EddieDean

CaptainFaraday said:

2. I like that new structure! I wonder if there’s a way of keeping more of the original scenes, though - maybe the Jedi are going to the Droid Control Ship first to either end the invasion diplomatically, or they think the Queen is being held there, depending on dialogue options. It could even be a deliberate trap for them to go there first, since Sidious would know the Senate has dispatched Jedi to go there and rescue the Queen.

I’m wondering, Faraday, what do you think would be the advantages of retaining those scenes? In terms of character development, the two parties (Jedi and Neimoidians) don’t meet there - the Jedi are simply attacked by droids before they flee. I think the negative of including them is that it means the Jedi stumble into the plot, rather than have a more exciting/interesting rescue mission, and the first (chronological) time we see the Jedi they get easily overwhelmed by these corny cheap robots. If we trim them, and set the Jedi on the planet deliberately, their first action scenes show them handily dealing with a few droids in the forest to protect Jar Jar, then successfully saving Padmé from her prison escort, then successfully handling a hangarful of droids - all escalating evidence of martial competence. Other than showing a bit of Neimoidian fear at having the Jedi onboard, which is valuable but seen again elsewhere, the Neimoidian shots don’t require the Jedi there, and the Jedi scene could be placed on their transport, as suggested by StarkillerAG.

Without a dialogue rework, having them leave for the surface without confirming that the Queen isn’t on board (they haven’t searched it, or accessed its databanks, etc) might make their leaving seem indifferent - and you might also need a dialogue rework to have them suprised when they do actually find her in Theed.

Looks like it’ll take me about an hour per remaining Jar Jar episode of TCW to cut them into the sources video, so I’m going to pace myself on that. But Bombad Jedi is done, though not yet rendered.

Looking over the voices, a lot are very clean, and there’s absolutely loads that could be useful to us.

• A good few "I"s and "I’m"s to replace "Mesa"s.
• A lot of more formal language that could also tighten him up, or imply a prior relationship with the Queen: “My lady”, “It’sa pleasure to be seeing yousa.” “Mesa hopin so, milady.” “Mesa never let anything happen to you, Queenie.”
• Quotes which show genuine agency and give him more character: “We musta having try and saving her.” “We can do it!” “Don’t be fearing, Padmé, wesa coming.” “Hang on, my Lady” "“Millions will be starving and dying without your help.” “Mesa won’t let you down.” “Thinking! Nosa thinking. Mesa thinking Padme would help us, has helped us, big time. Wesa gota to help her now.” “Mesa not lettin that happen, milady.” “Mesa need to save the Queenie!” “Mesa understands.”
• Quotes relating to helping out: “Mesa saved you.” “If these droids attacking us, Padmé’s probably in trouble!” “Oh, it’sa nothing.” “Ani, mesa have an idea.” “Mesa proposing-” “Mesa friends can help.”
• Quotes which could help him identify Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and their introductions: “Thatsa Jedi robe” “Jedi? Where’sa Jedi?” “I’m just a Gungan.” “Mesa doing my best.” “Disa Jedi is mesa pallo, hesa comin here to be helpin mesa solve your troubles.” “Uh, mesa not big with the Force. Yousa got the wrong Gungan.” “Maxi big the Force, Masterin [Mace], but howsa we gonna find the Queenie? She’s still a prisoner.”
• Other good quotes: “Theysa won’t be recognising me.” “I made a very good friend.” “Begging your highness, whatsa he doing here?” “Oh, yesa, my lady. He give mui fiery speeches, blaming Naboo for everything. Mesa say it couldn’t be true.” “Thesa Gungans are proud. With thisa mood at the moment, mesa the last person they listen to now.” “Well, mesa more of a deep thinker.” “Mesa think yousa have to deal” “Queenie, but yousa let mesa handle dis, I promise da Jedi Master will besa no trouble for you.” “Mesa no bombad warrior, but mesa swearin to find yousa Queenie” “Okeday! Wesa make a bombad team” “Mesa need to be brave.” “Whysa you thinkin they want Queenie so badly?”

Of particular note are quotes I think could help sell the angle where Jar Jar is already a representative and their native local guide:

• “Meesa on a diplomatic mission.”
• “Representative Binks of Naboo.”
• “Mesa Representative Binks of the Republic Senate and hesa with mesa.”
• “Yup! The Queen is mesa pallo. Mesa knowin her for a longo time.”
• “Queenie was me bombad pallo for many years. Shesa knew there be troubles here. Dats why she calling mesa to helpin in your time of need.”
• “But wesa must hurry. That city, itsa mooie big. Wesa have to move fast”
• “Mesa bet they’re bringing the Queenie this way.” [good for the scene where they drop in and save her?]

❤️

Oh man, you’re totally right, there are LOADS of great Queen-related lines! I’ll try to compile all the clips ASAP.

