Happy endings are overrated.
And that’s why Thanos wins in Avengers: Infinity War, kids! 😉
One of the main problems of The Force Awakens is that it undermines Return of the Jedi by undoing the happy ending of the latter and the accomplishments of Luke, Leia, and Han, by bringing back the Empire and confirming that they were never defeated at all. The Empire Strikes Back did the exact same thing to the original movie, by bringing back the Empire and confirming that they were never defeated at all.
The original movie ends on a triumphant note, as the Rebels destroyed the Death Star, and celebrated at the end of the movie. We don’t see the Empire anywhere else besides in the Star Destroyer, the Death Star, and we also see some stormtroopers on Tatooine, implying that the Empire has been destroyed once and for all. However, that happy ending has been undone, as their victories were short-lived and the Empire struck back against the Rebels in the next film.
What’s even worse is that the film was intended to be a stand-alone movie with no continuation at all, meaning that a sequel for Star Wars would be really hard to make. Basically, it shat on anyone (yes, this includes George Lucas himself) trying to make a continuation of that happy ending in the future.
You can’t have a story without conflict and chaos, and therefore you can’t have a sequel set in a world that we last saw happy and peaceful without dropping a new horrible menace in the thick of things and letting them run amok. This is the exact same reason why Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, cancelled a sequel to the latter, as he was worried that he would’ve undone the happy ending of his own work.
I’m not being a troll, I’m just pointing out a problem with The Empire Strikes Back that nobody seemingly talks about.
@adywan Do you plan on improving the binary sunset shot, like you did with the “R2 in the canyon” shot and the sandcrawler shot for your upcoming ANH:R HD edit?
Anakin’s fall to the darkside was terrible. The whole notion that he was tricked into believing that the Jedi were attempting a coup etc. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
How would you have handled Anakin’s fall to the dark side instead? What would you have done instead of having him believe the Jedi were evil?
Make the “oh no” in the opening scene of The Last Jedi in earrape.
I know you’ll be releasing the movie in December around the time of The Rise of Skywalker, but do you think you could get a workprint ready before releasing the full edit?
In all seriousness, what would you change about ROTJ if you could? I like hearing your perspective!
- Remove the Death Star II, or make the Death Star II a ruse to lure the Rebels into a trap.
- Retool the entire Jabba sequence. Jabba’s palace would’ve be on a planet other than Tatooine; Leia would gift the droids to Jabba; Lando would free Han from the carbonite and get captured in the process; then Leia would arrive in person and successfully barter for Han & co’s freedom. Everything else would be cut.
- Luke would be on Dagobah, where he’d have been since the events of TESB, finishing his training under Yoda. He wouldn’t have a new lightsaber at this point.
- Leia would be “the other”, as powerful in the Force as Luke, but not his sister.
- Han would have some actual dignity. Instead of delivering dumb slapstick and one-liners, his relationship with Leia would continue to evolve.
- The Ewoks would be scary. They’d be pygmy versions of the original Chewbacca design, with oversized eyes and sharp fangs. They’d wear clothing made from human skin, and gruesome sculptures made of Imperial armour and human bones would decorate their village.
- Palpatine would not be a cackling Saturday morning cartoon supervillain. He’d be as he was portrayed by Clive Revill — resonant but understated.
- There’d be deeper exploration into Vader’s motivations and psyche. It would be made clear that Vader was a good man who joined Palpatine under false pretenses and became his puppet, and now wishes his son to join him in the dark side so together they can depose Palpatine and transform the Empire into the strong but benevolent power he always wanted it to be.
- It would be revealed that Vader kept Ben’s lightsaber as a trophy, and he would show it to Luke on Endor.
- Palpatine’s finest troops would actually live up to that descriptor. For once, we’d have stormtroopers with effective armour who can actually hit what they fire at.
- Palpatine would make a strong case for why Luke should turn to the dark side — power not for power’s sake, which Luke doesn’t crave, but to right wrongs, avenge evil, and protect his loved ones.
- During their duel, Luke and Vader would end up swapping lightsabers; Luke, with Vader’s red lightsaber, would face Vader, with Ben’s blue lightsaber.
- Han would die in the battle on Endor.
- Vader would succumb quicker to his injuries after killing Palpatine. He would die without his true face ever being revealed.
- Luke would dismantle Ben and Vader’s lightsabers and craft his own from their components. This lightsaber would be purple.
- No Force ghosts at the end. Whether or not Anakin atoned for his sins by saving Luke would be left up to the viewer to decide for themself.
