Johannus

darth_ender said:

It occurs to me that while we already do have an existing ROTJ wishlist thread, perhaps a new thread could be started that documents actual specific ideas to be considered for v 2.0, just so we don't lose them.  Maybe that's too redundant, but it's just a thought.

Couldn't we use the ideas lists you compiled for the votes for this?

Anyway just to try to contribute something constructive to this again I found some footage which could be useful.  I am thinking of when the Death Star fires at and destroys the ship with Madine onboard. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKETqaSvCo0&feature=youtu.be

If the ships could be changed successfully and a few shots of the weapon powering up or the shot of Madine or whatever, then I think this could be integrated nicely as additional footage. 

MrInsaneA said:

Let's not kill people my inner-child would want alive, please. He's been through enough.

The only thing that worries me a little with an edit that is decided in this way is that if someone has a very radical idea then most people will generally vote it down because, by its very definition, doesn't mesh that well with that their own version might change.  Therefore, unless every radical suggestion is then backed up by a reasonably well executed demonstration which can convince people, they are almost always voted down. 

For example I put forward the idea of Yoda giving Luke his lightsaber crystal and then Luke building a new lightsaber.  Ron wanted a shorter version of this idea.  Because we both have our own vision of this scene which is different to the other's we naturally dislike the others a little.  Therefore, if it was only up to the two of us we would end up with either two distinct versions, one very conservative compromise, or no new version at all. 

The votes seem to suggest that when a change is suggested that isn't massively necessary to improve something but simply to try to put a different take on things it is voted down.  This is seen with the idea of Luke and Leia being siblings.  Some like it, some don't, but as there is a reasonable split these groups' votes will cancel out.  Another of Ron's suggestions was a more subtle change on this concept (where they are siblings, but Luke never tells Leia) but as the group who dislike the siblings story don't need this idea they will vote it down, and the group who like the siblings story don't see a need for it to be changed will vote it down.  This leaves this branch of the story left uneditted, but mostly because not everyone can agree. 

I hope Darth Ender knows I don't mean any disrespect by this because he has taken on a massive undertaking and he has been doing a fantastic job so he deserves the most respect for that.  But I would like to suggest that rather than the votes being a way to disregard some ideas and approve others it be used as a way of creating an order of ideas.  So for example we could have a shortlist of ideas which has received the most positive support.  Then from this list of say the three most popular, the editing team could decide which to work on first.  Eventually enough ideas would be completed to be pieced into an edit and this could be version 1.  However, as each component would be an isolated scene it could then be used as people see fit.  So for example a very popular idea such as new ships being added to the DS assault could be concentrated on first, then eventually maybe my idea of the new Dagobah scene would be picked up.  If (as the last vote suggested) people prefered my take on the scene than Ron's this could be completed, which could then be used by Ron, simply by cutting up the new scene to his shortened version, thus satisfying both views. 

I think if we focused efforts on this style of editing small bits at a time, rather than focussing on the film as a whole, we would see more progress made in smaller steps, and we wouldn't get weighed down in whether certain changes would alter the pace or whatever, because those choices would be down to individual editors.  Though I am not against a collaborative edit being made by voting in the way that has been happening, I think we should be planning the edit itself once we have some of the more popular ideas actually realised. 

I hope I don't sound like I am being negative with the way this thread has developed, because I honestly think it is the best idea on this site.  I just think it would grow and evolve much better as a collection of resources we create, which are then editted in a number of ways by a number of us, than simply by trying to find a route which satisfies as many as possible, because I fear we may be in danger of ending up with something that resembles the original much more closely than any of us really want, but we just couldn't agree enough on how we wanted it to differ.

Sorry for the long rant there and I hope I didn't offend anyone.  Thanks to anyone who read it all.

Harmy said:

Yeah, I don't think Lando should die in the final battle, I think Han should, Lando should die during the Sarlacc sequence. My idea (that just came to me) is this: They plant the explosives in the shield generator but they don't go off. If they don't blow up the shield, the fleet would be destroyed and everyone would die, so Han sacrifices himself and detonates the bomb manually. This could coincide with Luke hiding in the shadows refusing to fight Vader, and Luke could feel Han dying and it could be the trigger that makes him go after Vader, thus eliminating the need for Vader to talk about Luke's sister and thus enabling the removal of the whole stupid sister subplot.

