Farlander

He does care about storytelling. He's just a sloppy writer. The ideal Star Wars film can still be directed by him, but with somebody polishing the scripts, as it happened with ANH.

I like how he admits that he's 'The King of Wooden Dialogue' while receiving his AFI award :)

The irony, IMO, is that Star Wars Saga has a GREAT story. A REALLY great one. I mean, try retelling it to somebody (from I to VI, yeah), and he'll think 'No shit, that sounds awesome!'. But the mileage of that person's opinion AFTER seeing the movies may vary. And I don't mean only prequels, RotJ isn't the best execution of the ending that you could get and ANH hasn't aged well for a movie (I really consider ANH to be slow and boring, something I can't say about a lot of other old movies I love to watch).

Doesn't McDiarmid himself talk a hell lot in RotJ about Luke becoming his new next apprentice? To the point that he should've kept his mouth shut if he wanted Luke to embrace the Dark Side? :)

Now I know that sound like a barrage of negativity, but really I'm just wondering how on earth anyone could pull of such a massive change without anything short of inserting entire new sequences into the film (a feat that even funded professionals would have time with) and add in lines (making the whole attempt damn near impossible).

Don't ask me :p If I ever get to doing my SW edits (probably after the Blu-ray sets are released, dunno... and when I will have LOTS of time), I, personally, am not going to hide the fact that Anakin's Darth Vader (I actually want to give the Saga a unity by making it look actually MORE like the 'Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker', instead of this tragedy being thought of in the last moment). But, anyway, regarding your questions.

Why would Maul be a general if he was the bad-ass secret sith assassin from TPM? He was more of the quiet follower rather than a military commander.

 

Because there were no Separatists that Palpy had to lead? Anyway, regarding Grievous character - we have the advantage of him having NO FREAKING mouth, meaning he can say WHATEVER we want... OR he can be silent most of the time, like Darth Maul, speaking only on business and when effecting certain orders.

Why would Palpatine spend so much time with Anakin? Why would he get Anakin to kill Dooku? 

Because, regardless if we cut the 'Chosen One' crap or not (I'm not a PT-hater, but I don't like the Chosen One concept since it feels forced... mostly because it wasn't really thought of from the beginning, like 95% of Star Wars Saga :p Heck, even Vader wasn't Luke's father when the first SW was filmed... anyway, where was I... oh, yeah, regardless if he was the Chosen One or not, Anakin still is a Jedi of remarkable capabilities, more remarkable than in anyone else Sid could think of.

Now, come to think of it, I really don't have that much clear answers. Anyway, I think that not only it's impossible to make Grievous and Vader one character, but also implausible. However, we could ease the Maul = Grievous stuff by taking Sid's lines from RotS, pasting them into TPM and naming Darth Maul Darth Grievous (there's only one or two places in the whole movie where the name 'Maul' is uttered).

Regarding Anakin's Dark Side. If Anakin's a loose cannon, we could make it seem like Palps didn't want to make him an apprentice, but to go berserk on the Jedi, I don't know.

----------------------------------------------------

EDIT:

What I'm more interested in, is it possible to make so that the whole Saga would NEVER show the same planet in two movies? (aside, MAY BE, from Tatooine).

See here:

EpI: Naboo, Tatooine, Coruscant

EpII: Coruscant, Tatooine, Kamino, Geonosis

EpIII: Coruscant, Utapau, Kashyyyk, Mustafar, Polis Massa (plus Alderaan, Tatooine, Cato Neimodia, Naboo, Felucia, Mygeeto, Saleucami make short appearances)

EpIV: Tatooine, Death Star (let's count it as a planet :p ), Yavin (Alderaan makes an appearance)

EpV: Hoth, Dagobah, Bespin

EpVI: Tatooine (AGAIN THE BLASTED! :) ), Endor, Death Star II (Coruscant, Tatooine, Bespin, Naboo in 2004 make short appearances, but I guess that's acceptable)

Do you think it's possible to make, let's say, Coruscant being only MENTIONED in EpI and putting the Council on Dantooine, for example? Or stuff like that? Make solo be held captive not on Tatooine, but on Nal Hutta (really, there's no reason why Jabba the Hutt HAS to be on Tatooine. It would make him a much more fearsome Crime Lord if everyone around the galaxy knew him :p ). You know, to make the universe seem VASTLY bigger.

