G&G-Fan

Since you’re editing the films for better cohesion, were the Prequel duels toned down to be more like the OT duels? And/or were the OT duels edited?

First, I prefer the style of the Vader/Luke duels. Their fighting feels more powerful, it has more weight and tension. I find the Prequel ones often overstimulating and hollow.

Second, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, and eventually Luke Skywalker are (and should be) incredibly powerful Force users and skilled dualists.
They were supposed to be in the 70s/80s, and are again, canonically.
Vader and Ben in ANH should be beyond their prior selves, hence their boasts to each other. The script even describes their battle as “masterful”, “powerful”, even “lightning”.

Vader is the terrifying, powerful villain of the trilogy, the Empire’s ultimate enforcer who slayed the Jedi. The pathos relies on viewing him as imposing.
Vader is 80% as powerful as the Emperor in Lucas-Canon and Legends, and even more powerful then the Emperor in Disney-Canon (he has contingencies to ensure Vader’s loyalty).
Originally lightsabers were meant to be heavy, so Vader fighting with just one hand for part of the ESB duel showed great of a warrior he is.
Vader should be more powerful as a cyborg, not less. Also, Grievous proves cybernetics shouldn’t hamper lightsaber skills.

Obi-Wan is the enlightened, experienced mentor figure Luke, and thus the audience, looks up to and aspires to be. He’s a Master Jedi Knight, a relic of that golden age, and his skills should reflect that. Again, the pathos relies on it.
Ben canonically easily kills Maul a few years before ANH. Also, Dooku and Yoda prove old age shouldn’t hamper lightsaber skills.

This is why it’s impactful when Vader kills Luke’s mentor in-front of him. The whole trilogy builds to Luke being able to fight and beat him.
Luke’s journey is becoming a complete Jedi Knight, just as great of a Jedi as the one’s of old, as Ben. Part of that is his saber skills and Force power. It’s even stressed he has to be that, in order to face the mighty Vader. Reinforcing Vader > the Prequel duelists; the only one who can beat him is his son, his own blood.
Luke should be incredibly powerful and skilled, not lesser then the Prequel dualists, both in ESB and especially ROTJ. Vader even says his skills are "complete” in ROTJ, and in ESB, says they’re “most impressive”.
While Vader is mostly just toying with Luke in ESB, the power disparity isn’t as much as ppl think (Jedi training didn’t used to take decades). And Luke contending with Vader in ROTJ should be a mighty feat. He wins he’s become Vader’s equal in power and skill, but Vader is conflicted and Luke gets a dark side boost at the end.

Basically, the OT films were fundamentally built so Vader, Ben, and Luke are great warriors, so they shouldn’t be undermined by the Prequels.

Also, I hope none of Darth Vader’s scenes were cut from your version of ESB. That’d be blasphemy (joking… or am I).

JoyOfEditing said:

After a long battle with YouTube’s Copyright Goblins, the next two episodes are now live!

They both cover the recut of the Utapau Duel, and I hope y’all enjoy them!

Part 1: https://youtu.be/foXKzbzaaXc

Part 2: https://youtu.be/DN6BpdJQJ-g

Good videos.

One thing though, when you talk about how Grievous shouldn’t feel pain: first, droids feel pain in Star Wars. Multiple times. For example, 3PO in ESB, when Chewie doesn’t crouch low enough entering the Falcon in the escape from Bespin.
Second, so do cyborgs. The very first thing we see when Luke gets his cyborg hand is testing pain receptors. Vader yells in pain when his hand gets cut off.

Anybody with CIPA will tell you, pain is very important. You want to know what’s happening with your own body (recommend the House MD episode “Insensitive”, if you want to know how ppl who can’t feel pain live).

Star Wars droids/cyborgs are advanced enough to have artificial pain receptors. And therefore it makes sense that they should. You don’t want to accidentally put your hand on a stove for a half-hour without even noticing.

Also that’d imply it took a whole year for Boba to deliver. Which is hilariously ridiculous.

When he said he never came back from “this awful place” he was probably referring to Tatooine.

