NeverarGreat

of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:

Interestingly enough, there was speculation back in the 80’s that Obi Wan was a clone designation, possibly derived from OB1.

I really like this and I don’t know why.

It’s great because it’s open-ended. Was Obi-wan himself a clone? Was he a template for clone forces? Was it a designation given to him by clones, perhaps as a form of endearment? Was it a designation to disguise his prior identity as Ben Kenobi? Was it perhaps his choice of Jedi name once he became a true Jedi much like Darth Vader may have been Anakin’s Jedi name? There’s no knowing which (if any) of these theories is true, and that makes it, like the Clone Wars themselves, a brilliant bit of worldbuilding that ignites the viewer’s imagination.

I agree. Droids in Star Wars should have an element of life which isn’t clearly reducible to their mere components.

The prequel and sequel trilogies went too far in reducing droids (Threepio in particular) to mere machines, in my opinion. At the end of the PT, Threepio has his memories erased, presumably destroying the person he became over the course of the prequels. However, since we see his construction in TPM we know that his personality was present from the beginning, so erasing those memories means almost nothing in practice. Further, in the ST we see Threepio factory reset (again having no change on his personality) and then his memories are able to be restored anyway.

I always felt like the original Star Wars film portrayed 'droids as a persecuted underclass that was viewed by most people in the universe as simple machines prone to glitches and erratic behavior. A droid with personality was defective and these troublesome errors would be prevented by restraining bolts and fixed by routine memory wipes, much like you would wipe a used computer’s hard drive before using it yourself. Viewed in this way, a droid becomes more erratic, more of a person, over time, and a memory wipe destroys the personality and the person. Some people in the galaxy, such as some in the Rebel Alliance, seem to have a soft spot for droids as people, but for the rest of the galaxy they are nothing more than machines. This gives the original films a whole new dimension of thematic power, and is another reason that for me the PT and ST trilogies don’t exist in the same universe as the OT.

Relatedly: Since Luke says “The Force is strong in my family”, move Threepio’s levitation to the end of the film and intercut it with the burning of Vader’s corpse as a ROTS-esqe act of symbology where Vader’s power passes to his firstborn ‘son’.

The Oscillator confrontation was my first attempt at that sort of Force power. The Poe interrogation was done after that scene and I feel it was a lot more successful because it was better integrated into the surround mix, but for V1 I never went back and adjusted the Oscillator scene. For V2 I will definitely be making it more subtle and well-integrated. I don’t want to remove it completely, because although it feels obvious that Kylo is using some sort of power to interrogate Han based on the Poe and Rey interrogations in the edit, it wasn’t obvious in the original film at all (at least to me) and came off as psychopathic rather than conflicted.

I will also take another look at Jakku 😃

Not much to report lately. I’ve had this on the back burner while working on some other projects, but the plan for everything in V2 is rather straightforward (unlike V1) so it should come together fairly quickly once I get back to working on it.

Eddie has provided new lines for the Resistance officer and I have a plan for the trooper dialogue concerning Hangar 718. I’m contemplating a change to TR-8R’s dialogue as well in order to jump start Finn’s concern about Starkiller base, but that would depend on whether axlanian would be willing to entertain the idea; I’m happy with the existing dialogue in either case.

Then of course there’s the visual effects side of the workload, and that will probably be the biggest bottleneck.

So that’s where the project stands. I will announce when there’s something to show 😃

hero said:

Just got done watching this edit - WOW. Superb work. Genuinely a good film. Really enjoyed the additional restructuring and edits you made - bravo. Somehow the characterisations work so much better.
This is 100% the to version of the film now for me.

Thank you!

Thank you for your continued work on this project (over ten years, wow!). I always enjoy reading your updates, since these are issues I never would have considered.

The problem with putting the training before Palpatine’s Office is that Star Wars almost always follows a strict continuity of introducing characters where they are introduced and themselves meet or otherwise introduce more characters. The only place in 1-6 where this doesn’t happen is Vader on the Death Star in ROTJ transitioning directly to the droids, but even then a transition was scripted and filmed.

It also seems strange that Anakin would sense Padme’s distress and not even comment on it.

Nice avatar, ya frackin toaster 😉

Oh definitely.

There’s also the issue of establishing shots. I don’t recall if the deleted Senate scene has its own establishing shot, but it would probably require one. The office scene would need one, then the Jedi Temple. Since that’s three in a row, it makes sense to cut directly from the training to the apartment interior at the earliest moment with Jar Jar.

Yeah, and since the elevator scene was originally filmed during reshoots, this would be replacing one reshoot with another.

If there’s a tradeoff between an opening to AOTC which feels horribly stilted and one that has some visual problems due to de-aging, I’ll take the visual issues any day.

Anyway, since people are suggesting their ideal opening to AOTC here are my two cents:

Landing on Coruscant
Deleted scene of Padme and the Senate
Palpatine’s office (full scene)
Establishing shot of Jedi Temple (using musical sting from Elevator scene) followed by Rescored Training Scene
Padme’s Apartment (Delete elevator scene)

I think that the training scene covers all the introductory vibes we get in the elevator scene, so it should go.

