Bingowings

will said:

Does ol' Palpy even need to be from Naboo/Alderaan?

 

 

In the EU he does (but who cares in this context) as a Senator he didn't just represent Naboo but a collection of systems in the area, the Republic is a big place but with all this doubling up of representation it hardly sounds that democratic to start with.

It almost makes you wonder what the Alliance were fighting for in the first place.

If Palpatine had a good strong wife with a strong interest in herbal remedies like the Emperor Augustus had ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37lXkrGMpMQ ) the galaxy wouldn't have to wait long to get rid of rotten Emperors.

Doesn't Augustus look like Boss Nass BTW ;-)

 PS. It goes, hopefully without saying, that if you liked that clip do go out and buy "I Claudius" it'll be one of the best spending decisions you'll ever make.

All this talk of TIE colour is making this thread sound like Savile Row.

Master Qui-Gon said:

Yeah but how would you handle that Amidala and Bail are senators of the same planet?

 

Amidala could be head of state (like a constitutional President or Monarch, she is a Queen) Bail (a Viceroy) could be the local Senator and elected political leader once Palpatine has been promoted to Chancellor.

Living here in the UK HM Liz Windsor is the constitutional head of state but her Prime Minister Rt Hon Gordon Brown (texture like sun) is the elected political leader of the country and leads the country in the UK Parliament and during treaty negotiations.

The Queen still has certain powers (she can in theory desolve Parliament and war can't be declared without her approval, something Margaret Thatcher discovered to her embarrassment during the Falklands War) but it's the PM that heads up the day to day running of the shambles.

A similar set up exists in Eire which has a constitutional Presidency.

So you could have Queen Amidala and Viceroy Bail Organa both representing different arms of the running of Alderaan.

In a revised prequel trilogy she could remain Queen all the way through and just edit the references to her being a senator.

Do any of the scenes with the other Queens of Naboo add much to the story?

The other Queens could be further decoys if the scenes are needed.

Would the Emperor allow the destruction of his (supposed) planet of origin?

I can't think of a better way of setting an example to the rest of the Galaxy, tyranny begins at home.

Sure, Tarkin came up with the plan but I could see Palpatine giving the scheme his blessing.

Palpatine doesn't need public approval at that point, he wants to control the galaxy through fear.

Showing that even his own people weren't safe from his destructive whims would polarise opinion, the Rebels would be more rebellious but the floating systems would be less likely to join in the fight.

Bail Organa was going to be in TPM and Adrian Dunbar filmed some scenes in the role :

but Lucas either didn't like them or him and his image was retconned into being Bail Antilies in the EU.

If Naboo was to be reduxed into being Alderaan it wouldn't be too difficult to alter Pananka's line refering to Bail one way or the other, Dunbar never appears in any of the final shots anyway.

Dunbar is a good actor I'd like to see the footage, maybe he was another TPM cast member who didn't take to George or visa versa, Ralph Brown described Lucas as "a man lacking in human decency", Terence Stamp was not impressed when he was asked to act to a mop because Lucas had given Nat Portman the day off  (George didn't think her presence was necessary) and Hugh Quarshie was "made an offer he could refuse" to be in AOTC.

rortiz77 said:

Bingowings said:

rortiz77 said:

I made a video time ago trying to sync the opening scenes from TESB with the John Williams music cue "The ice planet Hoth" (that's supposed to be heard there). I changed some shots order, added two new shots and extended one shot in order to make the music fit. Maybe it can give some ideas, maybe not.

In case you are interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhie3MEXvzY

BTW, Ady, in case you are interested I will translate the subtitles for TESB Revisited to spanish (as I did for ANH).

There's a few jump cuts in there but on the whole it works a treat, a great piece of work.

The music might be even more in sync if the surplus to requirements shot of Han's Tauntaun was removed.

We can hear him on Luke's comlink, we see him ride the thing into the base, do we really have to see the model (and it's not a very good shot) stomping around far, far away?

 

 

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I agree, the "Han on Tauntaun from a distance" shot seems totally out of place, it has always bugged me. Maybe the music sync would be better without it, I'm not sure. I did this video quite long ago even though I published it on Youtube three months ago.

And the jump cuts are due to my limited knowledge on video/audio editing.

It might be worth giving it another go and even attempting to eliminate the double impact to see what it's like too.

I'm no expert on video/audio editing either (I'd love to be able to seperate music tracks from the rest of the sound mix for example, some films are wrecked by too much, too loud or inappropriate music) but little mini projects like yours A) help you gain new skills and you already have a degree of flair in that department B) serve as illustrations to other editors like Adywan about what might work in their projects.

It was nice to hear the music cues in the place that Williams intended them to be.

TheoOdo said:

Naboo is retitled "Alderaan", giving the planet some sense of relevance next to the original series. You could argue that Naboo doesn't look like Alderaan, but you have to realise that this fan edit would constitute and alternate canon. The more high-tech cities of Alderaan undoubtedly exist, but away from the magnificent and historical palace of it's royalty featured here.