Spartacus01 said:

Not if you watch the movies in release order, like almost everyone does. Don’t take this as a personal attack, but by following your logic, the Prequels should not exist in the first place, because almost every single element of the Original Trilogy feels like that. The Jedi, the Dark Side, the Empire, Alderaan, and so on. You need to remove some of the mystery surrounding these things if you want to watch the Prequels first, that’s just inevitable.

When talking about the movies as they are, then yes, the Originals need to be watched first.
But I’m talking about a version of the Prequels where they’re watched as the first movies. There’s merits to that, first and foremost being the ability to watch it at one cohesive story, like you would any other film series.

The Jedi can be introduced in the Prequels. They aren’t mentioned in ANH until the scene in Ben’s hut, and the emotions between Luke and Ben carry it well enough without mystery of what the Jedi are. Especially since there’s very little time between when the concept is introduced and when it’s explained.

The Empire isn’t mysterious. You jump into ANH with an Imperial Star Destroyer, Stormtroopers and Darth Vader immediately showing up. And while there was a mystery to Vader at first, his introduction is badass enough that the scene is still awesome without it, especially if proceeded by a good version of the Prequels.

Alderaan is a mystery? From space it just looks like Earth, and we never see the surface.

There is a difference between those examples and a whole 5 minute stretch of time where we’re supposed to feel nervous for the droids because they’re in a dangerous wasteland.

Skybatman said:

u made tatooine in the prequels geonosis but that wouldn’t make the everything a little smaller, like geonosis where the planet were anakin lived with his mother where the separatist droids is where the clone wars started where anakin lost his arm and his mother ?

No universe shrinking has occurred because no planet was deleted or added.

Geonosis is an Outer rim planet, making it both a good candidate for the humble beginnings of Anakin like Tatooine is for Luke, but also makes sense for Separatist sentiments to grow, as they could feel abandoned by the Republic.

Either that or turn any appearance of Tatooine in the Prequels to a whole new planet.

When watching A New Hope, and the droids are trekking Tatooine, there’s meant to be an air of mystery. You don’t know what you’re gonna find.
The Prequels ruin that.

So I propose turning Tatooine into Geonosis. This would be done through color grading and new mattes. Then have it so Yoda and Obi-Wan move the Lars and Luke to a different planet to increase the chances of Vader not finding them.

JoyOfEditing said:

Is this the point where I should tell you I cut ESB down to 90 minutes?

How?! That movie has like perfect pacing! Every scene is the perfect length and every scene is important.

This is pretty great!

I’m quite interested in both your Prequel and OT edits. For the Prequels, I’m interested in how you approached Anakin’s characterization, turn to the dark side, and the scene with Vader in the suit in ROTS (I hope you made it less cheesy).

I’m very interested in your OT changes from a curiosity standpoint. Most people leave those alone, especially ESB.

That guy with no name said:

This maybe a conversational opinion, But frankly but the D+ preservations don’t look that good.
You can see the salvaged DNR and added grain as well as faulty rotoscoping.
So no I wont be using that as a source, Also 4K80 is nearly finished.

Not only can these issues be rectified, but it fixes issues with the 2011 versions that can’t. Like the crushed blacks.

This shot of Vader is complete non-sense with the Blu-Ray, and you can’t fix it. You can’t get that back.

Here’s the 2019 version. You can actually see Vader’s mask! It’s a miracle!

The colors of the 2004 master were permanently altered beyond repair. Lots of the colors were so oversaturated or crushed that the original colors aren’t even there anymore. Even the best regrades can’t recover what’s lost.

“But they had to make the clones CGI! They all needed to be the same size!”

proof that they could’ve just had a guy in a clone costume and then used CGI to copy-paste them a million times from George Lucas himself

I wonder if I could use this to implement my idea of replacing some of the background rebel and imperial extras with aliens (talking OT, tho likely some Prequel stuff too).

Would probably require a different strategy since I have to implement it into footage and not just a still picture.

That fight scene is really entertaining if you pause and look at their faces. Especially Palpatine’s.

