t need any of that fancy stuff.

Definitely! It’s just a matter of appropriate clip selection and manipulation/editing to get it just right. A non-creepy Hayden ghost would be the perfect goal for any ROTJ edit (one that’s the full length of the OOT shot, so somebody could insert it into the current/next Despecialized or other fan edits).

I mentioned this in the Resurgence thread for the Shaw ghost, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a 3D model of Hayden’s head (with photorealistic textures) to better incorporate the Hayden ghost into ROTJ? Either that or convincingly deepfake Hayden’s head onto a similarly-sized costumed body double (with ROTS-like wig) duplicating Shaw’s expressions.

I may just be spitballing here, but a well-produced Hayden ghost would be my preferred version of Anakin. I’d say we’re at the point where it would be doable.

This may sound hilariously stupid, but what if somebody 3D modeled Shaw’s head and used photo-based textures for it? Then it could be composited into the shots for the redone ending. It would be a pain in the butt, but it might be worthwhile.

Given what Luke learned about the fall of the Jedi, it’d make sense to toss away the Youngling Killer 9000 like garbage.

Servii said:

Change Obi-Wan’s Krayt Dragon call in ANH to a Godzilla roar.

I’d go for the headless kamikaze scream from the Serious Sam games.

fmalover said:

Since Rey’s godlike mastery of the Force is being discussed, I want to say that if there’s one thing that bothered me most about the PT, it’s how everyone goes on about how strong Anakin is with the Force, but we never see him do anything noteworthy in AotC and RotS other than basic stuff like telekinetically moving stuff around or boosting his jumps. Now I’m not saying he should have breezed through waves of enemies Force Unleashed style, it’s just that I would consider this a case of “Show, don’t tell”.

Heck, something like enhanced precognition, complete sensory awareness, or even some large telekinetic feat (e.g., ripping ships apart) would’ve sold both his status as a “chosen one” and how much becoming Vader diminished him. I don’t know if 2002/2005 CGI and physical modeling could do that convincingly, but it would’ve sold it more.

Servii said:

Also, “Mary Sue” is not a dogwhistle. There are plenty of well known male Mary Sues/Gary Stus in fiction. I’m not sure what you’re implying about Marcia Lucas with that. I know people who avoid using the term because they don’t want to be accused of being some sort of reactionary, but it’s a valid term in character criticism.

I agree that it’s valid, but it’s been used so often by the reactionary sort that it has kind of lost a lot of its original meaning and has become a dogwhistle for some (akin to “ethics in video game journalism”). It sucks that such a useful term has been ruined, but that’s the impact of the culture war on pop culture discussion.

NeverarGreat said:

Are we sure that’s higher quality than anything we have, or is he just implying that he got a fan project?

Even so, digitizing analog video masters is just standard archival policy at this point. Analog video doesn’t exactly have the shelf life of safety film.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Omni said:

Yeah, not a flaw at all. Complaining about Carano’s firing should be a major red flag.

Strongly diasgree. What she said may have been really stupid but it wasn’t dangerous, and I’ve had with this cancel culture.

It was very dangerous. Any attempt to spread misinformation at this time should be seen as dangerous. It’s much bigger than just “cancel culture.”

ZkinandBonez said:

How is it not a flaw to fail to explain how a new protagonist far supersede both of the previous saga main characters for two movies, then retconning it to some vague super-inheritance in the third film?

But is she really all that more powerful than Anakin or Luke? Do we really need to see a training arc beyond what was in TLJ and the opening of TROS (she’s been training with Leia and on her own during the time skip)? The character still struggles and has the whole “found family” arc, so it’s not like she’s a god-mode Mary Sue (e.g., Starkiller from The Force Unleashed).

And as for killing off the OT characters, even Mark Hamill has expressed disappointment in Lucasfilm failing to bring back the old cast as so many fans were hoping for. Yes, Ford has an odd relationship with SW, Fisher’s passing was obviously out of everyone’s control, but killing off Luke was to many a step too far. And Lando’s “mandatory” appearance in TROS didn’t really serve much of a story purpose.

I get the issue around it, but I really don’t think it was an issue because the sacrifice was handled so well in the movie. I know an OT reunion scene would’ve been welcome, but I think the story is fine without it.

What annoys me is that I think the new trilogy could have been saved with just one minor adjustment to TLJ. If Luke hadn’t been killed off and Rey had received some actual mentoring in the third film, then I think the whole thing could have come to a much more satisfying conclusion.

I really don’t think that. Rey gets enough mentoring in the movie and it serves the story well.

I still would have had some complaints, sure, but it would have felt more consistent and like a proper “passing of the torch” story. It would have given Luke more of a complete arc and a position in the saga worthy of what was set up previously and how he is perceived by the fandom, and it could also have helped give some much needed limitations to Rey’s abilities (which TLJ did kind of touch on), while still allowing for her grand powers in the third film. And hopefully this would have resulted in a third film that gave Finn and Poe more to do.

I’d say that TLJ did all of that. That was the worthy ending that fit with the Luke of the OT.

I personally can forgive TFA for it’s unoriginality due it having the massive task of having to bring back fans after the PT, and I can appreciate the depth and nuance that Johnson attempted to add to Luke (though I’m still torn on whether it should have been done or not), but in the end I think the lack of an organic ending made the whole trilogy crash and burn. With Luke as a strong link to the OT and ideas more akin to Trevorrow’s planned finale I think the ST could have been quite good, if not a fair bit derivative.

I’m not all that keen on TROS, but it still feels like a decent and fairly organic ending to me. Rey has her found family and much like Luke in ROTJ, there’s room to speculate on her next move. Heck, the claiming of the name with ghostly approval works well as a torch pass to me.

Granted, I’d have set the ST 100 years after ROTJ with only Chewy, R2, 3PO, and ghost Luke returning. All the themes could be explored without causing unexpected disturbances with OT fans.