But, most importantly... I really don't like the concept of the second Death Star (yeah, I know it's RotJ territory, but the PT has the biggest number of the same planets used in several films in a row, so I'll justask it here), I think one Death Star is enough. Do you think it's possible to change the DSII to a giant Imperial fleet? (or, I don't know... something).

JimmySilverrims said:

 

Also, how do you make it seem that Grevious meant anything to Palpatine, or at least enough to bring him back to life (apparently for a second time)?

Hm... how about replacing Grievous' eyes (not a hard thing to do) to make it look like it's Darth Maul ressurected? (Maul is after all, a very skilled warrior, it would be shame to lose him totally, and Palpatine visited Naboo just after he became Chancellor - a certainly good moment to retrieve the body). If we go the 'Dooku is Sith' route (it won't make sense in 'Dooku is a real rogue' route), it could be possilbe to insert some kind of a cameo in AotC of Grievous, of him being rebuilt and stuff (think Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, when we saw clues regarding Barbossa's reappearance before we knew he would actually reappear).

Put Captain Solo in the Cargo Hold said:

That industrial part of Coruscant where Dookie flies at the end of Attack of the Clones, it's never seen or mentioned again in the series. Palpatine and Maul could have their conversation in that zone.

Isn't that also the place where Anakin's transformation takes place in EpIII?

A bit of a non-serious (and off-topic) post. But I thought I should share this with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L8b1zPE0-Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRd_vZT6zPY

Swearing in ANH FTW! :p

So, here’s the scoop. I’m making a Pirates of the Caribbean fan-edit (combining DMC and AWE into one movie, removing, if not all, most of the unnecessary elements).

I actually worked on it for quite some time (and got pretty experienced with editing video and 5.1 audio). And it’s pretty much on the finishing line. But. There’s a problem. To make everything work, I need to redraw things in a program like Adobe After Effects or something similar to it.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem for me to learn to professionally work in a program like that, but I’ve got too little free time left. Most of my time is eaten by University, the Fan-Edit time is eaten by, well, editing (I’m constantly improving different stuff, and there are some scenes which I haven’t even started changing yet) and in February I’m leaving to Canada, meaning that I have a maximum 5 months to finish the fan-edit, though in reality I have to get done with it in a month or two (for reasons closely related to the limited time reasons stated above) - not enough to learn to seamlessly do what I want to do.

So, what I’m asking for, is for some help. I need a person skilled in an AE-type program who will willingly help me to finish the edit (by editing the graphical aspect of different shots - like removing a ship or several in the distance, compositing from different shots, like a person from one shot and a background from another), I will provide the exact specifications of what to do in each shot, along with the shots themselves. I work in 1080p (coded in highest quality x264, so it’s NOT totally lossless, the shots will still weight quite a few bytes, so a fast connection is preferable), and expect the same in return.

Or, at least, I need a place where there’s lots of such persons, some of which could possibly help me.

Thank you in advance.

 I would say an Evil person who knows he is evil and does BAD things is WAAAAAY worse than someone who does not know what he does is evil.

That depends on the situation. At least it's possible to reason with such a person.

Wanting to have the power to do what you want for your own desires (in the Jedi philosophy there's nothing wrong with death) is not a "good cause."

It's certainly a "good cause" if one puts it as "the power to save the ones you love". The fact that it transformed to a desire to do ANYTHING you want is another matter.

I remember when I was 7, that is even before knowing about Star Wars, I (after one rather unpleasant moment in my life) was sitting in my room thinking about a lot of things. One of them was - what makes me a bad person? I had a lot of questions, some of them on the if killing will make me a bad person topic. What if I'll kill to protect my family? I know the one I killed could have had a family too, you know. And so on and so on... Yeah, in my childhood I thought about things that I don't think any sane kid would.

"A tool to kill Vader" is not at all how I see it. In fact, didn't Yoda try to encourage Luke not to rush off and fight Vader? And if they both thought that Vader was unsavable (as did Palpy and Vader himself) it doesn't mean they wanted him dead... only that they didn't see an alternative.