* Also, some creative voice editing can be used to make reference appear to Alderaan actually in the film. For example Panaka mentions later that a senator from Alderaan is being considered for the position of chancellor. Use this sound bite earlier in the film and Panaka could in fact say "Alderaan has no army!" as opposed to "We have no army!". I think this works even better, because we know this to be true from the original series as well.

I love this idea a lot.

Giving Alderaan large chunks of screen time makes us care a lot more about the place when it's destroyed in ANH and from space the two places look very similar.

It also explains the lack of mention of Naboo and it's people in the OT.

Making this one change binds the saga closer together.

Oh for Zod's sake!

It's Ady's fan edit, he can put pink TIE fighters in with yellow spots on if he wants.

He has made his justification for going with grey and that is surely enough for a fan edit.

If other people want to have ESB:R with blue TIE fighters they can (giving credit where it is due) put them back in themselves.

Some of the people posting on here seem to act as if this the Adywan Pizza Palace where you can insist on the toppings you demand.

These threads are for making suggestions, not barking orders at the poor chap.

We aren't paying him for these fan edits so there isn't any space for foot stomping.

PS. Remember the spinach, olives and extra Jalapenos on mine or else!

rortiz77 said:

I made a video time ago trying to sync the opening scenes from TESB with the John Williams music cue "The ice planet Hoth" (that's supposed to be heard there). I changed some shots order, added two new shots and extended one shot in order to make the music fit. Maybe it can give some ideas, maybe not.

In case you are interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhie3MEXvzY

BTW, Ady, in case you are interested I will translate the subtitles for TESB Revisited to spanish (as I did for ANH).

There's a few jump cuts in there but on the whole it works a treat, a great piece of work.

The music might be even more in sync if the surplus to requirements shot of Han's Tauntaun was removed.

We can hear him on Luke's comlink, we see him ride the thing into the base, do we really have to see the model (and it's not a very good shot) stomping around far, far away?

I was always under the impression that the Rebel fleet was comprised of Republican era ships which were salvaged and maintained/modified by the Alliance because they couldn't get new ships.

I would love to see some Y-Wings with all their streamlined panels intact  :

http://flickr.com/photos/rocketseason/sets/72157608098402281/

(one of the few welcome ideas in the new Clone Wars TV series) and some fresh off the production line X, A, B wings etc in the prequels.

I wouldn't even mind seeing some tatty ROTS ships in ROTJ:R but that's for another thread.

I would also like Jengo Fett to be Boba Fett and never remove his mask or be a child or be the template for the clones.

It would be nice to have one mystery guy in the saga remain a mystery.

Could I dare to be obvious by making Grievous into what is left of Darth Maul thus padding his character into more of a threat?

As a cyborg foe of the Jedi he could later on be confused with Vader in the public eye so some of the stories of Vader hunting down Jedi could be attributed to him because of the difficulty of communication during a Galactic war, (especially if he sounded like James Earl Jones).

It did seem odd that during the prequels lots of cool looking bad guys turned up with stronger fighting skill than Vader in the original trilogy and with each film at least one of them is knocked out.

Lucas also said that the reason for the sabre duels being more energetic in the prequels was down (in part) to the combatants in the original trilogy being an old man, a cyborg and a partly trained youth.

In the prequels we see Dooku (older than Obi-Wan in the original trilogy) leaping about like a madman and a cyborg who isn't even a Jedi or a Sith taking down the Jedi in their prime.

There is a story (and I'm not sure if this is true) that the some of the people in the art department wanted to give Grievous Maul's eyes but Lucas hated the idea.

It would give the Grievous character a bit more validity if he is what is left of a fully trained Sith Lord,  (which Dooku has restored as a cyborg) though how one could account for Dooku's agility is beyond me.

When I saw the trailers and some of the leaked production photos from TPM my speculations of what would happen were very different to the final film.

The Trade Federation Tank prop was shown at the studio with some Tatooine looking items in one photograph I saw which lead me to believe that the Trade Federation Battledroids would invade Tatooine at some point, which would justify the anti-droid sentiment shown in ANH.

The Magnoliafan take on the Federation (that they were dealing in slavery) would tie in with Anakin's slave background too.

Perhaps by recolouring some scenes from AOTC it might be possible to create a crisis on Tatooine which would create a more dramatic origin story for Anakin.

The Geonosians are seen in AOTC as being fond of Gladitorial combat, which could extend to Pod Racing.

So one possible huge re-jig would be to put the Trade Federation primarily into the hands of the Geonosians instead of the Neimodians (who could be just a lesser member race).

This would return to the original intent of the battle droids being built to resemble their masters.

I also assumed that the lightsabre duel between Maul, Qui-Gon and Obi Wan was taking place on a star ship.

It might be possible to alter the scenes at the beginning of the film as seen and cutting into the duel (with adjustments) so that the Jedi encounter the Sith Lord on the Trade Federation ship.

I also assumed that all the Naboo hanger scenes would happen at the same time (surely the Trade Federation would have destroyed or disabled the Naboo fighters rather than just leave them hanging there to be launched against them at the end of the film).

