EddieDean

There’s merit to that idea, but you’d need footage to play it over too.

Is there anything currently that people would like to see more iteration on? Any specific ideas you’d like to see developed? This thread will continue, but we might be approaching time to spin up the next one (for ROTJ). Should we use this time to bring anything in particular into focus?

Burbin said:

I think a big issue with pushing the gungan battle scenes forward is that this plot line can’t be resolved until the control ship is destroyed, so even if you push most of the battle forward it’ll still feel like a hanging thread all the way through to the end anyway. If anything I feel it puts a bigger strain on the audience to keep the captive gungans in mind while they’re watching the other three plots unfold.

The gungan battle also has a clear function in giving a sense of urgency to the other plots, they need to either capture the Viceroy or destroy the control ship before the gungans are wiped out, you lose that if the battle is already over by the time you get to those scenes. Yeah the gungans have been captured, but they’re no longer in any immediate threat, so there’s no real urgency. It’d be like if the Death Star was no longer looming over the Rebel base during the climax in ANH.

Yeah, I feel like if you were to pull the Gungan scenes earlier, you’d risk the film feeling like ‘save the Gungans’ was the backbone, which I think most would find pretty unpalatable. And especially if we don’t have equivalent footage of the humans of Naboo also being oppressed, I think that’d feel weird for Padmé. You’d also have the issue that the Gungans appeared captured throughout the entire movie, without moving, even though it’s over a few days.

Eyepainter said:

And I agree, sirlegion. If I had to pick a favorite Jar Jar scene (although that’s saying very little), that conversation with Amidala would be my top choice, too!

Exactly. He shows he cares about something. And there are a lot of lines from the Clone Wars where he does more of this, talking about how much he likes the Queen, how much he respects Padmé, etc. Plenty of movies have goofballs for comic relief (arguably C-3PO in the OT has this role), but they’re far more palatable if they have things they feel strongly about.

That example (the Padmé/Jar Jar scene) can definitely be added too, quite easily:
“Yousa thinking yousa people gonna die?”
“I don’t know.”
“Gungans get wasted too, eh?”
“I hope not.”
“Mesa no dying without a fight, Gungans are warriors. Wesa got a grand army. [+ anything else because he speaks offscreen]”

“Mesa no dying without a fight” adds a lot with just the simple change, because it tells us that, for all his cowardice and goofiness, he’ll still stand and fight to protect his people.

And Jar Jar’s last sentence, rather than just “you don’t like us”, could be something proactive from the Clone Wars options, like:
“If those droids attacking us, mesa think yousa have to deal.”
"But thesa Gungans are proud. With thisa mood at the moment, mesa the last person they listen to now.
“Mesa knowing mesa be big help with negotiations, and wesa good guys will triumph.”

Anakin Starkiller, regarding the final battle, I think the key point here is the difference between story and narrative. The story of the ending - all four concurrent plotlines - makes perfect logical sense, as you say. But narrative is how a given story is told, and it’s about guiding the audience through the story via its presentation. And that’s about managing more nebulous things like cognitive load, information delivery ordering, emotional response, and high and low energy levels. A story can be conveyed by a wikipedia article, but narrative is how the production team convey feeling as you watch the movie.

The issue with the ending that these recent attempts sought to address was primarily that of cognitive load. While it’s easy for us that have watched the movie a dozen times to understand that each storyline makes sense, the hypothetical first-time viewer would be having to hold the ‘present state’ of each plotline in their head at the same time, and wouldn’t necessarily have room to focus on things like where the tension and hope were, which characters were our emotional investment characters, and so on. It sounds like something a brain should have no trouble with, but when in motion, it can have a real impact on how a movie feels. These recent explorations weren’t an attempt to clarify a confusing plotline so much as present the story in a narrative that burdened the viewer the least, and then within that, to try to find a natural flow of energy peaks and troughs.

–

Anyway, I feel I should clarify a couple of things regarding my intentions for Jar Jar:

I have no intentions for Jar Jar.

The purpose of creating those clips was not to present any new ideas that I sincerely thought might be included in future edits; it was only to illustrate to participants in this thread that I’ve made a tool which I think makes editing Jar Jar as easy as it can be, so that anyone can explore changing Jar Jar. Some of the concepts I introduced in those clips were even mutually exclusive with each other.