Mrebo said:

My edit has been on the back burner but occasionally game out how to address things I want to address.

Changing the podrace announcer was a dream out of my reach but with AI it would be easy.

This is not perfect (link good for 2 days) but it’s pretty good:

https://streamable.com/xdrunx

Please spill your secrets, something like this would be so, soooooo useful for some of my ideas.

Wow those lines are just so much better even on their own

One of the most hilarious scenes to me is when the inquisitors chastise Reva for harshly interrogating the citizens of Tatooine. Did they forget that they’re evil? For Vader, their boss, that’s a Tuesday when he’s in a good mood (though obviously without the yelling and overly wordy speech).

There were conflicting ways with which Lucas tried to reconcile making Anakin and Vader the same person (I don’t say this in a negative way; I think is the best creative decision in all of Star Wars, personally).
In Ben’s monologue to Luke in SW77/ANH, he describes Anakin as if he’s a peer, and Vader as “a young Jedi” and his pupil.

I think the idea is that, when the characters were combined for ESB and ROTJ, it was retconned so that Vader and Ben were closer in age. As said in ROTJ, Anakin was still his student, but they became peers after Anakin became a knight.
I think there’s a slightly noticeable shift in Vader’s portrayal between ANH and ESB in making him appear more “mature”. He’s more stoic, his voice is deeper, and he moves in a more deliberate fashion. I think that’s a result of Vader, behind the scenes, going from being just Ben’s former pupil, separated by decades in age, to his former friend, around the same age, as well as being a father. This is solidified by Anakin’s unmasked self and Force ghost in 1983 being a similar age to Ben.

When it came time for the Prequels, it seemed that Lucas changed his mind and went back to the idea that Anakin/Vader is noticeably younger then Obi-Wan, leaning more towards his description as a young Jedi. The Prequels establish that he was only 22 upon turning to the dark side, when Obi-Wan was 38. This is what led to the Force ghost change. I’m sure Lucas handwaves his rough appearance when unmasked to being roasted by lava (I prefer the idea of dark side physical corruption).

I think a middle ground is better. Anakin should’ve been more in his late twenties when turning, with Vader being in his 50s in the OT. 22 is just too young. But I don’t think Vader should be like, in his 70s in the OT either.

The theatrical version makes more sense. The stormtroopers are only pretending to try and capture the heroes, and are trying to convince them they escaped based on their own skills. To lead him to an entire barrack would leave Han wondering why the entire garrison didn’t follow him.

Just use DigiModification’s

Whenever I’m put into a position (mostly involuntary) where I’m looking at the 2004/2011 grade of Hoth, I like to pretend that it’s not actually a snow planet. It’s a planet made up of Walter White’s blue meth ground up into powder.

Make “Han Solo Saves Christmas” already, you cowards

Is there a visual comparisons for ESB:R? There are so many changes that it’s almost hard to spot them all.

I’m planning on it for my Prequels. But my project has expanded so much in scope from what I originally envisioned that I’ve really only just started.

I like the idea that Darth Vader was widespread knowledge but Luke doesn’t know because he’s a scrappy farm boy in the far reaches of the galaxy. In my mind, Motti and Ozzel were just narcissists who didn’t believe in the Force and paid the price. Being that the Empire was made in the image of the Sith, self-obsessed arrogant assholes are gonna be the guys in power.

On another topic, the redwood forests in ROTJ were also used for filming for Walking with Dinosaurs because its conifers resemble those from the Mesozoic, when conifers dominated the world’s flora. I think it’s interesting how the Endor moon appearing primeval contrasts the technological advancement that is the Death Star II, and how the Empire’s defeat shows that what is ancient is not necessarily inferior. Maybe Endor could be given a more prehistoric vibe?

I’d be interested in a link as well.

He won in the duel against Palpatine. And whilst one is free to interpret that Palps threw the fight, according to Lucas, Mace actually beat him.

DZ-330 said:

• Alternate Version (“Yoda Unleashed”)

I read this in 2007 epic trailer guy voice.