So one possible alteration would be to start the film on Coruscant with Queen Amidala protesting about the blockade of her planet. She goes (with a Jedi escort and the Gungan Ambassador Jar-Jar) to effect a liberation of her planet but is hijacked on route and forced to land on Tatooine which has already fallen to the Federation. They meet up with Anakin, gain the parts they need, Anakin joins the Jedi hoping to liberate Tatooine at a later date (giving Anakin a noble intention for leaving his mother behind rather than just seeing the stars).

As they escape they encounter a Sith Lord who is working with the Federation (I'd love to be able to put the Obi-Wan vs Maul scene that only happened in this publicity photo but I haven't a clue how).

I find it hard to believe that they flew Ewan over to Tunisia just to film a few shots outside Amidala's ship.

They break through the blockade and create a hasty alliance with the Gungans. The Gungan's attack the bulk of the droid army, The Jedi attempt to shut down the shields for Trade Federation command ship and encounter battle droids (which should rarely if ever speak and certainly should not be the comic relief goons as seen in the theatrical version...incidently they do sound good in German) and finally the Sith Lord they first encountered on Tatooine, the Naboo fighters clear the path for the Jedi and take on the full Federation fleet (not just one ship making it an more hopless fight) and the Queen and her troops storm the palace.

Jar-Jar would have a less prominant role and would be dubbed to turn him in a dignified but quixotic ambassador.

Anakin's dreams of liberating the slaves on Tatooine would come true with a tragic twist in the next film as Geonosis is now Tatooine the site of the first big battle of the Clone Wars.

The Federation fleet would retreat once it's command ship is lost leaving their Neimodian lackys to take the blame.

The scene with Dooku forming the Seperatists would be moved to a meeting on Tatooine placing Dooku into the first film and making it seem as he is the prime Sith Lord.

I'd remove all Sidious scenes from the first film and have him make his first appearence in the second film.

I'd also remove or alter all the joke alien pod racers and have them all gladiator slaves of the Federation.

As in most re-edits Jake Lloyd's performances would need to be toned down to make him less annoying and the Jedi Temple scenes would be placed at the end of the film (minus Qui Gon) with Obi-wan being reluctantly being allowed to school Anakin because of his obvious nascent Jedi abilities  (not because of the dreaded midichlorians).

I'd also would like Darth Maul speak more by sampling some dialogue from the PSone game (where I believe he has more to say) and the Eulogy To Fear (no not the one in Dune) heard in the trailer which (as in the trailer) balances Yoda's warning about fear leading to the Dark Side.

I've started a thread to this aim.

Yes, it's years off but it keeps this thread aimed at ESB:R and ROTJ:R and gives Ady and others a place to read our ideas which might help them someway down the line.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Prequel-Radical-Redux-Ideas-Thread/topic/9911/

With Adywan announcing his intention to remove Threepio from his versions of Episodes I and II and not having Anakin build him, the time has come for this thread to be born.

Though his versions are years away I thought it would be a good idea for Adywan and others who wish to change the prequels in an ambitious way (rather than nibbling at the edges) to read our ideas of what might be done.

I shall pop my ideas on here in a few days time but I thought I'd not waste a moment in starting this thread.

Let your imaginations soar here and let the editors decide what's actually possible and appealing to them.

Perhaps by pulling together we can rescue the prequel trilogy from the netherworld of epic cinema gone wrong.

What with Ady's comments about what he intends to do with Threepio in the prequels should we enter ideas here or set up a seperate thread?

I know it's a long way off and he's sure to be bursting with ideas but he seems to be open to outside input, I certainly hope this thread has helped him.

kenkraly2007 said:

Look I'm sorry but I am not complaning about the 2004 dvd releases like everybuddy else is. It's been 4 years since they came out stop complaning about them and be happy with the releases and not so nagitve.

Why should other people stop talking about something they are unhappy about just because you are happy about it?

These films have been sold to and bought by fans in so many different formats over the years, the 2004 release was a hideous mistake and a rip-off for the majority of people who were buying the films again.

The original versions should have been in the set, the colour shouldn't have been vandalised and the questionable alteration of Seb Shaw to Hayden Christensen in the Endor celebrations should have been an optional extra.

As for it being a four year old release, remember that this set has been re-released unfixed and people are still buying it and discovering for the first time just how mucked up these sets are.

+++Post Script+++

Ady beat me to it.

lordjedi said:

MotherGunner said:

It would be really cool if Obi-wan stopped calling vader "Darth".   Maybe remove this and modify his face so he doesnt move his mouth?

 

"You can't win" "If you strike me down..."

Yeah, it's to bad Lucas changed it from a name to a title, huh.

 

It could be argued that Obi Wan is rubbing his former pupil's nose in it by constantly refering to his Sith title in much the same way Mace Windu does when he calls Palpatine "My Lord".

adywan said:

 

Bingowings said:

Loving the return of the white walls and the red Sith sabre Ady but I also noticed that the blue tint actually helped the Cloud City exterior shots (possibly because it created an illusion of natural sunlight and hid some of the thick matte lines) those shots seem to be the only ones which looked better (in thumbnail at least) on the dreaded DVD version than after your clean up.