The only problem is, all that doesn't make Luke less a tool. The reason Yoda tried to encourage Luke NOT to rush off is because he wasn't ready to, well, kill Vader.

And, about lying, there are many ways to lie to a person. Obi-Wan could lie about Luke's father a lot of ways. But he specifically said that it is Darth Vader who killed Luke's father, placing the desire for revenge (not the Jediest way to do at all) which would actually help their goal - kill Vader.

I disagree.  In ESB, Vader is "evil" (i.e., acting selfishly) in that he wants to get rid of the Emperor with Luke's help and control the galaxy.

You know, I didn't think of ESB Vader that way. Maybe because my opinion of ESB Vader WAS overshadowed by the fact that in ANH Vader was the apatomy of Evil. Lucas himself wrote the line "master of evil". He didn't have any goal but to destroy the Rebel Alliance. Well, and take revenge on Obi-Wan after he learned he was still alive. I wouldn't go as far as to call it selfish at the base (aside from Obi-Wan part, maybe). Just evil. BTW, interesting fact, if I remember correctly, Vader doesn't brag about THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE, just the Power of the Force, which he demonstrates by choking.

But I don't really agree on RotJ Vader. His goal could possibly remain the same as in ESB, but on the other hand, reluctance is written all over his face during the whole movie. Uhm... all over his mask... Whatever. During the first talk with the Emperor, for example, the talk with Luke on the landing platform, it's like Vader is constantly thinking 'am I doing the right thing?' (one of the possible real-life reasons is that Lucas, in his usual manner, didn't think about Vader returning from the Dark Side of the Force until he began working on RotJ itself)

I want to add that this reluctance I see doesn't work well in the terms of OT only, IMO. In the context with PT, it kinda works. I mean, Anakin pretty much got broken with no real goal to live. Betrayed (or 'betrayed') by everyone, he killed his wife (at least injured badly which then led to her death), no children, all what he was doing was in vain. So, naturally he'll be a pissed off machine. Especially pissed of on Obi-Wan who has left him there to die. And then, his son appears, there's some hope that reappears, some new meaning, which leads to Vader going back.

It works even better, in my opinion (I already mentioned that somewhere), if one is to leave in the movie the NEW 2004 DVD Emperor talk as Lucas has put in there, and delete any (two, to be exact, in the crawl and one line in the movie) mention of Vader searching for Skywalker, learning about him from Palpatine. But the last paragraph is fan-edit orientiered, kinda. But the new 2004 DVD scene doesn't make sense without the changes I've mentioned anyway, so Lucas should do it if he wants to keep it in.

EDIT: By the way, one of the things I don't like in RotJ is that Palpatine, the one that is actually interested in Luke taking Vader's place, makes everything to make that NOT happen. Even in a simple 'kill-that-guy-become-my-apprentince' sense. If he kept his mouth shut, Luke could have killed Vader on his own freakin' will.

First, I wanted to write about my favorite scene from KotOR2 (which, sadly, had a lot more potential as a game). It's a scene from Nar Shadaa, a beggar asks the player character money. We can give him money (light side path, kinda), but the beggar will be mugged (or killed) a few moments later. Or we can send him away (dark side path, kinda), and the beggar will kill another person to get money.

Which reminds me, that the Dark Side concept in KotOR2 is more interesting than in KotOR1. In KotOR1, it's like:

- Please, help me! Those bandits want to kill me!

- (Player Character) DIIIIEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

- Sir, I'm a poor man, give me some money, please...

- DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

- Good day, and I have a business proposition for you

- DIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

- Hello th---

- DIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do not have much to say right now, apart from what I said in the thread corellian77 gave link to. That I consider the OT Dark Side stuff rather implausible, the PT concept plausible but flawed because of the OT concept it had to connect to (Anakin becoming the bad-ass evil machine Vader everyone wanted him to become) which led to a very strange scene after Anakin helped to kill Mace.