But I understand it's probably pretty late now and it would also be hard to pull off (though not impossible).

I'd quite like to see this though I have to admit I thought it would be impossible without reshooting scenes.  I'm curious, how would you suggest pulling it off?

Sluggo said:

A thought on Jabba's palace.  Jabba's throne room is pretty gross for a throne room.  Sure, he is a Hutt, but I'd imagine his throne room looking more like a brothel or a boudoir.  In the movie, it looks more like a honky-tonk country/western bar.  

Personally I think it would be massively improved by making it more like a brothel or boudoir, though I have no idea how it would be done.

Bingowings said:

 

Why not have that being built and blown up instead of another ball like the first film?

Agreed.  I've always wanted the Death Star in Episode 4 to be the incompleted one and then for the Death Star in Episode 6 to be changed to anything other than a Death Star. 

I know a lot of voting has already been done and the majority of the really out there ideas have been voted down, but if someone were doing a more radical edit I think these would all be brilliant changes to make. 

fishmanlee said:

Johannus said:

"Would it be possible to have SLJ say "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi"

Um, thats how it is in the theatrical version ;)

I know, my point was the order in which it is said so Mace seems like he is sensing something the others don't know about, rather than just stating the obvious.  It'd be nice if there were more moments where the jedi are wise like in the OT rather than just flashy and fast moving. 

Would it be possible to have SLJ say "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi" before he learns the Chancellor is a Sith Lord.  That way he seems slightly more prophetic than just stating the obvious.  Also I don't know how difficult this could prove but could "Sith Lord" be changed to almost anything else "Dark Jedi" "uses the dark side of the force", almost anything.  It just sounds too much like an official label for something that should be much more vague.  There haven't been Sith for so long that the term Sith should by itself imply all the necessary danger.

darth_ender said:

Now speaking of all this filming action, no one has volunteered any ideas on how to obtain costumes.  When we finally decide on what we're filming, where will we get the costumes?

I have a little experience with making big models too (like props and helmets and so on), so if we needed something like that making I might be able to help, but I cannot do material such as the cloth parts of the costumes. 

However, there are already hundreds (if not thousands) of people around the world who make extremely accurate costumes and troop (dressing up for conventions, events, etc) in them.  I would suggest first finding a film crew, then contacting the group of costumers closest to that filming crew's location. 

For example I spoke to a few people near me a few years ago to try to find someone with a good wookiee costume.  However, I would then need to find someone near me to film it too.  Also I live in England and there are many more people who do this in America. 

My recommendation would be find someone studying film making or something similar who lives near a location in America which could pass for Endor.  Once that person agrees to film the shots we can find 'actors' who are local to that person, and either make costumes and send them over or find locals with suitable costumes.  The downside once again is it is a lot to organise and thus a lot of ways for it to fail. 

Right you can probably tell by now that I really like the idea of including the Bothans as the new intro, and that I'm all for editing footage from existing sources over filming our own (based purely on cost and quality, not because I wouldn't like to be able to). 

But based on this I have made a better clip demonstrating a possible intro scene.  It is rough because the filesize is relatively low and I did it in a day or so without much video editing skill.  However, if I did something like this in a day, imagine what someone like Angel could do in two days. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTpDFA-FXXg

The material is sourced from a relatively small pool too so with more thought we could probably improve nearly every shot so please judge it on the idea rather than the execution. 

The reasons I am pushing for this though are that it provides us a way to see Boushh before Jabba's palace, which means when it turns out Boushh is in fact Leia it will be a shock, which is good.  Also in my version I have used the idea that the Bothans are attempting to get to the imperial planet by using a stolen code just like Han and co will try later on in the film.  Because we saw this fail for the Bothans it will increase the tension when Han tries it later on.  We would also get to see some ships which would be new to the OT.  I think that is good because it shows the rebels are having to take whatever they can get including old ships to throw together the biggest force they can.  Something I dislike a little about the ships in RotJ is that the big rebel ships are almost all Mon Calamari ships, why not have a few others to mix it up and make it look like a really diverse force.  And finally adding a few minutes in this way would increase the run time which would give more freedom to cut parts later on without leaving the overall film feeling too short.