Actually the exterior matte shots have ahd a very pink tint added to them and other exterior shots have been reddened, which makes them look terrible and totally un-natural. If you look at the sky in the matte shots of the 2004 transfer the sky has had all blue stripped from it. There is a lot of work to be done on this edit.

 

You may notice I amended my earlier post as on closer inspection they didn't look better but not quite so hideous as the rest of the DVD alterations. The DVD version does hide a lot of the compositing hiccups but loses some of the contrast in the process.

I do appreciate how much hard work has already gone into this project, just looking at the comparisons shows that.

adywan said:

Some new colour comparison screenshots:

Loving the return of the white walls and the red Sith sabre Ady but I also noticed that the blue tint actually helped the Cloud City exterior shots (possibly because it created an illusion of natural sunlight and hid some of the thick matte lines) those shots seem to be the only ones which looked not so bad (in thumbnail at least) on the dreaded DVD version than after your clean up. Perhaps experimenting with a bit of blue tint in just those scenes might uncover a happier middle ground (just noticed how mauve the Rebel transport looks on the DVD side in the final selection, how did they get away with it?).

JohnGreenArt said:

I know Adywan said he's keeping the SE celebrations at the end of ROTJ, but in my opinon they just don't make sense.

 

First, the Rebels didn't have their forces spread out around all those locales to liberate them from the Empire, so having all the planets celebrate at the same time seems implausible. One could argue that the Emperor controlled through the dark side all his forced throughout the galaxy, so when he died the imperial forces were easy to defeat, but still seems unlikely.

 

Second, what does Tatooine have to celebrate? They were ruled by the Hutts, not the empire, and they were ruled by gangsters even when the Republic was in control in the prequel trilogy. What does the defeat of the empire mean to them?

 

Third, we never really see what impact the Empire has on regular people, so seeing celebrations by anonymous groups other than our protagonists just seems trite.

 

But if Ady wants to keep 'em, that's OK. I'm sure his version will be better than the SE no matter what.

 

I don't have a problem with the celebrations because I never saw them as happening at exactly the same time as the Endor celebrations.

As for Tatooine they were never part of the Republic but they were clearly swept up in the expansion of the Empire.

It was like a far flung province of the Roman Empire where local kings or chiefs were allowed to remain or placed into power as puppets (ahem) but the Empire still had over all control.

ANH showed Star Destroyers in battle over the planet and Stormtroopers in the streets of Mos Eisley (the Hutts wisely didn't get involved where as they might have done in days of the Republic).

I would have showed more planets and some damage to the buildings showing that the local uprisings weren't so easy.

I'm not sure if the Jedi Temple would be in such a pristine state by the time of Jedi (unless it was being used as a museum dedicated to the treachery of the Jedi in the old regime).

Another radical change to Jedi which might make the piece more believable would be instead of blowing up the shield generator the rebels switched it's focus so it protected a large area of Endor from the devastating effects of a large metal moon blowing up in close orbit.

http://encyclopedia.wizards.pro/index.php/Endor_Holocaust

darth_scourge said:

Ripplin said:

darth_scourge said:

Look how a helmet changed voices in ROTJ for Leia as Boussh....evrything was "Yo-to!" like a Galactic Teletubbie!

Oh man... The voice work in Jedi is so lazy! They re-use Greedo lines verbatim, "Boussh" has an incredibly limited vocabulary, Bib Fortuna doesn't know whether to speak Huttese or "basic", etc... It would be cool if Ady had the exact method to make Boussh's voice and record something new. :p

 

yeah, something like a low vocoder passed thru a resonator, like a 303...would love to have a go if i had the stuff!

 

It sounds more like the Dalek's friend the good old Ring Modulator to me (at a lower modulation than the fascistic pepperpots use).

I imagine it could work that way.

What would be needed would be some sort of hub where things like scenes with the music score removed or a special effects elements from a fan film could directed from and a board (like this one or even this one) where people could request specific items to be uploaded to it.

Say for example you really wanted a new AT-ST shot for a fan edit and saw just the thing in a fan film you could look it up on the index and if wasn't there already request it from the person who made it.

It would save a lot of time ripping, cleaning and seperating elements that may have already been done exeptionally well by someone else. There have been a lot of projects that have been abandoned and it would also be a great way of not letting all that hard work go to waste.

It just struck me as a idea that could be useful but I haven't the foggiest idea how to implement it.

Which is why I'm hoping for more replies from people like yourself Master Qui-Gon and many thanks for noticing and taking time to respond to my initial post.

Forgive me if this has been suggested before but it seems to me that there must be a lot of duplication of effort on the various projects that people are making.

It might be useful if all that hard work was shared around making it easier for further projects to be made.

All Star Wars fan edit, fan film and fan preservation projects are to some extent manipulating the work of others so it makes sense to me that if one person has spent many, many hours working on deconstructing, cleaning or assembling an element for their own project that they put it out there to be used by other editors to save time.

If enough pieces were assembled together they could form a growing library which editors could use and add to, increasing the number of projects and promoting collaboration.

Has it been done already?

Is it a daft or unworkable idea?