I mean, in OT, the Dark Side is basically Evil. Now, I want to point out that I'm a person which likes the point of view concept. Which was concieved in RotJ. But still, in the OT the Dark Side was basically being evil with little to no moral values at all, or any other goals other than "THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE", with the Light Side not being shown as so light, because, PT aside, Obi-Wan and Yoda told lies to Anakin to use him as a tool to kill Vader. Obi-Wan, even after Luke learned that Vader is his father, wanted the boy to kill Vader.But, you know. All for greater good, right? Yeah, the point of view was applied only to the light side, no redeeming quality to the dark.

More than that, you can't really say that Vader is on the Dark Side at all in RotJ. An EVIL person who is conscious that he is EVIL and does BAD things is not EVIL. But yet, he does those things, like protecting Palpatine with his life, even though in ESB he wanted to overthrow him together with Luke. I had a thought that maybe Vader didn't want Luke to give in his anger so he wouldn't kill Palpatine, but that's not very plausible - during the duel the only thing he does is goading Luke to join the Dark Side. And then gets his ass kicked.

In RotS, a different concept of the sides of the Force is born, but isn't fully fleshed out because of how many times the concept of the Force changed. And I've mentioned it somewhere, that light and dark is not good and evil (and power and destructivity) at their base, but selflessness and selfishness at their base (something that Lucas thought while creating two opposite Luke and Han characters in ANH, btw). And I actually dig this concept. I mean, can Palpatine be called evil? Sure, he wants total power over the galaxy (selfishness, basically :) ), but would the Empire be really EVIL? Granted, there are these Death Star thingies, but they appeared in ANH which was more as a straight-forward sci-fi fairy-tale adventure. But I digress. What I want to say, is that Anakin is acting totally selfishly in RotS. He said it himself, "I can't live without her", and that's selfishness. But, of course, he's doing it for a good cause, right? I mean, he, as any normal person becoming evil does not realise that he is becoming evil. From someone's point of view. Which leads to a question "if love is defacto selfish", but, uhm... that's totally another topic.

Now, before I digress even more and venture into the far reaches of my own mind, I'll better wrap this reply up, post it, and actually read it as a whole.

Regarding the adventure style of Star Wars. I understand people who don't like the change of the tone, from a swashbuckling adventure to Tragedy of Darth Vader. But, I suppose everyone understood by now that I personally grew up with Star Wars being the Tragedy of Darth Vader (I will list a parallel about this matter in the post-scriptum of the post). And, frankly, Star Wars as a Saga is very inconsistent in tone and atmosphere. It's doesn't even feel like two trilogies, more like three duologies, with RotJ and TPM forming quite a pair. I don't really want to argue on this matter, because no matter what the arguments are, it will still be like arguing over a religious topic.

Just one thing about joining the Dark Side argument. I do want to raise some points about this particular matter. Some KotOR spoilers in this paragraph, be warned. Btw, I didn't read 1984, and Stockholm syndrome is not really related to anything joining the Dark Side could be related to. Anyway, in KotOR, there was this moment, when Malak tortured Bastila to make her feel the power of the Dark Side - essentially what Palpatine was doing in RotJ and what he would presumably do if Vader brought frozen Luke to him. The next time we see Bastila is when we meet her as a Dark Jedi, and she acted like a total ****. Sure she wasn't the calmest Jedi ever, nor was Luke or Anakin, but the way she turned to the Dark Side was, with no disrespect to anyone, it's just my opinion, bullshit.

"Strike your father down, and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete". Like, what, if Luke had killed Vader, he would instantly become Palpatine's apprentice? He would instantly forget his sister he wanted to protect, his best friends he had gone through lot of adventures with, and act like a censured word? And he wouldn't try to strike down Palpatine? Let's suppose he tried and did kill Palpatine. You want to say that Luke would proclaim himself the Emperor at that moment? The answer to all those questions is no. Because if yes, then I would think about it the same way I think about Bastila's turn. One could say that Luke could start abusing his new powers (killing Vader and Emperor) that would make him slowly turn more like them... That may be a valid point, but a) Luke was already abusing his powers during the Tatooine rescue mission and maybe even before that, and b) I think the reason would be more like feeling of guilt because of a failed attempt to save his father, which would then evolve. But certainly not because he felt the POWER of the Dark Side.