Anyway please let me know what you do or do not like about this idea as I intend to try to gradually improve it as and when I find better clips to use, so all feedback would be much appreciated. 

Edit:

I have just clicked the link to make sure it was working ok and for some reason youtube has altered the video slightly (recompression at a guess), but every now and then I added a frame of just text or still image to demonstrate something, these shots seem to have been cut to a second or so, I don't know why but sorry about that, the only thing I can suggest is pressing pause so you have time to read what is written.  Thanks again for watching it. 

I don't think we should see Fett delivering the plans because unless we can get across the idea he is getting something worthwhile out of it then it would just seem like he is changing sides.  Admittedly a bounty hunter should be on his own side really but given the rivalry with Han and the fact he was working for Vader in ESB it seems like too big a change for me. 

Also I would avoid making the Bothans furry.  I know that is from the EU and it might only require filming a gloved hand, but so far I don't think there has been a single edit that uses newly filmed footage of characters (though feel free to correct me if I am mistaken).  It would be nice to be the first to do this but I think it would be much more realistic to find a clip of a hand reaching out to a console from Star Trek or Stargate or something like that and editing it to look more Star Wars, and there are going to be far more human clips than furry humanoid clips.  This would only require people to watch a lot of dvds or tv and eventually spot a suitable clip (not too unrealistic) rather than finding access to a good quality video camera, lights, and props.  If we could film new shots then it would be great to get some shots of Luke in black for new Dagobah scenes where we avoid seeing his face, or new commando and stormtrooper closeups against a forest background to add padding to the Endor battle.  But to be honest I just don't think its anywhere near as likely as it is more fan film than fan edit and fan films tend to cost a lot more money to make. 

Sorry if I am sounding a little negative here, I would love to think we could, but I think it is something to consider last as it would be the most work intensive of all the ideas suggested. 

Having said that I still would love to see a scene with the Bothans stealing the plans, just let Bothans be human to make clips easier to source.

Right as promised here are some photos of the models I already have. 

1 - Super Star Destroyers (the larger measures 180mm long)

2 - Interdictor

3 -Star Destroyer

4 - Assault Frigate

5 - Rebel Transports

6 - Death Star 2 (if you look carefully you can see the top and bottom do not allign perfectly, its quite a disappointing model)

7 -Nebulon B Frigate

8 - Home One (I think)

9 - Viscount (I think) (170mm long)

10 - Mon Calamari Cruiser (I think)

11 - Tantive

12 - Y wings

13 - Tie Interceptor

14 - Tie Bomber

15 - B wing

16 - Naboo Fighter

17 - A wing

18 - Shuttle Tydirium

19 - X wing

These are all larger models so can potentially be made much more detailed, but none are finished so if it was decided we wanted more shots of any of these I could bring them up to scratch.  The Rebel transport is 240mm long and the cargo shuttle is 145mm long. 

These are a selection of others I have, again they are quite small but who knows some might be useful. 

This is a close up of some of the fighters, because they are smaller the detail is not as good and in some cases the plastic bends so again these probably wouldn't be useful as anything other than placements in shots.  (Except the B Wing which isn't too bad). 

This photo is just a quick close up on some areas of the super star destroyer model.  Hopefully it will give you ideas of the limitations of these models.  Although the detailing is good for a model of this size, and it could be improved even more by repainting it, the closer we zoom in, the more noticable it is that it isn't going to match the existing close up shots. 