Or does the idea of an archive of elements have real merit?

adywan said: I'll say it again: Whoever did the colour restoration on these movies needs to be shot...

"You are free to use any methods necessary but I want them alive. No disintegrations."

You can't show them how to do the job properly if you vaporise them.

Mostly, I think that you want to change too much! I believe that this movie would be more work for Adywan than both ANH and ESB combined. It seems like what you want is a whole different movie instead of the same movie improved.

 

If you mean, in an ideal universe I could go back in time, cuff George Lucas to Gary Kurtz and force him get much of the same team who made Empire to produce a more original and satisfying conclusion to the first trilogy, you betchya!

There is a lot that's fine with Jedi but most of that stems from decisions taken years before for the first two films.

The core cast (though not at their best) still managed to generate a unique atmosphere (Jedi feels more like Star Wars than any of the prequels not just because of the nostagic buzz of revisiting old friends but because in casting those actors something magic happened that wasn't there when cast for TPM was assembled). If instead of making the prequels Lucas had made a set of films set after Jedi, with the original cast but with the same frightful lack of attention to story and character development as we saw in the prequels he did make, I imagine they would be rather like Jedi.

The production artists (though not pushed to reach beyond the necessary) still created work from set and model design to musical score which reminded the audience why they fell in love with the feast for the imagination that the Star Wars universe provided.

But Jedi was where Lucas (unwisely) kicked away the checks and balances to his creative processes.

He got in a director he could totally dominate, he surrounded himself with yes men and pushed home the "It'll do" attitude that caused so much friction between himself, Gary Kurtz and Irvin Kershner (who wanted to push the saga beyond that).

In the end Jedi feels like a contractual obligation project rather than a unique work of art.

George is a get it done guy and looking around at what he has done in the various fields he has his digits stuck into is proof of that.

People like Kurtz acted like a pressure valve, slowing that energy down and focusing it until the end results were polished jewels.

If you look at what Kurtz did without someone like George behind him you can see that he was just as lost on his own. The Dark Crystal, Return To Oz and Slipstream are all well intentioned pieces, full of great ideas but lacking the spark of momentum that the first two Star Wars films had.

Lucas after Raiders is all energy without focus or at least the same focus (Jedi and the prequels are more about selling toys than selling magic).

And it starts to really show in Jedi.

So in a sense yes. I do want a different film.

Ady himself has said that Jedi is a big project for him, unlike Empire (where the most of the work is repair and restoration) Jedi was flawed from the start and to get as much out of it will take a bit more than just painting over the cracks in the plaster.

I don't expect all of my suggestions to come to anything, some are possibly impossible.

But the point of this thread is to make wish lists.

Those were my wishes.

I'm not so quixotic to assume that all my dreams will come true.

The point of my putting them out there is that some of them may not have crossed the minds of people like Ady making these projects and if possible and appealling to them some of them will come true.

That said, even if all my suggestions (and the equally valid suggestions of others posting here) were realised in a redux, the story would essentially be the same, it would just fit in better than it currently does with the rest of the trilogy and balance better with the prequels too which seems to be what most people want from projects of this kind made by Ady and others.

There are preservation projects which just correct the colour or present the different theatrical versions but the Revisited series seems to be a different beast.

P.S. My objection to the Han/Threepio comedy routine is that it takes the viewer out of the moment and is inconsistant with the usual style of Threepio/human humour up until that point. In ANH and ESB Threepio is put down or shut up because generally nobody cares what he has to say because he's a droid (even when he is making sense as seen with the hyperdrive in ESB). The scene in Jedi doesn't fit that model it's just a comedy scene for the sake of a comedy scene. Threepio frequently makes (possibly despite himself) very important comments which add to the story. When he points out that no-one cares what happens to a droid in ANH Han points out that droids are disposable and can be pulled to pieces if they step out of line to which he backs down. This is a political message. Droids in the Star Wars universe are slaves and even our heroes maintain this state of affairs (just as the noble Jedi in the Old Republic did nothing about human slavery in places beyond the Republic's borders). ESB also has a couple of moments of irony on this theme, when the constantly put down and ignored slave spots Stormtroopers in Cloud City his first response is to protect his owners who barely give a damn about him when he goes missing. The one person who does go looking for him and tries to put him back together is the same Chewie that Han says will pull his arms off when should he loose at playing a game. Later when R2 (the voiceless pro-active one) notices that the hyperdrive still isn't working, Threepio takes his owners word for gospel and tries to pull rank on R2 (who thankfully as always, pays no attention to him). The exchange in Jedi doesn't as it stands fit that format. I'd want it kept in if Threepio turned the humiliation around for once after all he did save the heroes dozens of times but as it stands, it just doesn't fit.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

I'm still reading through all of your ideas, but some great comments, Bingowings!

I think we're on a similar page about ROTJ...

Did you check out my thread?

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/ROTJ-Fan-O-Matic-First-21-minutes/topic/7919/

I'd love some feedback from you on what I've done so far...

I'll comment on your stuff soon...I'm heading out the door right now...

I have read your thread before and it is tempting to start the film that way but the Death Star is a threat to the whole galaxy and specifically the goals of the Rebellion, so it makes sense to start with what matters most.