Regarding your point about Jar Jar’s character growth: I don’t think he has any, at least any that you could reasonably expect an audience to invest in. Other than light confidence boosting and perhaps a small growth in respect over the movie, I don’t think anyone would really argue that he has a character arc. But he doesn’t need an arc! I think it’s almost certain that he’ll always remain some degree of idiot and that that can’t be changed, but I do think that the new voice lines in the tool afford us the possibility to give him agency, as Starkiller AG says, which is something that all active characters need in film, and that Jar Jar is sorely lacking. I have a feeling that, if Jar Jar can be shown to actually care about events, it could really improve his character, even if he remains a buffoon.

I don’t currently have any plans for Jar Jar. I think some of the possibilities in the new lines have potential - especially his many lines about Queens, and being able to replace some of his more annoying speech traits with less annoying ones. Making him already a Junior Representative is an idea that really appeals to me too, but that’s something that’s much more radical and not something I’d fold in with regular improvement.

That said, I would love it if we here could iterate on Jar Jar together. I’d really like to see people play with the tool and for us to collectively test some explorations. Or even just suggest some ideas for how we could improve Jar Jar beyond trimming his more offensive scenes. But that’s up to the community, and the direction people want to take this thread!

I suppose, by way of encouraging discussion, I’ll leave us with a question: Is making Jar Jar a representative, and/or their deliberate contact, a step too far?

Hal 9000 said:

I feel the crawl currently being considered has way too much exposition, and would benefit from being more focused.

Also, here’s a few thoughts on reordering the climax:

• Kerr gave me feedback when I was working on V1 of my TPM edit, that being that you’ve gotta show Jar Jar each time you cut back to the Gungan battle thread, since he’s the only one the audience has any connection to. You certainly could do that and keep the structure you’re going for.
• It feels weird to cut to the Gungans being rounded up by the droids so long after the last time we saw them.
• There are at least three instances of cutting to Padme and Panaka for only several seconds, making her thread feel choppy. If two of these could be combined that may help, or reinstating the “make sure everybody has zimas” sequence (and giving up on the idea that Anakin saved the day).

That point on Jar Jar is a good one. I’m not sure how necessary it feels to me personally, but I can see that it’s probably conventional editing wisdom. I’ll see what the least offensive Jar Jar shots are, for reinsertion. You could definitely extend the retreat a little, which features him, but maybe open the cavalry scene on a Jar Jar shot too. I don’t know if it’s needed in the scene of combat beginning, which already have him saying “steady, steady”?

What’s the collective feeling on the Gungan surrender? In this ordering, it felt like the earliest option based on energy levels of the surrounding scenes, but if it’s egregious I’ll see what other options exist.

I tried merging two Padmé scenes (capture and being brought to Nute) but didn’t feel it worked. I’ll remake that and present it here for review.

I’ve always been a bit suprised at how frequently people suggest making alternate trilogies using, for example, one edited original movie plus two new movies compiled from TV series episodes. To me that always felt a bit like putting the cart before the horse - it’s mainly convention and cultural dominance of the format that makes trilogies the de facto release approach. As with my Clone Wars edit, I always felt like the priority should be simply presenting the best content in an appropriately consumable way. If that means a movie within a trilogy, great, but if it means a single movie, or even keeping a show as episodes, fine!

There are definitely good reasons to present a trilogy - which typically features a nested three-act structure focusing on core characters and similar evolving themes - so for example Obi-Wan’s TV show might well work as a third prequel if it does enough to contnue the arcs of Obi-Wan and Anakin that it feels like a direct continuation.

But it’s not necessarily necessary!

Taking Book of Boba Fett as a counterexample to the idea of moviefying a TV show: While I completely agree that it could do with some dropped plots and probably restructuring, I’d still approach it quality-first. The flashbacks are great and roughly movie length, so perhaps they’re a movie, or a couple of episodes. Maybe that content belongs before Mando season one, or as a flashback after Boba is encountered, rolling him into the wider Mando story. And perhaps it was odd to have the two-episode Mando diversion, in which case maybe it’d be better to spread that Mando content throughout a (shorter) series of Boba episodes, so it’s a smaller diversion per episode, and the whole show can behave more like a direct continuation of Mando, with the flashbacks having been already covered?

I’d always be more inclined to keep as much that’s good (world-building isn’t necessarily filler!) as possible, and then structure the presentation around what I have.