I wouldn’t make Leia a Force-sensitive at all. Why, you may ask? It renders the entire quest to find Luke in The Force Awakens completely pointless from the start, especially in The Last Jedi, where it is revealed that she’s suddenly this powerful Force-user who flies back to the ship upon being blown out into space.
There’s an implication in TLJ that the display of her force powers to save her own life was either subconscious or unconscious, with no indication that she actually has any control of those powers (she never uses them again). Plus flying in space takes very little effort. I think it’s an awkwardly executed scene, but I also think the idea that it invalidates the quest to find Luke is a little silly.
Then why didn’t the Resistance need her this whole entire time to be the Force-user they needed to help defeat the First Order? Hell, the leaked plot summary for The Rise of Skywalker on Reddit says that she trained with Luke!
In all seriousness, what would you change about ROTJ if you could? I like hearing your perspective!
- Remove the Death Star II, or make the Death Star II a ruse to lure the Rebels into a trap.
- Retool the entire Jabba sequence. Jabba’s palace would’ve be on a planet other than Tatooine; Leia would gift the droids to Jabba; Lando would free Han from the carbonite and get captured in the process; then Leia would arrive in person and successfully barter for Han & co’s freedom. Everything else would be cut.
- Luke would be on Dagobah, where he’d have been since the events of TESB, finishing his training under Yoda. He wouldn’t have a new lightsaber at this point.
- Leia would be “the other”, as powerful in the Force as Luke, but not his sister.
- Han would have some actual dignity. Instead of delivering dumb slapstick and one-liners, his relationship with Leia would continue to evolve.
- The Ewoks would be scary. They’d be pygmy versions of the original Chewbacca design, with oversized eyes and sharp fangs. They’d wear clothing made from human skin, and gruesome sculptures made of Imperial armour and human bones would decorate their village.
- Palpatine would not be a cackling Saturday morning cartoon supervillain. He’d be as he was portrayed by Clive Revill — resonant but understated.
- There’d be deeper exploration into Vader’s motivations and psyche. It would be made clear that Vader was a good man who joined Palpatine under false pretenses and became his puppet, and now wishes his son to join him in the dark side so together they can depose Palpatine and transform the Empire into the strong but benevolent power he always wanted it to be.
- It would be revealed that Vader kept Ben’s lightsaber as a trophy, and he would show it to Luke on Endor.
- Palpatine’s finest troops would actually live up to that descriptor. For once, we’d have stormtroopers with effective armour who can actually hit what they fire at.
- Palpatine would make a strong case for why Luke should turn to the dark side — power not for power’s sake, which Luke doesn’t crave, but to right wrongs, avenge evil, and protect his loved ones.
- During their duel, Luke and Vader would end up swapping lightsabers; Luke, with Vader’s red lightsaber, would face Vader, with Ben’s blue lightsaber.
- Han would die in the battle on Endor.
- Vader would succumb quicker to his injuries after killing Palpatine. He would die without his true face ever being revealed.
- Luke would dismantle Ben and Vader’s lightsabers and craft his own from their components. This lightsaber would be purple.
- No Force ghosts at the end. Whether or not Anakin atoned for his sins by saving Luke would be left up to the viewer to decide for themself.
I wouldn’t make Leia a Force-sensitive at all. Why, you may ask? It renders the entire quest to find Luke in The Force Awakens completely pointless from the start, especially in The Last Jedi, where it is revealed that she’s suddenly this powerful Force-user who flies back to the ship upon being blown out into space.
Why would the Jedi have red lightsabers?
@poppasketti Here’s a suggestion: given that the cannon on Crait is “made of Death Star tech”, and that Death Star lasers are usually depicted as green, do you plan on changing its laser from red to green for consistency? (Yeah, I know that this will take a while to do)
IIFaneditore, Thank you very much!! Ill try to make the explosion on Theed better. There is still a lot to do in those scenes as far as lighting on buildings and such from the explosions. Im also trying to get a hold of better elements, while also improving my ability. So hopefully when im done itll look better than these production trailers. There is a lot of work to do, so i tend to spread it around. Which also helps me get an idea for how the complete project is coming, and gives me time to improve things before the final films.
I would like to replace all the star fields by the final films. Along with various things like,** improving texturing and lighting of Jar Jar**, Completely redoing many of the planets while adding city lights visible from space to Naboo. Redoing Corasaunt will be tricky. Need bump maps, gloss passes, lights, etc.
I would love to film model ships against green screen for some new battle shots, along with a few actors dress up as Naboo soldiers or civilians and getting shots of the ground battle with in Theed as the Federation invades. (Though i may be able to use some scenes from the Mandalorian as they show droids attacking people)
New voice dubs for aliens and droids will also take time along with trying to get everything in full surround sound will take some time and work. So in all that time, i expect to learn much more and hopefully attain the needed models, props, and outfits to do some of what i would like.