Rescuing Han almost seems like a selfish act by Luke and Leia. Both are key members of the Alliance and they risk being captured and sold on to the Empire for a friend (and in Leia's case a lover).

Yoda and Obi-Wan warned Luke about such an action (as they warned another pupil of theirs a generation before) but they both go ahead and do it anyway. Bloody Skywalkers!

Lando was a much more responsible leader but Leia in love couldn't see it and stood by as Chewie tried to strangle him.

I do worry about that girl if she did get any Jedi training, she's certainly a chip off her daddy's Japor snippet (forget the bad guys of the EU for a moment and take a good hard look, the heroes of the the original trilogy look ideally set to become the villains of the sequel trilogy which Lucas keeps telling us will never happen).

My bag with the Ewoks isn't that they are there but that they don't live up to their potential.

George rather sensatively equated the Ewoks with the South Vietnamese bringing down the technologically dependent Americans with twigs and gumption...mmm.

As uncomfortable as that sounds he does have a point (to a point).

Most people before that war, if they were aware of the Vietnamese at all, would have thought of them as funny little ethnic stereotypes.

If the Ewoks through clever manipulation and editing could be made to look less like cute merchandising prospects and more like a genuine species with a full range of emotional responses, they would be more believable as a fighting force that could take on the Empire.

As for the song in Jedi I'm not too keen on Jedi Rocks or either version of Lapti Nek (at least it wasn't Jefferson Starship) but I actually like the idea of a song, because it's genuinely rather weird and adds a chaotic and debaunched element to Jabba's court.

Perhaps if someone got all the video elements from Jedi Rocks, Lapti Nek and the Lapti Nek music video, removed the most offensively awful shots of the players and put it to a more alien sounding song it could be made to work and I have no problem with Boba chatting up the singers either.

My wish list for Jedi.

1) I know Ady was against changing the crawl for ANH and ESB (and why should he have they largely keep the tone of the film) but Jedi's first few minutes really do feel out of place with the other films. ANH starts with, "It is a period of civil war..." ESB has, "It is a dark time the Rebellion" and Jedi has "Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba The Hutt". The first two are potent tone setters for the film to follow, the third sounds like a cheap soap opera. I suggest that the crawl be reworked to put the threat to the rebels at the front and not just as a tail ender. If It started with "The Rebellion is doomed..." it would capture the urgent nature of this final episode from the beginning.

2) Some evidence of construction vehicles working on the Death Star (this thing is meant to be being built in haste but we see little evidence of it). I was tempted to suggest putting back the idea of having two Death Stars under construction from the early draft script but that would necessitate changing almost every line of dialogue refering to the new danger to the rebellion, shame really because it would make Jedi less like ANH. At the very least Endor needs a parent planet to be the moon of (I'd like to see a blue gas giant like Neptune to make it stand out from Yavin in ANH).

3) Extending the Star Destroyer flyby at the beginning or replacing it with The Executor (why is Vader taking a ride on a conventional Destroyer anyway, if it's to maintain the pretence of keeping Rebel intelligence in the dark about the new Death Star why bother parking The Executor next to the thing later in the film?).

4) Give the hanger sequences a bit more animation (the Stormtroopers are clearly mannikins and/or matte paintings for example and both hangers are clearly the same set even though the first one is meant to be much smaller than the one the Emperor lands in). I'm not too fussed with Vader using a standard shuttle but surely the Emperor should travel in a bit more style? Could he have a fancier version of the one he had in ROTS or at least something more fitting the ruler of the galaxy?

5) Remove the burping jokes.

6) Remove the Greedo lines from ANH.

7) Clip the bit where Lando pulls his mask down, it's obvious to us who he is already without underlining it.

8) The comedy droid torture scenes need to go. In the previous films torture scenes were presented as pure evil (and the practice is evil) but somehow George seems to think that droids don't matter even though he has made six films where two of the principle characters are robots which we are supposed to care about. Do we really need to see the scene at all? By the time we see the droids at work we know what they are doing without the needless exposition.

9) Cut the OTT aspects of the dance number but keep the added Fett footage if possible (Sy's lip close up and what's his face's tonsils really have to go). For the sake of preserving these posts in this thread here is another take on this scene http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Return-of-the-Jedi-Jabbas-Palace-Musical-Number-Recut/topic/10709/

10) Cut down Salacious Crumb's laughter (it's funny once but after a while it get's too much).

11) Boushh seems to get into the palace too easily and once he pulls the grenade only Boba Fett pulls a gun on him, the rest just panic (but none of them try to run away) If it is possible to somehow mix up the reactions of the court and have a couple more try to pull a gun too, keep a number quaking in fear, some trying to figure out the situation while a couple make a dash for the doors (it's all a few seconds so a few jump cuts could do it) it would make the situation seem more realistic and the mysterious new bounty hunter a bit more mysterious for the first time viewer.