Here’s another attempt at Qui-Gon communicating to Anakin through the force. Version 2 and Version 3

Great idea to flip it into Qui-Gon’s perspective guys, that makes it very clear he’s the driving force of the communication, so it transitions nicely.

I flipped the shot of Anakin looking down, so now he’s looking up (at a mystery voice?) and slowed it down 50%. Wish the reaction shot was longer though. Version 3 is slowed down to 25%.

We’re at the extreme end of my abilities here, so this is pretty rough - I don’t think I have the skills to polish this any further so someone else would need to run with it from here. Maybe extrapolating some frames so the slow motion doesn’t feel awkward? A bit more mystical music across the merged scene could also help?

I’m still not quite sure this can work, but I do really like what it does for both Qui-Gon’s and Anakin’s characters. And I like Qui-Gon’s “Your final test is at hand.” It implies that he trusts that this ‘final test’ (of the Jedi candidacy tests), whether it be Anakin needing to save the day, or his own forthcoming death, will likely prove he’s worthy of training.

One thing that also maybe doesn’t work is that Anakin doesn’t subsequently use the force. But, then again, what he does do is pilot his ship with precision and confidence (which he hasn’t quite done in the space scenes yet) - exactly as he used the force without realising when he was a podracer. That’s why I always was fine with the line “Now THIS is podracing!” - he’s not saying that literally, which makes no sense; he’s saying that this feels familiar, welcome, a calling, a comfort zone, a thrill. For Anakin, in this reimagined moment, the force emerges in him through his piloting skill, as it always has.

Here’s a little thing.
I think it’s a little too fan-edity though, because Anakin doesn’t really react.

NeverarGreat said:

This version flows a lot better than before, I like it!

One thing that still feels odd is how short the scene of Padme and Nute is before the droids are disabled. Obviously you can’t include more from after that point, so the only other way I can see it working is to cut right from the surrender of the queen to the scene with Nute.

I just gave this a try, but it doesn’t really work. Cutting straight from Padmé’s capture to Padmé being taken before Nute just felt really off. And then it made the Qui-Gon/Maul/Obi-Wan scene feel like it lasted for ages. You could maybe expand the Padmé/Nute scene a little, and bastardise some dialogue: “Your little insurrection is at an end, your highness. Time for you to end this pointless debate.” But that doesn’t make much sense, or is a bit of a weird insult. (Maybe there are other options elsewhere?) You could end on the spare shot of Padmé staring blankly at Nute, but she’s got such a neutral face that you’d probably have to really spice up the music there to convey some emotion, which might also feel odd since we’re then cutting to the Maul/Obi-Wan fight, which has no music.

I do feel like it works as is though, even though it’s short. It’s a nice little gut punch that reminds us of why Maul needs to be stopped, that breaks the fight scenes nicely. In terms of our energy levels and interest, we want to get back to that tense fight quickly, I think?

On your other ideas, I think you should give them a shot! It’d be nice if Anakin flies into the control ship more deliberately.

Anakin Starkiller said:

EddieDean said:

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
QUEEN AMIDALA, elected ruler of the
planet Naboo, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy TRADE
FEDERATION have invaded her home system,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Jedi Order, mystical wielders of
THE FORCE and defenders of the Republic,
have dispatched Jedi Knight QUI-GON JINN
and his apprentice to bring the Queen to
safety on the capital planet of Coruscant.

This crawl is excellent! I’m gonna use it, but swapping the last paragraph for the one in the official cut. The Jedi don’t know they’re going to rescue the Queen yet (at least in my cut and the official one), so it wouldn’t make sense to mention and I feel like this takes too much time elaborating on what a Jedi is. I’d rather use that time to say the chancellor sent them.

If you were going to drop the invasion angle, and remove some of the capitalisation that a few have objected to, you could end up something like-

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing. As
its Senate becomes more complacent,
Queen Amidala, elected ruler of the
planet Naboo, stands as a vocal champion
against corruption.

With the Republic’s ability to protect
its worlds diminished, the greedy Trade
Federation have blockaded her home system,
in an attempt to force her compliance.

The Republic Chancellor has commanded
the JEDI ORDER, mystical wielders of
The Force, to dispatch Jedi Knight
Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice to
negotiate for peace…

This retains the highlight on Qui-Gon (rather than both Jedi) and explains the role of the Jedi within the Republic, whilst setting up the plotline of the Jedi being too close to Republic politics.