Anyway I hope this gives you some ideas and in the meantime I will be making a start on the Victory class ship.  

darth_ender said:

As for the shuttle, I suspect you are thinking of this picture from the wishlist (item 14)

Yeah thats the one.  I think it would work well because it means its similar but not identical to the other shuttle so its not like everyone is suddenly using the same type of ship.  Also it looks like it holds more and thus far the other shuttle has been seen as a ship for transporting important individuals rather than a load of supplies. I'm guessing this sort of idea will go into the next vote but if people like it I would gladly try to make a model for this.  I'm just going to photograph what I already have so you can have an idea so I will upload that shortly.

darth_ender said:

A thought for Johannus: since our opening will be using the Executor in place of the Imperial Star Destroyer when Vader arrives, it occurred to me we may have a use for both your Lambda shuttle and Super Star Destroyer models.  It may be easiest to just reuse the shuttle footage while compositing the bigger destroyer, but since we want to make the approach take a bit longer, your model may come in handy.  Just early thoughts.  But of utmost importance if going with an actual model, how much close scrutiny could it handle?  Could it be used in a scene like this?  Or do you think it's better just for the distance shots?  No worries if it can't get that close, as that's pretty detailed.  Just asking.

I think we might be able to get away with a scene like that if we were going for a youtube quality video, but I think if our aim was DVD or even BluRay quality it would really show the weakness of using a smaller scale model.  The only thing that might work would be to film the model for the reference angles, then try to overlay some sort of detail we create in photoshop or something.  If someone made a surface texture in photoshop, then I know After Effects has an option to put 3D pieces on top of video so we could sort of make the triangular texture piece 3D and line up the edges, if that makes sense.  That way it would be more detailed but still with its limitations.  I think for a shot like that you would need a larger scale model, a 3d model, or my smaller model and a lot of touching up afterwards to add more details. 

An idea I remember reading before was changing the shuttle used by Han and co to get to Endor to the wider version that looks more like a cargo shuttle.  I have been planning to make one of those for some time so if people like that idea I could find the piece I started a while back and see what I can do there.

darth_ender said:

When seeing the Star Destroyers from a distance (i.e. "It's a trap" or "I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for."), it would be good to see a few smaller ships dotting the fleet.  This of course would require only a still shot from the front and digitally inserted in a few places.

Let me tell you that I am grateful we have you on our team.  You have a super star destroyer?!  That's awesome too.  We've been discussing enhancing the Executor's death so it is more dramatic, a la...

Would you be willing to upload some pics of your models for us?  It might give us an idea of how close we can get in our special effects.  Thanks for your contributions thus far, and if you don't mind, I'd like to add you to our list of involved team members in the first post.

I'll try to sort out the models I have over the next few days and give a definitive list.  I've also been looking over the Victory class ship and have a few ideas about that so I will try to mock something up over the next week and depending on how that goes I'll be able to give you a more definite answer regarding a time frame. 

Most of the changes you have suggested here would be fairly static shots so I think I can probably help there and if some of the motion shots involve fairly straight movement at a reasonable speed this might also be able to be done with moving photos rather than motion footage.  At the very least it will be fun to give it a try. 

If we have a good image for the surface of the death star I think I can use my super star destroyer model to create the shot of it falling toward the death star, and I've had an idea for creating a half exploded version so maybe we could show the Executor breaking up a little more slowly as it hits the surface?  I'll see how I get on.  Oh and I would be honoured to be listed as part of the team. 

darth_ender said:

This is an interesting combo of Ronster's and timdiggerm's ideas.  Of all the ideas we've given serious thought to, I imagine this would be the hardest sort to pull off.  It's interesting and both ideas were very close in the votes and should be discussed further.  I still worry most about how hard some of these things would be to pull off, but if it simply involves editing existing footage from other films to the point where it's not too obvious, I'd have to defer to the special effects team on how doable it is.  It looks interesting, as did both Ronster's and timdiggerm's ideas.

Well if people don't mind me building on their ideas a little more, and taking a bit of a liberty with the Bothans (basically using the name and ignoring everything the EU added to it), I would like to try to improve this mock up a little.  I'll post another video at some point when I have added something worth showing. 

As for the assignment, I'll try to have some progress photos for new models up by the 15th, but exactly how much progress will depend on how much free time I have outside of work. 

perfectlovehere said:

You could try building a realistic replica but I think there are premade ones on ebay you can buy. Try checking there for star wars replica ships. Good luck.

Well a lot of the ones I have are the premade miniatures, but like I said they are small.  You can get much bigger more detailed versions but they cost a lot.  Making them is far more realistic if you want enough for a lot of variation.