12) Han's revival looks very poor, Harrison doesn't match up with the Carbonite version of Han very well and the Carbonite thawing effect looks a bit boring. His conversation with Chewie afterwards contains too much of George's dreaded unecessary exposition and cheapens Han's character a bit by breaking the tone. It would be better if the lines about Luke being a Jedi were removed and the focus was placed more on Solo finally thinking his luck has run out and his friends have all been dragged down too trying to save him. And while we are on the subject of horrible exposition could we have clunkers like, "Artoo, look! It's Captain Solo and he's still frozen in Carbonite!" removed? We can see that, we don't need to be told it too.

13) I'm not sure about Luke doing the force choke on the guards it feels a bit too much Sith like than Jedi like. I'd prefer him to pull the same distraction move Obi Wan did on the Stormtroopers in ANH while turning the tractor beam off (this isn't the same as having Greedo shoot first, Han is a hard nosed smuggler, Luke is meant to be a noble knight...his potential for turning to the dark side should only be revealed in the duel with Vader not during a minor confrontation with a couple of green pigs).

14) Jabba and his court need some of the same articulation that Ady gave to the Cantina patrons, while they are more animated than some of the solid masks used in ANH they often look very fake. It's Star Wars so some of the aliens should look on the comedic side of bizarre but it would throw off some of the, "It's just a bunch of Muppets" feeling if more of Jabba's court could be made to look genuinely frightening or at least threatening. The Devil bloke in the Cantina looks really scary but almost all of Jabba's lot look as threatening as a Doctor Who convention in Blackpool. Some glowing eyes, some dangerous looking snarls and the odd mean looking expression could just add the necessary edge to the place (putting in the planned Lightman might be an interesting addition to the court as well). And as much as I like the idea of the weeping Rancor keepers it does break the mood. Luke has just come through a fight for his life armed only with the bones of the Rancor's previous victims and you know that it's going to get worse for our heroes before it gets better but the tension gets broken by the non-robotic Laurel and Hardy of the Star Wars universe.

15) If something can be done with the Tatooine exteriors please do. The compositing still looks very fake and the colours are too vibrant to be taken seriously. The models of the barge and the skiffs look very model like and don't fit with the rather well made life size versions. Thank God they got rid of the felt tip drawn guy from the original version but couldn't the barge have a few more hands on deck (possibly in scale)? The Sarlacc still needs to be more alive (difficult I know it was a stupid idea in the first place) but it might be nice to see it rise out of the sand a little and maybe grab people off the skiff when it tilts (like the squid in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea") I'm sure I'm going to get it in the neck for this but I'd prefer it if Luke cut Fett's head off than having Han's lucky poke at Fett's backpack sending him to his undignified onscreen end. I don't care if he is in the EU, having Luke remove Boba's head would confirm Luke as a fully trained Jedi and book end the Fett family story. This film is meant to be about a son trying not to suffer the same fate as his father it would foreshadow this theme if Boba who followed in his father's footsteps, met the same fate. George builds up the Fetts in half of the saga as these great secondary characters only to have Boba Fett die in most stupid comedic way possible. The barge explosion is another really fake effects shot that really needs something done to it (perhaps making the explosion so big it bleaches out the over saturated colours might be the way) and I really hate the unecessary shot of the droids being lifted out of the sand, more of George's slapshtick which we could do without. It might help validate R2's flying ability in the prequels if he used this skill in getting himself and Threepio off the barge (it is one of the few instances in the original trilogy where this would come in handy).

16) If there was some way of doing it could we have Luke getting a premonition that all is not well with Yoda? George was determined to wipe the slate with this film and tie up all the loose ends but the moment that Luke decides to go back to Dagobah, the little froggy guy croaks. Not just during the his stay but in the middle of a conversation. It might add to the tension if during the Sail Barge escape Luke got a vision of a clearly unwell Yoda which would add urgency to his going back and continue the out of the frying pan pace of the film. And could we make Ben look a little more ghostly? It's bad enough that he sits his spiritual bum down on a branch to deliver his lines but he could fade in and fade out, for all we know at the end of that scene Obi-wan could have been yapping away for hours like a couple of gossipy neighbours. Having Ben fade away and leaving Luke on his own would add to his uncertain feelings about his eventual confrontation with his father (sadly there is nothing we can do about Leia being Luke's sister which despite what Lucas may say was clearly a last minute thing and makes that big snog in Empire all the more worrying).

17) The set for the rebel conference looks awful. The original designs had these interesting maps and guys on cherry picker style chairs floating about but the final piece looks like some shiny piece of nonsense made out of plywood. And why the hell is 21B there? Some people say he's there to co-ordinate the medical needs of the fleet (I know the Rebels are the good guys but they put a robot in charge?) The truth is more likely they had this expensive prop from the previous film and stuck him in there for no reason other than they needed to fill the space (he should go). The sound seems to be very off in this scene too. In the other films Threepio is there for a reason, couldn't a piece of dialogue be inserted somewhere to explain that the droids are necessary to check or deliver the shuttle's emergency code? Otherwise why are they tagging along anyway? ("Here we go again" indeed). The rebel hanger paintings are really awful, they look nothing less than paintings and really take us out of the moment. The shots of the rebels ships going into hyperspace need to be redone. They don't disappear to the same vanishing point which is odd seeing as they are all going to the same place.