The concept that Padme wins because of the destruction of the control ship is a really nice touch.

Wait, that isn’t how it happens in the actual film?

In the original film, long before the battle is won, Padmé’s aide appears when Padmé is captured. The Neimoidians think they’ve been tricked and that the aide is the Queen (when really it’s a double bluff) but it’s enough of a distraction that Padmé and her guards get hidden weapons out of the furniture and win the gunfight, capturing Gunray. The problem with that is that it’s the aide who saves the day (or kind of Padmé through having the idea?), so it’s not exactly a good character moment for a main character, and that the other major victories are less necessary in scoring the overall win. It also means that victory comes early in the plot, further splitting the relevance of the four plots from each other.

A lot of edits have cut those scenes, for this reason!

Oh, and I agree with you that it’d be nice to OT-ify some of the screen graphics.

Cute little thing I hadn’t noticed before: Panaka addresses Padmé’s two squads as “red group, blue group”, which is the colour of the laser pointers they use to silently communicate with each other during the street fight.

–

Anyway, I did another pass on my ending test, again built on Snooker’s recently shared version, mostly with some dialogue switching. (Hope that’s OK, Snook!)

• Added Gunray’s “I want droidekas up here at once!” from the opening scenes. Droidekas are the only things we’ve seen the Jedi having trouble with, and it helps sell Gunray as both fearful and resourceful, among the other reasons I mentioned above.
• Added Jar Jar (offscreen, so it could be any Gungan) shouting “Retreat! Retreat!” after Tarpals whistles and starts the retreat, to make it more explicit that’s what’s happening.
• Moved Anakin’s “Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, so that’s what I’m going to do” (from when R2 in space tells him to turn back) to the hangar, to show him making the decision to actively help and exploit a loophole (classic Anakin). This also helps smooth over both Snooker’s and Hal’s version, where his lips move a little as he’s starting to pilot the ship, but no dialogue is heard.
• Added Anakin’s “we have to do something” (from the earlier hangar scene) to turn it into his response to R2 in space telling him to turn back - now he’s clearly stating that he’s actively decided to help in space.
• Removed Anakin’s “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick”, and instead moved his actions in that scene (of turning the controls then his ship spinning) to be the thing he does when he’s got enemies on his tail and after he says “I know we’re in trouble, hang on!” This makes him a bit more of a natural pilot, and gets rid of the silly voice line.
• Put the ending back to Anakin destroys ship > Gungans celebrate > Padmé captures Gunray > Obi-Wan defeats Maul > Qui-Gon’s death scene, so you guys can see how it works compared to the earlier version.

I’m sure others have made these edits before, but I haven’t seen every fan version!

(This version slightly offsets the audio in Qui-Gon’s death scene by mistake, but it’s the last scene in this clip so it doesn’t interrupt your emotional flow for the sake of this test, so I’ll leave it for now.)

–

Now I’m looking at it in a bit more detail, I’m not sure if having Qui-Gon pull a “use the force, Luke” on Anakin would quite work. You could only really do it when Qui-Gon is meditating, dying (a bit of a stretch), or dead. And practically he’d intervene to either encourage Anakin to fly up to space or to focus while he’s up there.

He can’t really encourage Anakin to get started since it seems like it’s against his earlier instructions, and it’s stronger for Anakin if that decision is his own. And when Qui-Gon’s meditating, Anakin’s in the middle of combat and I don’t think he really has any footage we could use as a ‘focus’ moment.

The only real option, I think, would be to have Qui-Gon meditating tie in with Anakin when he’s powerless in the hangar. But ideally it wouldn’t lead right into Anakin then blowing up the ship, because that triggers the cascading happy endings and splitting them around the long sequence of [Qui-Gon fight, Qui-Gon defeat, Obi-Wan victory, and Qui-Gon death scene] would mean you had far too much Maul combat to get through to hit all those highs at the right audience energy level.

That said, probably your best Qui-Gon lines would be those from Tartakovsky Clone Wars:
“Anakin, it calls to you. Control your fear. Trust in the force.”

• “Anakin, it calls to you” can be taken as Qui-Gon noticing in this moment quite how connected to the force Anakin is, and helps show why Qui-Gon is now supporting his actions.
• “Control your fear” is a key lesson for Anakin, and helps show why the council might now accept his training despite sensing much fear in him earlier.
• “Trust in the force” is his “use the force, Luke” instruction.