Oh and I made this very crude mock up for the opening scene showing the Bothans arriving at an imperial planet and stealing the plans.  It would require a lot of work but it is just to demonstrate the idea of how it could use, and also show some examples of shots that could form the basis for new shots after a lot of editting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_v8vGWtXT8&feature=youtu.be

darth_ender said:

Could not the exact same format be used to make a larger model?  Obviously not a studio model six feet in length or anything, but still of a respectable size to create a decent illusion from a distance?  And like you said, we could enhance it with CGI.

Are you really a skilled model builder?  That's awesome!  I personally think models would fill an important niche in our edit.  I'm sure there would be times when stills would suffice, though motion ability would be nice too.  Perhaps you will ultimately obtain a video camera (purchased or borrowed from a friend), or perhaps you could carefully package and mail a couple of your models to someone else.  I think this would be a fantastic way for you to contribute.  I was prepared to do this myself, but I doubt I'd do a very good job and as I've said repeatedly, busy life starts this Monday.  If you'd be willing to build these models, I would love you forever...in the most professional way imaginable of course :)

If you do build it, I suggest you look online for more pictures to get a decent idea of the full design, but this at least gives you a superficial comparison of the differences.  Let us know if you're willing to give it a shot :)

Yeah it could be used to do a similar thing to any scale but to be honest I just don't have the space for big models.  I have lots of the little models already so knocking out something of a similar size would be relatively quick and easy and wouldnt take up any extra space, however, I have one larger kit of the RotJ shuttle (which could potentially be of some use) and to be honest it is just such a pain to store without damaging it.  If I had the room to spare I would gladly offer to make these larger though. 

I do know one guy who is studying film making so he would have access to decent cameras (though I don't know if he would have time to help but its worth a try).  The problem is space again though, if its still shots I can just use a lightbox and get the angle right, whereas for moving shots I would need lots of space, several lights, and rigs to move the camera and the pieces along their paths.  It is something I would again love to do but I just don't see it as being very achievable right now. 

However, if you wanted to knock out some ideas for specific new scenes or additions to existing scenes within the space battle, I could try to make some test shots and we could take it from there.  At least everyone would have a clearer idea, and then if the chance to film in motion does come along, then at least we would know what we are doing right away.

I can't remember exactly which models I already have but I think it is most of the larger ships, but no star destroyer, so I have a super star destroyer, a mon cal ship (possibly home one), a death star (though rather annoyingly not a brilliantly accurate one but might be ok for distant shots or as a placement for a cg one to be added later).  I also have loads of the smaller fighters but the detail on those is not as good so its up to you how you want to go with those.  And if memory serves I have a few tantives and PT ships so if you wanted to add some of those I might be able to help there too.  In the meantime I can make the Victory model and then like I say just give me some scenarios to create it in and I'll knock up some examples.

Oh and I meant to add I could probably make a few models following the guide on that site without too much difficulty.  They would have to be physical models though as I know next to nothing about 3D computer modelling.

darth_ender said:

As for the space battle, I wish I could continue to be a big contributor here.  I would honestly be willing to do a hand illustrated storyboard to show my ideas.  Perhaps someone else might be willing to do so.  I still am rooting for the Victory Star Destroyers, and I think they still fit with Imperial uniformity.  I just love their design and I really don't like the Venator.  I'm not a GL basher like many here, but it annoys me that Lucas included the Venator and not the Victory in the PT.

I found this interesting website on how to construct a Victory SD.  Obviously it's not quite a movie quality model, but if the creator had the ambition to add more texture and it were used mostly in distance shots, it could be very passable.  For closeup shots, perhaps it could be enhanced a tad with CGI, given lights and a bit of texture and the like.

If we do include some sort of DSII plans stealing scene, it would need to involved new footage as Angel said.  I also think it would be best not to have Vader.  The Bothans are supposed to succeed after all, but only after many deaths.  If we include any such scene, we need to show this very thing: success at their mission with high casualties, and enough ambiguity to allow it to be part of the Emperor's master plan.