18) I don't know if the scene of Vader choking Jejerrod is out there or what state it's in if it is but Jedi needs to have some Vader being more than a push over scenes. I'm sure that if it is gone for good sending out a call to the fan movie makers out there we could have a passable Vader choking a Royal Guard scene made to fill the missing space in the script. It would be nice if the corridors of The Executor could be taken from Empire and stuck into the Jedi shots to replace the closed door we see in that film. The bridge set feels less spectcular in Jedi because of it.

19) I know it's manditory to have the phrase "I have a bad feeling about this" in every Star Wars film but could we just have one please?

20) Some of the speeder bike shots could do with a redo. And the spinning speeder bike looks awful.

21) Ewoks... perhaps it was inevitable I would get around to these guys but I actually quite like the idea of a large mechanised army being brought down by a bunch of teddy bears with bows and arrows. But do they have to look like little guys dressed as teddy bears? I loved the scene in "Galaxy Quest" where we see what looks like a bunch of cute aliens turn out to be vicious canibalistic sharp toothed monsters. Give the Ewoks some eyelids and some fierce looking facial expressions, hide the obvious moments where the suits look like suits and after a while even the most avid Ewok hater will grow to like them. I do have a problem with Luke levitating Threepio being enough to scare the little buggers into letting our heroes go. For years now the Ewoks would have seen a strange moon growing in their sky, plastic men flying on metal bikes and firing lightning out their hands (laser guns not Sith magic), so would they be so scared of some golden boob floating around on a chair? Couldn't Luke pull off a more effective light show and spare us Threepio acting like Dr Smith in "Lost In Space"? Could we lose Han and Threepio's comedy turn about the supplies in fact I'm rather uncomfortable with Threepio's story telling scene but if we must have it couldn't Artoo add a bit of holographic illustration to wow the natives?

22) The Emperor's slugs, why ILM haven't fixed this yet boggles the mind. It must be the easiest quick fix job on clipboard.

23) Leia remembers Padme...but how? One easy fix could be that when she refers to "images" she produces a locket with a picture of her mother and gives it Luke, something regal that Bail Organa may have given her when she was a little girl. If it fell out while Palpatine was zapping Luke, seeing it and Luke in pain may add a bit more umph to his Return to the light side (just an idea). A variation on the same idea is that Leia gets a strong mental image of Padme when she holds a mysterious pendant that used to belong to her (in ROTS we see Padme with the pendant in her coffin but perhaps she wasn't buried with it. Now that would have a serious impact on Vader if he saw it while Luke is getting handed his arse by the the Emperor). The less labour intensive option would be having the line edited to "No, just images really, feelings.". It would retcon Leia's knowledge of her mother to something even more vague without revealing when she died.

24) When Lando concludes that the shield is still up could we have a few rebels ships not pull up in time and smash into the shield? The Executor crashing into the Death Star is rubbish. A ship the size of a large city, crashing into a station the size of a moon, with all the drama of a paper dart smacking onto a kitchen floor. Once the shield is down the logical way to avoid getting zapped by the super laser would be to have the capital ships move closer to and attack the exposed sections of the Death Star as in this image : http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v200/txkarenr/txkarenr2/txkarenr3/SWPicRebelBombardment.jpg

25) I love the AT-AT on Endor but couldn't we see it enter into the battle? The sight of this metal monster stomping around through the forest being taken down by some trap would add a lot of wow into the ground battle. The dying Ewok should be very dead and there should be more of them (war has it's cost in lives and one moaning Ewok is not enough to show that). The comedy turns of the Ewoks should be cut (Lucas can't stop himself as the Gungans proved in TPM) And please remove the Ewok "Yahoo"s and the Tarzan stylings of Chewie.

26) In an earlier version of the script Jerjerrod realising that everything is going pear shaped turns the Death Star onto Endor and is about to blow it up and most of both fleets in a mad scorched sentry moon move. Could that be put back in? It may make Jedi even more like ANH but it would crank up the tension even more.

27) Kill Lando, blow up the Falcon. Once again I'm going to get it in the neck but : A) The Falcon is Solo's bachelor pad it underlines the Solo in his name, if he's going to be marrying into the Skywalker family he won't be Solo anymore and it gives some power to the line about his "funny feeling" so the sceptical pirate does have proof of a mystical energy field controlling everything, he predicted that the Falcon would go out in a blaze of glory. Solo's arc is completed and screw the EU. B) Lando in my eyes had no need to redeem himself after Empire he had the fates of all the people of Cloud City in his hands and he had to weigh that up against his friendship with Han but that wouldnt stop someone like him from feeling that he still has something to prove and as I said before for the victory to be justified it must come at a cost.

28) Get rid of Mannikin Skywalker and put Seb Shaw back where he belongs. Luke wants to see his father (the man he redeemed) not some child butchering, wife choking, creepy looking weirdo.

29) Silence the Gungan and change the music again. There must be a piece of music that sums up the bitter sweet elation of the end of tragic civil war out there somewhere (especially one without pan pipes).