CaptainFaraday said:

EddieDean said:

Docking Bay 54 said:

Hi, new here. How can I get a copy of this? The changelog makes this edit sound fantastic!!!

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for any fan edit of TFA and TLJ that compliment this edit visually, canonically and pacing wise??

I’d recommend TFA:Starlight and
TLJ:Legendary to precede this. All three edits, while made by different people, included a lot of cross-collaboration and shared goals.

TLJ Legendary was also Hal. You might have mixed the titles with Rekindled by Poppasketti?

My bad, I did mean Rekindled.

Docking Bay 54 said:

Hi, new here. How can I get a copy of this? The changelog makes this edit sound fantastic!!!

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for any fan edit of TFA and TLJ that compliment this edit visually, canonically and pacing wise??

I’d recommend TFA:Starlight and
TLJ:Legendary to precede this. All three edits, while made by different people, included a lot of cross-collaboration and shared goals.

Another thought following from StarkillerAG’s ideas:

In the invasion scenario, you may want to drop the blockade angle entirely. The blockade has disappeared by the return to Naboo in the finale anyway, replaced with a single droid control ship, as I’ve mentioned before. But having no blockade would also help explain their ship successfully arriving at the surface, albeit deliberately avoiding the occupied city.

If we see a single droid control ship from the beginning (which the Jedi transport isn’t equipped to do anything about anyway), and we also properly identify it as a droid control ship up front, then we open the movie with the Death Star that must be destroyed to save the day.

1. Scenes of invasion (ominous threat building)
2. Droid control ship (tangible target)
3. Queen Amidala must be brought to Coruscant to convince them to help (solution)
4. Queen gets captured (solution in jeopardy)
5. The full plot plays out, with many jeopardies for the Queen: Capture and recovery, hyperdrive forcing them off path, being hunted by Maul, etc
6. Anakin is discovered (not yet revealed as alternative solution)
7. Queen arrives at Coruscant, pleas rejected (rejection of solution, low hope)
8. Return to Naboo and new plan (new solution)
9. New plan fails (lowest hope)
10. Anakin destroys control ship (suprise solution, victory)

Interesting!

And I like that idea a lot, Eyepainter.

While we’re on Maul, I wonder if it’s worth replacing his one line of dialogue? The Sith only reveal themselves to the Jedi insofar as it’s a secondary thing that happens in his pursuit of the Queen, and no revenge is had. The Clone Wars has a dearth of possible Maul lines we could work with, and it’s arguably his more canon voice since he’s got hundreds of lines in that as opposed to the single one here.

That structure feels really compelling to me. We’re focused on Padme rather than having the Jedi stumble into the plot while expecting to negotiate.

I’d maybe shift the invasion even earlier, perhaps even the first shots (after a pan down to the planet?) A landing army, troops and tanks deployed and moving into the city, [ideally extra shots of damage/oppression], a Queen sadly and silently watching, until we hear she’s been captured.

If Amidala is the Death Star plans, that opening is the Tantive 4 being captured by the Star Destroyer.

Edit: One thing you might want to do to smooth out a couple of your changes would be to have TC-14 say something like “We’ll be dropping you off soon in the swamps not far from the city.” And if you’re going with the Jar Jar as native guide/ambassador, you could reference that there too. Even “We’ve just received a distress call from our contact” if you wanted to help explain the transition into the action.

This could be a big one, should we spin this out into a new thread? I’m more than happy to have the conversation here or in another thread, but I don’t want my threads to arrogantly dominate the front page!

Go for it! Let’s get this party started.

That’s a great idea. I’ll maintain a list of suggestions in the OP. £200 a month is steep so we should really try to nail it- we should get tonally perfect sample voices first, then aim to get them run through the program in the first week, giving us the remaining three weeks for review and quick tweaking.

Oh for sure! There’s definitely a lot of merit to your idea, and it’s impressive how quickly you pulled it together!

One other thing that has me tending away from the Maul’s saber idea (and not to criticise the idea or your work, PeterPan), is that there’s a risk that we take away from the power of a couple of other ‘good guy uses red saber during an emotional time’ moments. Off the top of my head, we have:

• In ROTS, when Anakin wields a blue and red saber to decapitate Dooku, illustrative of him making the transition to the dark.
• In Tartakovsky’s 2003 Clone Wars miniseries, when Anakin uses Ventress’ saber in anger against her, in a moment that’s shot a lot like Luke hammering Vader at the end of ROTJ, showing an early tending toward the dark.
• In the Clone Wars CG series’ episode Revenge, where Obi-Wan uses Ventress’ saber in anger against a resurrected Maul, in a moment where Maul’s really goading him about the fact he killed his master, illustrative of Obi-Wan really feeling the pain of that loss.

