EddieDean

My feeling from this recent review pass is that the majority of TPM could stay, so long as it’s shaped right. I think the ending can lose about ten minutes, but that’s the most in a single area. Small cuts in aggregate might give you another ten minutes off, and reshaping the content before Theed might take another five minutes out. But that’d leave you with 1h50, which I don’t think would feel too abnormal.

There might be a rearrangement where you end up on Padmé staring, while covering the same beats, but yeah, that’s all she does in that scene.

And here’s an attempt to blend the two scenes of Padmé captured into one.

Best option seems to be to bridge them with a reaction shot of Gunray looking at the door, as an SFX of the door opening plays, then cut to Padmé being marched in. There’s less available footage than I thought, so I cropped this bridging shot from a later longer shot of her marching in from another angle. This bridging shot is cropped from a quarter of that shot’s frame, but you could get it to 1080p since there’s a 2160p source available.

Failing that, you could maybe use an upscaled and colour corrected shot from a cut scene - there’s one with Gunray and the other Neimoidian staring, which is useful.

But ideally, I think a better shot of Nute and the other guy standing in another location, would be composited onto a suitable background plate.

The music here I think is fine? But it’d probably be nice to find a smoother single track to carry you through this whole section.

Anyway, what this would achieve if it works would be removing the main criticism of this attempt at the ending sequence, which was that the two short Padmé scenes both felt too brief.

I’ve just been watching ROTJ as I do the prep for that movie’s focus thread, and like TPM its ending cuts between many different locations - three compared to TPM’s four. Notably it cycles between all three settings pretty quickly at times, and personally, I didn’t feel like it felt too ‘choppy’ or that it had high cognitive load like the original TPM ending does. Sometimes it only spent as little as 30 seconds on a single scene. Both of the Padmé being captured scenes total about 30 seconds, and while they don’t naturally flow back to back, I think there may be a possible reordering of shots which makes them flow into each other nicely, which might make them work as a single short (but not TOO short) scene.

Eyepainter, your regrades are all getting really nice. You’ve got a real talent for this. Are they each a single universal regrade that you apply to the entire film, or are you doing it scene by scene?

Vladius said:

fanediting was a mistake

I blame Mike Nichols.

That’s perfect. I’ve got time tonight to start working on the ROTJ thread.

Well, I’m excited that you guys think it’s a decent enough idea!

I don’t think I have the right credentials to deserve the same authority as the rest of the council, but I’m happy to serve in this administrative capacity. (A seat on the council without the rank of master, which I’m sure has never gone badly before.)

Ultimately, I imagine that the purpose of a council would be to make decisions on behalf of the community that the community would ultimately collectively accept, even if they disagreed personally with the odd individual decision. Therefore, I’d suggest that the most qualified people would be those who have experience, tenure, and trust amongst the community. Authority would be granted in service to the community, rather than over it.

Rogue, Hal, Nev, Spence - all of you have created multiple well-regarded edits, have been members of this community for a long time, and importantly, have been heavily involved in the more collaborative elements of editing rather than purely personal edits. (GMatias, I’m sure you have too, I’m just less personally familiar with your work.) I can’t claim the same, but like many others here I’d be more than happy to be part of the democratic process beneath your ultimate decisions. It feels important that the community trust that all voices will be heard whether on the council or not.

If high-end goals were established, perhaps edits which fit within those goals can be marked as something like “Part of the OriginalTrilogy.com Saga Edit™” to make it easier to identify those edits which’re internally consistent. (Since it’s always hard to cherrypick a personal set of edits when one you like is perfect except for the fact that Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is green with purple polka dots.)

As always, I’m happy to create a thread with a detailed OP to help organise things, present resources, and get people on the same page, but as usual I’m wary of overdoing it, which I’m prone to. I’m more than happy for anyone else to take the lead on that.

Rogue, I’ll shortly be putting together the community ROTJ thread, which I know you’ll be a major contributor to - do you see your theoretical ROTJ edit as a part of this larger collaborative initiative, or more of a personal standalone edit?

On Nev’s/Hal’s idea, Obi-Wan doesn’t even necessarily need to lie to Padmé. It could just be something like “I saw a security hologram. Of him… kneeling before the Sith Lord” or “fighting Master Windu”.

I would really, really like to see an attempt at a communitywide saga edit, where we consider the franchise holistically.

It’s too big for one person - everything would hinge on the collaborative approach. You’ll always have the bottom-up approach, where people generate ideas for scenes, then test them with an audience and tweak them to make them work. But like RogueLeader says, for a project like this you’d need to have a really heavy top-down approach too, establishing the thesis statement/objectives first. The order things were tackled would be vital, and I don’t mean like ‘which movie first?’, but things like how those goals are established, how they are validated, how changes are judged against them?

I’d suggest putting some serious time into polling and discussion there to establish those objectives. For example:

1. Open discussion of what needs to be discussed, all of the possible considerations, questions that need to be asked
2. A mammoth (non-binding) poll to cover everything that a consensus feeling is needed for: What should be canon? How far should can canon be deviated from? Aesthetic concerns? Sources? Themes?
3. On those results, more open discussion, treating them as a guide but not final. Was anything missed that needs to be asked again? Are there any valid challenges to the consensus? Points should be justified, preferences should be argued for.
4. Some form of locking-in of ideas. I’d suggest approval by a council of veterans - you three above would certainly not be a bad starting point.
5. Present those goals. Justify them in writing, so others can get on board. Leave room for challenge and refinement.
6. Then, granularity. Against those goals, probably another poll (again via open discussion of what questions belong), outlining character arcs (Anakin lied to by Obi-Wan?), key elements (Midichlorians? Chosen one?), overall flow of the saga (Palpatine returned?), etc etc. Again, discussion of results, approval by some authority that can thumb-up or thumb-down ideas (Like Hal’s role in Ascendent).

Essentially, democracy beneath some benevolent dictators!

THEN, the bottom-up approach can begin in earnest. Ideation. Realisation of those ideas. Testing against the goals. Impact for the wider saga.

And to support those who will inevitably prefer to deviate from that core, it’d be relatively straightforward to maintain a library of edited individual scenes, LUTs, etc, so that people could pick and choose. It’s always made sense to me that resources like this should be made available to the community as a whole.

Anyway, maybe that’s me taking it too far, but that’s how I’d approach it. I don’t do anything (Star Wars or work-related - I’m a business analyst/change consultant) without ideation, audience polling, approval groups, or a massive fucking spreadsheet.

Great idea, Rogue.

Spence, which elements are you intending to incorporate from Hal’s?

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!)