That's why I find attempts of turning Luke to the Dark Side in the OT implausible, and Anakin's turn to the Dark Side in the PT more believable (aside from the mentioned before "What have I done?!" part followed by "I'm a powerful Sith Lord" click moment, which is how I feel OT would've handled Luke's turn). Because it was brewing there, inside him. His will to do good led to a search of power to do that good which then transformed into a simple lust for power. And still, if not for the growing distrust Anakin had for other people, and some other things, he wouldn't had fallen. Long story short, in my opinion, it's much more plausible. My opinion is also based on my point of view and perception of life, but, even if you don't agree with me on every matter, I do believe that I raise at least some valid points.

Now for the promised post-scriptum.

PS. I've already mentioned PotC and it's sequels, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. PotC is light-hearted fun swashbuckling adventure with a quirky plot. And then came the sequels which tried to change the atmosphere and turn it into a deep story. Needless to say, I don't like PotC sequels.I can still bear DMC, but not AWE. Maybe, I wouldn't have enjoyed PT if I knew about OT. Or maybe I would. Because it is actually not a surprise to find people who have enjoyed the prequels even watching them after the OT. But these people lurk mostly along the casual viewer territory, not Star Wars fan territory.

He wasn't human. Yellow eyes are a part of his anatomy, not the fact that he is a Sith

I want to point out, that Agen Kolar (one of the Jedi Council members from the Prequels, also one of those who came to arrest Palpatine in RotS) is a Zabrak, same as Maul. No yellow eyes. It's not a species issue.

xhonzi,

First, I want to say that "Finlander" is freakin' great! :D Seriously, no one ever mispronounced my nickname like that before, I had a good laugh (no excuses needed, btw).

You're implying that I have such opinion of Star Wars as a whole because of the PT. Possibly. But, think about this (and since I can't remember on top of my head any prequels to film series, I'll go with sequels, and PT, though being prequels, are essentialy sequels... yeah, what a convoluted phrase). The fact that PT made OT suck for you is not in favor of the OT. For example... Do Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions make the original Matrix suck for you (in case if you liked/loved the Matrix)? No (at least for me). Do the Dead Men's Chest and At World End's make the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie suck? Nah. Does Batman & Robin make Tim Burton's Batman suck? Of course not. Alright, the last example is a stretch, those Batman films are distanced enough to forget about Batman & Robin. My point is, why then PT should make the OT any worse? Is it really the the OT that is good, or the childhood memories that are good?

I can't answer what I would think about the OT if the PT didn't exist for me. But, I can say that it's not PT's existence that made me think different of Star Wars Saga. As I said, there are things I like in the PT, there are things I like in the OT, so a perfect parallel universe for me would be the one where neither PT nor OT existed, but a nice blend of the two.

PS. And nobody answered on how Palpatine and Vader planned to turn Luke to the Dark Side of the Force. :p OT-wise.

I don't expect anyone on a site called 'originaltrilogy.com' to agree with me, to be honest. After all, the original trilogy was a huge part of most of this site's community's youth, I would be actually surprised if anyone would say 'Hey, you know what, this 19-year old sucker might be actually right and the original Star Wars movies possibly may not be as good as we remember them'. And that's good, I do not enforce anything. Everyone has his own opinion. I have my own.

The original trilogy was a huge part of my youth too. But, to me, it doesn't have a lasting appeal. The story has, the movies not really. Same case with the PT. (that's why I want edit the whole Saga, but, heck I don't know when and how I will find the needed time) Maybe I have this kind of opinion because there was no trilogy raping my childhood... but that's where the Sequel Trilogy will come in, right? :p

But, heck, it's Star Wars. I still like this modern Greek mythology.

EDIT: Oh crap, why I was writing this, more posts appeared. I was replying to corellian77, reading what's new now.

If Dooku is a Sith why didn't he get them, if it's a hulk thing and they only come on when the power is on why didn't Anakin have them in AOTC, why doesn't have then all through his Vader moments, why doesn't Luke get them in ROTJ?