I just noticed that, in this ordering, you could make a small change to the brief scene where Nute Gunray sees the footage of the fighting in the streets and says that he wasn’t expecting fighting here: You could conclude that scene with the line “Send in the droidekas!” (from the movie’s early scenes on the droid control ship). Droidekas are what stop the Gungan cavalry advance and shut down the Gungan shields (when cut this way), what nearly slows Padmé before Anakin shoots them, and then what ultimately captures Padmé. It makes the droidekas more of a badass tool that helps turn the tables, that Gunray was keeping in reserve, and makes Gunray active and villainous in turning the tide almost to his victory.

(Besides, I’d argue that the line doesn’t belong at the start, because the droidekas in the opening lead to the force speed escape, which I really dislike because it’s not used at the ending when it should have been. I’d cut the lot!)

NeverarGreat said:

Yeah, I think that the end of the Obi-wan/Maul fight would work better with as few cuts as possible.

I think I agree with you guys that this change should be reverted. Even though ideally the ultimate success should come last, if doesn’t work here . Sirius, you’re right, 3/5/4 is the original ordering. Edit: No wait! 2/4/3/5 is the original order.

The concept that Padme wins because of the destruction of the control ship is a really nice touch.

I can’t take any credit for that, it was at least Snooker, Hal, and probably a lot of other editors before, if memory serves.

Opportunity! If you did want to have Anakin somehow actively guided through the force by Qui-Gon near the ending, without having to wait for him to die first, you could do something during the moment where Qui-Gon is meditating during the Maul fight’s pause. This’d add a bit of value to Qui-Gon, showing his awareness of both fronts, and perhaps even hinting that he deliberately led Anakin to the ship because he had a feeling that he’d be valuable there.

Anyway, I just spent some time on the ending, using Snooker’s as a base and exploring some of my other ideas. I found that a few of my thoughts don’t quite work - for example, you can’t have the Gungan plotline finish too early, because it’s just a bit sudden. One of the problems with recutting the ending is that each of those four plotlines has their own peaks and troughs, so there’s risk of whiplash if the energy in one scene differs from the energy in the next.

But I did find some opportunities I liked! The main ones being finding an earlier home for the Gungan surrender, cutting Padmé’s scenes in the palace, and reordering the conclusion a bit more.

As before, I’ve done only light audio smoothing, and alternate scoring in a few places would make this land better. I’ve also slightly reordered the horses/droideka shots but not fixed the audio there.

Here’s my attempt (16 min), based on trying to minimise cognitive load whilst balancing flow and narrative energy levels. (Key highlights in bold.)

The opening here runs like this, setting up all plots and ending with closing off the Gungan one:

1. Gungans and droids face off up to the point where the shields are breached and close combat begins.
2. Padmé’s team and Jedi guard infiltrate the city, Neimoidians show suprise, team makes it into the hangar.
3. Pilots are freed and we follow them up into space and first combat with the droid control ship.
4. Gungan battle turns bad as the droidekas take out horses and the shield, causing them to flee.
5. Padmé’s team restate the plan to get to Gunray in the throne room, and they move to do that.
6. Maul appears and the Jedi step in to deal with him; Padmé’s team must go alone. First plan change
7. Droidekas block Padmé and Anakin activates his ship to deal with that; Padmé’s team run into the palace.
8. Anakin heads into space.
9. Gungans surrender. Now we have one less thing to think about, and jeopardy hangs over the other plots.

Then the middle, where the main focus is dealing with the changes to the plan, and everything goes wrong:

1. Maul/Jedi battle continues from the hangar into the power room.
2. Anakin joins the battle in space, and we see that he’s decent at it.
3. Padmé’s team (running) get captured. Now the pressure (and focus) is on the other two plotlines.
4. Maul/Jedi battle continues into the forcefield gates, they all pause.
5. Anakin enters the droid control ship, his ship fails. This plotline’s in jeopardy.
6. Maul/Jedi battle continues, Qui-Gon is killed. This plotline’s in jeopardy.
7. Padmé’s team are brought to Gunray. “Your little resurrection is at an end.” Mission seems to have failed.
8. Obi-Wan fights Maul, but ends up hanging in the pit.