The model on this site is obviously much smaller than a studio scale model so you really couldn't have a lot of close ups without then improving the shots with cgi (though pretty basic stuff that could possibly be done mostly in photoshop). 

That said if you use it for fairly distant shots and choose your angles carefully you could probably get pretty good results.  If you are considering using physical models of a smaller scale then it would be a lot easier and cheaper as there are loads already available.  Also I have a lot which I have been trying to build up over the last year or so with a possible fan film style scene in mind so I would be happy to help out with those.  The only downside is I have a really good camera, but no video camera so stills would be fine but motion could be an issue.  If nothing else though they might be useful for a photo style storyboard?

darth_ender said:

So I was thinking about what you said, Ronster, regarding Madine's death.  I had this thought, based on your suggestions: We see Madine in his chair from afar while apparently one of his bridge officers is talking to him (maybe the black guy, but we'd digitally have to move his mouth.  "General, the Death Star is preparing to fire again."  Close up of Madine.  Madine says, "May the Force be with us all."  Then the DSII fires and blows up the second Mon Cal cruiser.  If done well, minimal mouth movement would need to be added.  It would probably be appropriate to somehow insert Lando or Ackbar or someone else's sorrow at the loss of Madine, saying something like, "Liberty!...Madine..."  That way there is no doubt about which ship was destroyed and we feel some emotional connectedness and loss at his death.  If we carefully trim unnecessary lines (i.e. cutting a portion of Lando's, "That blast came from the Death Star!  That thing's operational!" in a careful manner), we can probably produce a few seconds to make that last trick work.  Good suggestion, Ron.

With regard to having to make lips move digitally, you could construct a fairly static image of one of the terminals and add some beeping or flashing or whatnot and have his line (or part of it) come from offscreen before cutting to the wider shot including Madine.  This way you could have a bit more freedom with his line and maybe show the death star on the display to make it clear he has a reading or something.  Just an idea, as the less movement in a shot the easier it would be to create and if its only for quick shots such as this it could be done without appearing too fake.  It might even be possible to edit a shot from Star Trek or Stargate or something that has a similar shot of hands on a terminal or monitor but without the face being shown so there would be some movement, but without finding a suitable clip it is hard to know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAfOrr31FIw&feature=youtu.be

Here is a very (very) rough mock up of what I was suggesting for an opening Dagobah scene.  I removed the sound altogether as it was all over the place and it would take much more than a mock up to fix that so initiallyI'm afraid we'll have to make do with some annotations to accompany it, so here goes.

To start with there would be a new establishing shot showing the Xwing on Dagobah, then inside Yoda's house we would see him moving over to obtain his lightsaber crystal, talking to Luke about how the lightsaber is only a tool through which to use the force (or anything that sounds wise). 

Then show him turning and moving the crystal which then falls into Luke's hand.  Then we would pick back up to Luke and Yoda outside where Luke builds the Lightsaber using the force (which was inspired by this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0uqWOxsSx4 ).

Then instead of having Luke immediately ignite the blade I would have him walk off, and then we cut to the Yoda death scene shortly after.  Then once Yoda dies Luke tweaks the lightsaber and ignites it (the deleted scene footage changed to set on Dagobah as shown in the photo I linked to earlier).  After this Luke would move to his Xwing to depart and hear Yoda's voice urge him to hurry to his friends' rescue (as I described briefly in my earlier post). 

I know this would reuse a lot of footage but given the limited movement from both Yoda and Luke, and the fact Luke's face is offscreen any time he would need to talk then Luke's speech shouldn't be a problem, and Yoda's is only limited really by his lack of existing lines, but I'm still playing around there, and there might be more sources I don't know about.  But visually the backgrounds could be changed without much work, as there is very little movement, and even Luke's costume could be changed to a partly new costume, even if it would be difficult to make it match exactly with his RotJ one.  I know it wouldn't be easy, but I do think it would be possible. 

I think the benefits are it potentially has an awesomeness factor because it would be cool to see Luke build a lightsaber.  It would also explain how he happened upon the necessary pieces to build one (because Yoda handed his old lightsaber down to a new apprentice).  And it would increase the running time, which allows more freedom with other cutting without damaging the overall length. 