As far as I understand, the Sith eyes appeared for Darth Maul as means to make him cool and menacing (I wouldn't call Palpatine's eyes in RotJ Sith eyes... they're relatively normal). Then, in 2003-2004 (AFTER AotC, mind you) KotOR games have been released, where those who follow the Dark Side slowly change appearance (most notably the eyes). The idea was then applied for the 2005 RotS in a way.

This is just another example of Lucas thinking about something on the way, as he was doing ever since the first sequel to Star Wars was in the making.

...Or did I only read that he'd never replace the puppet Yoda with CG in the original movies? Maye I misquoted. Very likely.

I wouldn't be surprised if George would change Yoda in ESB to a CGI version for the 3-D version. He said himself CGI thinks look better in 3-D. But the 2-D version Yoda is pretty safe, I suppose.

I remember in an AotC documentary, when they were making CGI Yoda, they tested him on, well, ESB footage, so it really isn't much of a stretch that ESB CGI Yoda can appear. Either as a main or bonus feature, that remains to be seen.

I may be bashed quite a bit for this, but... the whole Star Wars Saga kinda sucks.

Don't get me wrong. I am a Star Wars fan. Yes, I started with TPM, but it appealed to me as an 8-year old kid. Still, I was instantly hooked, found the OT as fast as I could, and... Yeah, I loved Star Wars Saga. And I do still, and I can still rewatch movies over and over again. But now, I... I see flaws in every episode.

I will not go into much detail, because it would require too much time to wrtie everything I think.

What I want to say is that Star Wars story looks so great on paper. But realisation to life is not really all that great.

Even ESB. ESB is undeniably the best of the OT episodes. But, while rewatching it the other day, I thought that C-3PO... reminded me of Jar-Jar. Oh my, he was annoying. And I swear I wanted to kill him when he talked during the freezing Han in carbonite scene. One can say that, well, 3PO should be annoying, it's his character... Bullshit. He was a lot more likeable in ANH than in ESB (and if we take parallels with Jar-Jar, he was more likeable in Ep2 than in Ep1... that doesn't mean I like Jar-Jar very much, by the way).

Episode 4 is very slow-paced and I feel bored while watching it. Don't dare anybody start with some 'old movie/different times/I'm too young' stuff. Blues Brothers has some issues with pacing, but it kicks ass. 12 Angry Men is an old film and there people just talk in one friggin' room, but it kicks ass. Back to the Future... well, Back to the Future just kicks ass. Totally. I know BttF is not slow-paced. But Episode 4 is, well, slow.

Episode 6 is poorly structured. How much time does it take to rescue Han? Somewhere like, 35-40 minutes? That's almost half of the movie when nothing practically happens. RotS had Palpatine rescure mission, somewhere 20-25 minutes, half as long as RotJ rescue mission, but it was still kinda long, there was still unnecessary water. Not to mention, Palpatine is totally stupid in RotJ. Prequel Palpatine rocks, really. But RotJ Palpatine is senile.

Just don't think that I'm an OT-basher or something. There are a lot of things I like in the OT. But most of it is from ESB. And as I wanted to say that PT has a lot of totally great stuff too, I realised that most of my favorite scenes are from RotS. So yeah. The only good and well-made Star Wars movies in my opinion are ESB and RotS. Now sue me.

Anyway, there is one thing that bugs me in the whole Star Wars Saga, but in OT mostly. It's turning to the Dark Side/Light Side stuff.

Let's take OT. Just how exactly Vader (and Palpatine) wanted to turn Luke to the Dark Side? In ESB, Vader, like, chops his hand and expects Luke to join him? And in RotJ Palpatine expects to make Luke kill Vader and become his apprentice because... anger makes Luke more powerful? How, how does that exactly work anyway? Luke kills Vader and then goes on a killing spree to kill his friends or something? Vader grants Luke power to rule the galaxy and Luke... agrees? Just like that? And becomes, what, evil? HOW DOES IT WORK?! PT way of joining the Dark Side is much more believable. It took a Palpatine years to earn Anakin's trust and mess up with his head - that, combined with some issues Anakin had, and whoala. And still Anakin's turn to the Dark Side may (and does) seem somewhat forced. And Vader and Palpatine always talk like "You don't know the true power of the Dark Side", "If only you knew the power of the Dark Side", bla-blah. And how does one go back to the Light Side exactly? If a Sith Lord donates money for charity, does he come back to the Light Side? What are these sides anyway?