Then the ending, featuring the turn, and victory:

1. Anakin turns his ship back on, destroys the droid control ship, and escapes. Hope returns.
2. Gungans are freed, and cheer. Brief high for this plotline, but no mission victory yet-
3. Obi-Wan’s being taunted by Maul’s sparks, but jumps up and bisects him. Hope for the Obi-Wan plot
4. Padmé’s team capture Gunray. Mission victory comes LAST, so we don’t get the high while Obi-Wan’s still in trouble.
5. Back to Obi-Wan, for Qui-Gon’s death scene. *Now that the mission is complete, we see the cost of victory."
6. Endings.

I’d still include some tweaks to some of Anakin’s more childish dialogue and actions, make it clearer that Anakin’s deliberately off into space, and tie in Qui-Gon encouraging Anakin through the force, but I think that’s roughly how I’d like to structure it.

NeverarGreat said:

EddieDean said:

Folks, I need to officially take a break from this project for a while. I’ve got too many spinning plates in life right now and a lot of mental overhead, so I need to say out loud that I need to put this to one side so that I can take the pressure off. The project isn’t dead, but 16 months straight on one obligation is heavy, and I need a breather. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.

You’ve earned any break you would take, Eddie. 😃

Cheers, Nev.

Folks, I need to officially take a break from this project for a while. I’ve got too many spinning plates in life right now and a lot of mental overhead, so I need to say out loud that I need to put this to one side so that I can take the pressure off. The project isn’t dead, but 16 months straight on one obligation is heavy, and I need a breather. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.

OK, the Jar Jar voice tool’s video file is now fixed. It’s now two files, TPM and TCW, but it’ll work just the same.

Peter Pan said:

I think the video file on your Jar Jar voice library is broken, only the first ten minutes or so have sound, everything else is muted.

Goddammit you’re right. I’m on it.

Edit: Fuck, it’s rendered that way again. It’s not identifying the peaks, even though the audio work fine in my editing software. I’ll have to investigate further. Balls.

Edit 2: Now the video’s cutting out early too! Oh noooooooo! I think it’s struggling since there are so many sources, I might need to cut it into multiple chunks.

Edit 3: Looks like it should be fine. I’ve split the source video into a TPM one and a TCW one, and they’ve both rendered fine. They’re uploading now.

snooker said:

A few weeks ago I edited something together but never posted it. Here’s my take on the final act. I would make a few changes to this but I think this gets an idea of how the climax could feel. This was heavily based on one of RogueLeader’s posts.

Notes: Some of the audio transitions are very rough and I’m not happy with the transitions after the Gungan retreat and after the Queen is brought to Nute.

And here’s a slightly outdated chart of the edits:

I really liked this. It flowed much more naturally for me. I like how you had the low points of all four plotlines at the same time, for the viewer’s emotional flow to dip as one, before the high points of each.

(As an aside, I remember an interview with Michael Arndt back when he was writing TFA, where he talked about how one of the big successes of ANH’s editing was that it put all of the story and character arc high points within quick succession when things seemed at their lowest - Obi-Wan’s ghost gives Luke hope, Han returns after rejecting the rebellion to get Vader off Luke’s tail so he has the clear shot, Luke takes the shot, Death Star explodes, Obi-Wan’s ghost confirms Luke’s belonging on the Jedi path, rebels celebrate, C-3PO shows how much he cares for R2, medals all round.)

Having just delved into it, I think you used all of the right shots form the Gungan plotline. You could show the horseback charge before the riders get shot down - that one just made a bit more sense to me logically in the moment. I think you cut to the street fight and Neimoidian suprise at exactly the right moment to sell the purpose of the Gungan battle, and the point where you cut back to the Gungan fight felt right too - at that point you’re just intercutting between the Gungans and the hangar so it’s just two plots. I’d still probably prefer to pull the Gungan surrender to far earlier (like your graphic implies) just to get it out of the way, because while it was nice to have the four low points together, it did feel like a bit of mental juggling to still need to stay aware of this plotline during the other three. (Back to the Arndt example, you don’t necessarily need to drop all the low points at the same time as much as deliver all the highs at the same time). It did also feel a bit long to wait to return to that plotline.