Will you do the same for the other CGI characters and aliens, so they wouldn’t feel out of place?
@Hal 9000 Here’s a suggestion: can you remove the “oh no” at the beginning of the film? It disrupts the flow of the scene (I mean, if you remove the line, then the scene flows so much better) and basically tells us how we should react, when in reality we already know that it’s an “oh no.”
When will you implement the new version of the flying Leia scene (with the now-edited reaction shot) and the shot with Phasma’s corpse?
Wrong discussion category.
I am running out of space, so I probably wouldn’t release a whole alternative slew of encodes, but if Ridley wants to render alternate crawls I would host them for anyone wishing to cobble them into the edits themselves.
Why not just create a new Google account to store more information and edits?
Making changes to the films outside the scope of fixing technical issues or mistakes.
Other changes - grand revisionist ‘visions’ claimed by man in charge of the studio and director of only one film… have tainted them, especially in not making availaible the unaltered theatrical originals…
(I think I may be preaching to the choir? 😃)
Or for fixing some details for consistency with other installments (e.g. like how Adywan changed the Emperor in his ESB:R to look consistent with Return of the Jedi).
Do you plan on updating this edit with changes from Adywan’s upcoming ANH:R HD edit once it releases?
When will you post a topic for your upcoming edit for The Empire Strikes Back?
I don’t think you should do Solo. Why? Because having Darth Maul in the movie is confusing to audiences that haven’t seen The Clone Wars, and you shouldn’t have to rely on external sources in order to understand a movie.
Here’s a suggestion: when you inserted a reaction shot of Kylo after the cannon fires, there’s some “light” on his face as the door blows up. Can you do the same thing with your edit of the flying Leia scene where Poe and the others are reacting to the ship being hit?
Here’s a pass at that idea, just adding a little reflection to Poe, Finn, and Billie Lourd.
https://vimeo.com/373681562
pw: faneditIt’s a small change, but I think it helps the continuity. Thanks for the idea, FreezingTNT2!
Anytime.
@poppasketti Here’s a suggestion: can you remove the “oh no” at the beginning of the film? It disrupts the flow of the scene (seriously, it flows so much better without this) and basically tells us how we should react, when in reality we already know that it’s an “oh no.”
What do you mean, this is useless?
Biggest problem with both changes (which I don’t think everyone consensus likes OR dislikes - but trying to find a consensus in Star Wars fandom is like trying to find a rose growing at the bottom of a sewage treatment plant)
McDiarmid replacing Revill: The makeup on McDiarmid isn’t very goooooood, and the dialog changes are just extraneous additions. Styrofoam peanuts.
Christensen replacing Shaw: It’s literally a headswap from a costume test. That’s bush league. Hayden isn’t even ACTING in the scene.
I am wondering if, much in the same way McDiarmid has replaced dialog in Rebels while working on TROS, they’re going to re-do Christensen’s appearance at the end of Jedi so that he’s actually ACTING in the scene? But I guess that’s really unlikely now that we’ve seen the 4K masters and that shot hasn’t been re-done at all.
What is your opinion on Adywan’s version of the Emperor scene, in which he edits his face to match with his appearance in Return of the Jedi and the dialogue to match with the original?
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SomethingStarWarsRelated said:
Good question. I don’t know why I’m tackling this question because I know someone will come along and express it a lot better than me…but here I go:
I don’t necessarily think everyone feels the same way. I also don’t think it’s cut and dry either.
I like the original performance in ESB.
I also appreciate why it was changed - now we have consistency with the same actor portraying the same character in the saga. With that said, I don’t like the altered dialogue nor do I particularly like Ian’s performance.Now Anakin is a different story. It’s not just disrespectful to Mr. Shaw. It alters Anakins redemption.
Prior to this change, Old Anakin simply transformed into force ghost Anakin…with only battle damaged removed.Now, going by visuals alone (this is a movie, after all) Lucas is essentially telling us that Anakin was redeemed and transformed to his pre-Sith days. That was when he was last ‘good’ and not evil.
I think the logic behind the change is probably that Anakin hasn’t done anything good in his life since his Jedi days and therefore the force is sort of “erasing” the Sith days from his life. Hence, he looks young while Obi-Wan and Yoda look old.
Since this change, my thoughts have been: Anakin WAS redeemed as an old man, therefore, he should be an old looking force ghost…for lack of a better way of putting it.
Would you like the dialogue if it wasn’t changed yet still performed by Ian, similar to in Adywan’s ESB:R?