I really think that RotS could be a lot better movie if it didn't have to tie in with the OT. Firstly, RotS establishes a very good, in my opinion, vision of the sides of the Force (during the Palpatine talk in the Opera) - that light side is, basically, selflessness, and Dark Side is selfishness (even if posed as selflessness). Which is absolutely NOT the same as Good and Evil. Secondly, RotS establishes that the border between the Light and Dark is undefined, which is a very wise thought in my opinion. But at the same time, Anakin just clicks and becomes bad, i.e. EVil, because he has to become Vader the way he is in the most of the OT, i.e. Evil. Some people say that "If only Lucas thought a more believable turn for Anakin to become Vader". My response to them: bullshit. OT has a very poor concept of different sides of the Force, in my opinion. I can't see anyone turning to the Dark Side the OT way. Oh wait. Anakin's click in RotS is exactly what it is - the OT way. And that's what most people didn't like.

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I may take my time some day to write less spountainiously my opinion on OT, PT, Saga as a whole - bad sides of the movies, all of them, good sides of the movies, all of them. If anyone's interested.

Nice, but... well, it doesn't feel right at that particular point of the battle. Note that in original RotS Anakin has Sith eyes during especially, how to put it, enragin moments - Seppie slaughter, being burned.

I think that the most appropriate time to put Sith eyes in battle with Dooku is after Dooku says "You have hate, you have anger, but you don't use them" (if you use that phrase). Imagine: Dooku says that, as Anakin pushes Dooku away, his eyes turn red, and are in that state until Anakin chops Dooku's hand off. When Anakin catches Dooku's sword and camera pans down to his face, his eyes turn to normal again. And he coldbloodedly, mercelessly kills Dooku.

I think that would be much more cooler, after all, Anakin doesn't kill Dooku in the state of rage or something, he kills because it's HIS OWN choice.

Oh... Crap yeah. My bad.

But I do remember you posting about this order in a thread where I posted something... somewhere...

You're still nuts, though.

What a surprise! Oh, wait, it isn't :p

Anyway, I've been keeping experimenting. Starting from flight from Naboo actually works really well. The start is in a new-hopey good sense "WTF is going on?!" way. Plus leaves the trouble of trying to explain the most controversial beginning moments, like what's happening on the TF battleship, why TF is invading and so on and so on. Every vital information can be explained in the title crawl.

Padme-Jar-Jar talk on the ship suddenly has a purpose of introducing the characters, so it's not cut out.

Darth Maul is introduced together with Sidious when Viceroy talks about Queen's escape. But, we don't see Darth Maul at all until he ambushes Qui-Gon near the ship (only his probes, a few times), which makes a nice "WTF" moment. I'm thinking of further cutting Darth Maul altogether until he appears infront of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and the Queen on Naboo itself. I think this treat of him makes Darth Maul actually cooler, he's like a hunter.

I would like to cut very much Sidious, so he doesn't totally appear in the movie, making the assumption that Federation acts from it's own accord. But that would also leave Darth Maul totally nameless, and so far Darth Maul's introduction is the only intercutting between the good guys and bad guys during the first forty minutes of the movie until they leave Tatooine (well, I didn't experiment after Tatooine anyway).

There's no Obi-Wan wardrobe talk, no Obi-Wan midichlorian talk, and nobody contacted from Naboo. "What if it's true, and people are dying?" seems like a dumb question to me. I mean, the planet is under blockade, and invaded by a droid army, and... of course they're dying. Plus Sio Bibble is like a totally pointless character now.

I see a few problems with the way my cut is going, though. Firstly, since we don't see any gungan city or anything, it seems that the gungan army may aswell appear out of nowhere... And secondly, Viceroy, who's like supposed to be the main villian of the Episode (invading planet and stuff) hasn't too much screentime. I'm still thinking about what to do with that.