Maybe this section could run as:

1. Gungan battle until the droids breach the shield and the full conflict begins, which enables-
2. Street fight (and Neimoidian suprise) and hangar victory until the shot of the single Naboo fighter falling, which leaves the hangar plotline in a moment of relative peace (the other plotlines haven’t kicked off from here yet) but gets the pilots launched on their mission to destroy the control ship
3. Droidekas enter the Gungan battle, overwhelming them and destroying the shield, increasing their jeopardy and the importance of the Padmé/pilot missions
4. Pilots in space engage the incoming droid fighters (the pilots in space shot implicitly happens a while after their prior shot of leaving the hangar anyway), showing that they’ll face resistance, leaving that plotline in a position of tension so Padmé’s capture of the Neimoidians will be important
5. Gungan surrender, leaving them in jeopardy but closing off that plotline, again emphasising the importance of the other plots
6. Hangar plots spin off, with Padmé ‘reawakening’ the story here with the second prong of their attack (“The Viceroy’s in the throne room”), Anakin ‘safe’ in the cockpit, and Maul triggering the change in plans

On the Padmé plotline, yesterday I was thinking about trimming that too - I feel like the ascension cables part doesn’t add much tension, and just slows down the plot when it needs to be fast. We don’t know the internal geography of the palace, so I feel like cutting away during the gunfight and then cutting back to Padmé’s team getting captured should be OK. Or you could maybe even show Padmé’s team leaving the hangar (running), then rejoin them onscreen when they get captured (whilst running). I don’t think it necessarily weakens their plan to have not accounted for resistance in the higher levels, with the chaos they’ve been causing (and the Jedi they expected to be accompanied by). As much as Padmé doesn’t have much character in this movie, all these scenes really add is showing her holding her own in a gunfight (which we’ve already seen in the hangar) and a bit of creativity (which we’ve seen with her decoys, Gungan diplomacy, and planning this whole assault). If the palace combat plotline is minimised - and ends early - then we’re mainly just following our main characters: Anakin in space trying to help take down the droid control ship, and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon (who’d be able to help the Queen) being tied up with Maul. It also makes it clearer that they really needed the Jedi for this section, and that Maul was a good counter to that.

Darth Raditz said:

Words!

Yep! And just to be clear, I’m not necessarily proposing that we use these exact alternate lines. An editor would want to decide on their intentions with the character first. For example, Jar Jar already in his role as Junior Representative, or as their deliberate contact on Naboo, or as some guy they stumbled across who decides to help, all have different implications to wider context.

I’m not going to take these particular examples further (mainly because I have to focus on TCW:R, and I’m not great at the music/foley side of things). But I’m really hoping that the takeaway here is showing that the tool makes playing around with Jar Jar very easy for anyone to do, and that there are lots of good alternate lines in there.

And last one for now-

A quick, even rougher example (I had less time for this one) of more of Jar Jar having a personality, this time while Padmé cleans R2 (of her own volition, ideally!)

I think this makes a decent argument that there’s room for Jar Jar to still be a bit of an idiot and a tag-along, so long as he actually has things that he clearly cares about, that motivate him.

I encourage you all to play with the tool - the video has all of Jar Jar’s lines, indexed back to the spreadsheet, so it’s really quick and easy to find alternative lines and see how they work.

Here’s an example of how Jar Jar could care about and be more actively involved in the Queen’s rescue. This’d be more for the scenario where we skip Otoh Gungah because Jar Jar is their guide - albeit a bumbling junior politician who’s uncomfortable in dangerous situations. And Qui-Gon is initially hesitant to trust someone who’s clearly a bit out of their depth, ultimately accepting his value given his local/political knowledge. At the end of this clip, Jar Jar tries to big up his contribution as he realises he wants to be a part of this group and that the Jedi are competent protectors.

Again, it’s rough, but should illustrate some of our options!

Again posted here more for collective thought rather than anything else, here’s a VERY ROUGH cut of the ending if you take out the Gungan plotline and put it up front. All I’ve done here is very lightly smoothed the audio (but it’s not perfect), and removed the scene of Padmé getting the upper hand (since it takes away from Anakin’s victory). I haven’t removed any of Anakin’s annoying bits or the autopilot, or added any of the other ideas for here. It’s just presented this way to give a feel for the cognitive load of the ending without Gungans.

I had this idea based on having TC-14 actually be on the Jedi ship in the scenario where they head to the planet under invasion without intending to meet the Neimoidians, in which case the droid’s dialogue could be something like “We’re setting you down in the swamp near where your contact was last seen” or something.