The additional clips were to show Luke holding the crystal, and Luke examining the hilt after piecing it together. 

Anyway I hope someone else might agree that this idea has potential (despite an extremely rough demonstration as to its execution). 

darth_ender said:

An interesting suggestion Johannus.  I'd love to see more Dagobah in such an edit, but I'm not sure how easy that'd be to do.  Is there any chance you could do some sort of rough edit to demonstrate how possible it is?  And welcome to our little club :)

Funnily enough I did start throwing together a very rough clip to demonstrate this so I will try to finish it off (though cannot guarentee it will be soon) but the biggest problem I found wasn't the footage as with enough editing I think existing shots of Yoda could be passed off as new shots, but the sound clips available. 

I also tried to build on the idea in Spence's edit that Luke doesn't know about how badly their plan to get Han is going and he senses it through the force and flies off to help.  To do this I wanted to remove the conversation with Ben just after Yoda dies and then when Luke is standing looking out at Ben from next to his X Wing put a voiceover of Yoda telling him 'Hurry, your friends, in great danger' so that Luke's look of surprise is hearing these words instead of seeing Ben.  Then he flies off to help.  However, I was really struggling to piece together words just for this short line but to be honest, if it could be done (perhaps with dubbing) then I think it would add a lot to showing Yoda as the master compared to Ben, just as I think the Dagobah scenes suggested would add something a little more iconic to RotJ, which lets face it doesn't add much new stuff to the OT. 

I'm currently only about half way through reading all this but I love the idea and I wish I had spotted it sooner. 

I noticed early on there was a lot of debate about Dagobah and using the Luke building his lightsaber footage so thought I would add a link to something I posted in a different thread about the same theme.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/ESB-and-ROTJ-Wishlist/post/540048/#TopicPost540048

As far as I have read up to this hasn't been mentioned or decided upon so apologies if it has been subsequently but hopefully it will provide some food for thought.

If Lucas created the sith eyes in the PT as a visual indicator that replaces the need for actual story telling and character development then thats obviously not good.  But if we assume that Luke's step towards the Dark side is portrayed well enough, then the eyes would not we for that reason, they would simply be an extra visual aid. 

That said I would hate this change to be made because in the OT they were a part of Palpatine's look, not a sith look.  I'll be damned if George made Palpatine's eyes that colour because Palpatine was a sith.  It was because he was meant to look creepy, nothing more.  By making all sith have the same characteristics and looks it just makes everything look smaller and lazier.  In the OT lightning was a Palpatine feature, just like the eyes.  A red lightsaber was Vader's thing.  In the PT red lightsabers, yellow eyes, and lightning are all just sith things so they no longer add anything to the individual characters.

I haven't read Dark Empire but isn't that the one with the Clone Emperor?  If so I think that was what put me off.

Something I wanted to do was see Maul survive and remain a threat in the later films, to the point where people can think that Maul is Vader, and perhaps retain some of the ESB revelation.  The easiest way is to suggest that Grevious is Maul (though personally I think his look should be changed to something more halfway between Maul and Vader, otherwise he goes from acrobatic sith, to acrobatic robot, to lumbering cyborg, and that makes even less sense), but something I considered was using sound clips from Anakin in the Clone Wars for Maul's voice, as at least this sounds close to Anakin from the films without being the same.  That said I do like Maul's voice in the film, just there isn't enough of it without voice acting. 

Sounds like you are looking at this in a similar way to me; I like ESB and ANH, RotJ is ok but should have been more, and the PT let the side down completely. 

I want to rewrite (and hopefully eventually edit) the whole of the Prequel Trilogy, then make very small changes to A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, then alter parts of Return of the Jedi in order to leave the story more open to the sequel trilogy which never happened.  I may then write stories for those but I think any sort of edit would be impossible due to lack of footage (and to be perfectly honest my PT edit ideas are already difficult enough). 

That being said, I think the best thing to do is throw some ideas out there and see what people think.  Normally throwing out ideas will get more feedback because more people will read brief ideas that a finished script, and people are probably more up for chatting about an idea than ripping apart a script you spent a lot of time on, so yeah, share some ideas and I'm sure people will join in.