PS. Oh, and I cut out Jabba fully. His appearance was totally pointless. I think I already said that, but anyway I'll repeat, I think it will be a nice progression: EpI, we hear about Hutts, EpIV, we hear about one particular dangerous Hutt, EpVI - we see that particular dangerous Hutt.

PS2. All changes I've made so far are for my rough cut edit version, I didn't start clean anything yet.

EDIT:

Also, I would like to point out that the first time we see a lightsaber ignited is during the Darth Maul-Qui-Gon battle, which is kinda cool.

I've removed the Watto mind trick (meaning no mind tricks in this Episode, and I guess no mind tricks at all until EpIV).

And the learning curve of "what's a Jedi? The Force?" will be going pretty well in this Episode, albeit in a different style. If in EpIV most information was from Obi-Wan's teaching, in my EpI cut we learn about Jedi and the Force mostly in action. First as Qui-Gon talks about premonitions of the future, then makes the bet with Watto in his favor, fight with Maul, Council on Coruscant - yeah, everything will be pretty nice, I think.

YOU'RE NUTS!

I know. But still, pay more attention while reading messages.

PS. As an addition to my reply to TV Frink, I think there's no way to watch SW to keep both "I am your father" and Anakin's turn to the Dark Side a surprise.

So, real life sometimes takes priority... actually, most of the times.

But, I did some experiments from time to time, as what and how can work, and here's the result of one of them.

Now, as I already said in the youtube description, when I've meant rough cut, I've meant ROUGH. It's not the final result, it would be shit as a final result... It's shit as a rough cut too, I guess, but the main point is to show the general idea.

Thank God this is no Devil May Cry case, at least. I mean, chronologically it's DMC 3, 1, 4, 2 if I'm not mistaken. Just think about it: they make a game, then they make a sequel, then they make a prequel (called part 3, duh! That's so obvious...) and then they make a sequel which is inbetween the first two games...

... I just came to a realization what George, apart from other stuff, borrowed from the Japanese.

I've seen a lot of attempts to try and hide the fact that "Vader is Anakin Skywalker". For those who want to do that, I propose, instead of recutting Vader's birth in EpIII, cut it out fully (plus remove any mention of the name "Vader"). Why, you ask? It's simple logic. EpI - Darth Maul. EpII - Palps gets Dooku out of somewhere. EpIV - Palps gets Vader out of somewhere. EpV - Vader is actually Anakin. Not showing Vader at all in EpIII will make his appearance in EpIV less suspicious than showing his birth in EpIII. And what about Anakin, you may ask? Well, he lies burned all out near the river of lava, Palps leaning over what seems to be a dead body.

There is, however, a problem - with EpIV. It's three dialouges - between Luke and Obi-Wan, Vader and Tarkin and Obi-Wan and Vader. Now, regarding the Luke-Obi-Wan, after watching EpIII we'll all know that Obi-Wan's lying, regardless if we know that Anakin is Vader or if we don't (the difference is, that if we dont know Vader is Anakin, the audience may go like - booo! YOU killed him, you lying bastard! Which actually makes perfect sense, knowing that Prowse during EpV shoot said that Obi-Wan killed Luke's father...). But. Any mention that Obi-Wan was Vader's master will ruin the suspence. It's not like it's hard to put 2 plus 2 together.

So yeah. Simple, yet effective, recipe:

1. EpIII - cut out any mention of name Vader and the birth in his suit

2. EpIII - make it seem like Anakin died on Mustafar

3. EpIV - cut out any mention that Vader was Obi-Wan's pupil

4. EpIV - Obi-Wan's lying about Vader killing Anakin, but clearly doesn't want to tell Luke that Anakin turned to the Dark Side at one point in his life.

5. EpIII/IV - some additional cutting may be done to explain how Vader and Obi-Wan know eachother. Particullary in EpIII, if we don't show Tatooine, it may be implied that Vader tried to hunt down Jedi, including Obi-Wan, and that Obi-Wan sooner or later came to Tatooine.

I think that's the most efficient way to hide the fact that Vader is Luke's father. The recipe, though, doesn't cover the sister thing. Plus everything's still a pain in the ass.