(I compare the last one, about Obi-Wan, to his behaviour in TPM, where really he wins because he’s just had that slow, meditative moment in the pit, rather than acted in anger at the loss of Qui-Gon. In TPM, when he acts, it’s more peaceful and Jedi-like.)

The red Maul saber is a nice addition, and well done, but I feel like there’s important symbolism in Obi-Wan taking up Qui-Gon’s saber (and metaphorically his quest) at that point. They’ve had their disagreement and made up about training Anakin. Obi-Wan the padawan falls, and Obi-Wan the knight rises, inheritor of Qui-Gon’s ideals.

evansj1983 said:

Alright. About to take one for the team and work my way through all the Clone Wars episodes with Jar Jar to transcribe his lines. Wish me good luck.

edit: So far I’ve got up to (and including) S04E04 Shadow Warrior. Hopefully there’s some useful lines/sounds that can be used. I’m using Disney+ to make my notes so I can’t actually rip the BR and isolate dialogue etc. but at least this should provide a resource for those that can.

Here is the spreadsheet I’ve created.

Just have the season 6 two-parter to go. But I’m calling it quits for the night. I’m Jar Jar’d out!

This is a heroic effort! Thanks so much! I’ll add it to the spreadsheet, and cut those lines into the video too so they’re all in the same place and on hand.

sade1212 said:

Sorry, this is not relevant to TPM lol.

No no, I think you both raise perspectives which are valuable to shaping a focus for TPM! I don’t think we need to take it further, perhaps, as we’ve covered what’s explicit and what’s open to personal interpretation, but I think this discussion is still valuable to a potential editor. Here we should be thinking about themes we’d like to emphasise or downplay. I think your analysis of selfish versus selfless love, and forbidding personal connection versus permitting healthy connection, is spot on.

Ooh, I’ve spotted a nice unplanned bit of continuity. When we last saw Anakin, in my s02e06, he was in a crash that left him and Ahsoka stranded on the Lurmen planet. After the Maul/Obi-Wan centric s02e07, we’ll return to Anakin in s02e08, which opens with him visiting Padmé. In their opening dialogue, she asks him what’s going on, and he references having had to return to Coruscant via a civilian transport, because his military transport “blew up”. Nice!

I liked this quote from Dave:
“And at the end of the day, one of the questions that I guess I pose is, is that really a good thing? Is Anakin’s way of being so compassionate wrong? Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong. There’s something they’re doing that doesn’t work and that the dark side is exploiting. If anything, it’s Luke’s overwhelming compassion and love for his father that in the end overthrows the Emperor because it’s something that he doesn’t understand. So as far back as Anakin, there is a seed of an idea of love and compassion, which admittedly in Attack of the Clones, the Jedi say they’re lacking because they’ve become arrogant and very sure of themselves.”

I think that demonstrates a good middle ground viewpoint. Either way, I think there’s a valid interpretation in either direction, and as you say, it hasn’t been particularly emphasised in the movies, so I don’t think we need to wrestle over the details.

This is a good article that goes into some of it, including the video attached. And other Lucas and Filoni quotes here, here and here. But you’re right, there’s still a lot of room for interpretation in there, and certainly the genuine positives of Buddhist or transcendent beliefs are also a major factor in the design of the Jedi.

That’s really slick.

I haven’t watched over the original sources for those in a long time, and I thought that one felt natural enough.

Yeah. And thinking about your whole idea, even if the viewer is watching TPM first, and doesn’t have the context that parents can’t come with Jedi when they go away to get trained, Shmi explains “my life is here”, which implies enough to make that element of it work.

Here’s a quick little mockup of the deal just being a straightforward ‘the boy and his mother’.

There’re a couple of alternate ways you could cut that, but that’s a simple one. Music transition at the cut seems fine too.

One other idea I had, if you still want a little Qui-Gon manipulation, would be to add in the shot of Qui-Gon waving his hand (originally to manipulate the dice) as he’s saying ‘the boy and his mother’, or just after it. There you’d be implying that he’s using a mind trick to get Watto to accept.* There’s maybe a conflict there with him failing to mind trick Watto earlier. However, you could read that as Watto rejecting the first attempt because he STRONGLY wants spendable money, whereas the second attempt succeeds because Watto’s mentally WEAK to gambling, something that Qui-Gon’s now realised he can exploit. That’d also give Qui-Gon a little arc (fail > succeed) but also be a little manipulative for a Jedi - perhaps emphasising his less dogmatic side as he does something a little wrong to achieve a greater right.

*You could also split the scene of Jar Jar looking left and right around that shot, to emphasise it. He looks from Watto to Qui-Gon, we see Qui-Gon’s hand wave, he looks back from Qui-Gon to Watto as we see Watto accept. Might help tie it together.

Whoops! Fixed.