This opening reveals an aspect of the film that didn’t occur to me until today, and that is the reason Palpatine wanted the Jedi assigned to Padme. In the deleted Senate scene, Padme is railing against the Army of the Republic, saying that security is antithetical to liberty. Palpatine recognizes that she could derail his plans, and must find a way to convince her that this security measure is required. Then in the office scene he impresses on her the severity of the situation and convinces her to take on extra security. It’s a direct psychological attack on her ideals.

Placing the martial training scene directly after this office scene drives this point home in a way that the original film does not. The Jedi are soldiers, regardless of what Windu says, and these soldiers have just been placed in the service of a person who detests military solutions.

TROS is Rey’s Force-induced fever dream as she lies unconscious beside Kylo on the Supremacy.

Servii said:

Ben Solo’s middle name is Quadrinaros.

Someone’s power couplings have gotten crossed.

Then I look forward to what you come up with 😃

I think it would be a lot easier to re-edit the Tusken massacre as a dream sequence that happens after he brings his mother back from the desert.

You’d only have to insert a new line in his confession scene, perhaps covering it with a reaction shot from Padme:

“I killed them. In my dream. I killed them all. Every single one of them.”

This would keep Anakin’s intense feelings while bringing the experience into a realm which is deeply relatable for anyone who has suffered loss. Padme’s words would fit this situation perfectly, while also showing how Anakin is unable to square his feelings with his upbringing as a Jedi.

It would also work to deepen the line from Palpatine later since it confirms that Anakin trusts Palpatine enough to share his dreams and nightmares.

Anakin Starkiller said:

The USA really isn’t all that bad. Yes it has serious issues (such as the whole abortion issue), but it’s still a decent country. It is in NO way a “shithole”. Be glad you’re not living in North Korea.

This. I don’t “like” the US per say but it’s frankly ludicrous when people claim Donald Trump or whoever candidate/president they hate is a literal dictator bringing about the end of democracy in America. These people have no sense of perspective.

I agree that it’s absurd and tiresome for people to attack political opponents in extreme terms, especially when all they usually do is attempt to game America’s backwards election system to gain power.

To put it in perspective, no president in American history has actually declared the results of a free election fraudulent, threatened elections officials who disagreed, and incited a violent uprising against its government.

Except one.

I’ve long suspected that the capitalist vs socialist framing of countries is largely a distraction which confuses more than illuminates. I find that a simplifying factor for determining the virtue of a country is its level of democracy as opposed to autocracy. America has never been a true democracy but is quickly barreling towards oligarchy or even full autocracy and the enshrinement of minority rule.

Your experience in Venezuela sounds terrible, but comports with what I’ve read, which is that the country has been quite autocratic throughout the 21st century. It’s difficult for any country reliant on mineral or oil wealth to escape the pull of autocracy, as Russia aptly demonstrates.

The question every country must ask is whether it values people over power and profit, and if it is the latter, dictatorship inevitably follows.

BedeHistory731 said:

NeverarGreat said:

Servii said:

Realistically, Anakin should have been fully on the Dark Side after the Tusken massacre. The Dark Side is supposed to be like a drug that takes hold of you once you tap into it. The act of hate-fueled murder should have been more than enough to push him over the edge. It should have been a more damning moment for Anakin, since him hesitantly killing Dooku or attacking Mace is much less severe by comparison.

Exactly. It also robs all power from Luke’s confrontation with Vader in ROTJ because Luke could have done a full genocidal rampage across the Death Star Stormtrooper and Officer Daycare Center and it would have been just a little whoopsie doodle that everyone would instantly forgive because he’s dealing with a lot right now and who hasn’t killed an entire village in a rage before, you sanctimonious hypocrites.

That reminds me, Warhammer 40K is Star Wars on buckets of meth.

From what I’ve gleaned from cultural osmosis, that sounds about right.

RicOlie_2 said:

I’m not sure why. Roe v. Wade isn’t about whether abortion should be allowed or not. It’s about whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to it. It’s mind-boggling that people could read abortion rights into the Constitution.

The Constitution doesn’t guarantee any rights for its citizens, that’s why Constitutional Amendments exist.

The 14th Amendment guarantees the right to privacy, and Roe argued that the right to be secure in your person implied the right to bodily autonomy, thus, abortion.

It’s up for debate, constitutionally, because the Constitution didn’t guarantee a lot of rights now taken for granted, such as for women to have the right to vote, so why would it guarantee the right to an abortion? Pretty sure the Founding Fathers didn’t give women any thought at all. Women were essentially property, and if you weren’t white you can forget the word ‘essentially’.

The only reason this changed was because of Constitutional Amendments such as the 14th and 19th Amendments. This, by the way, is people ‘reading’ rights into the Constitution that never existed. One may argue that there should just be more amendments then, but the last amendment to the constitution which passed both houses of congress and was ratified by the states was proposed in 1971.

For over 50 years, it has been politically impossible to get new amendments passed, even massively popular ones, as evidenced by the Voting Rights Act which languished for most of a decade before dying due to lack of state support. Thus, the process of reading new rights into the Constitution has been taken up by the courts, which of course only last until the courts decide to rescind these rights.

The right to contraceptives, the right to gay and interracial marriage, the right to abortion…all of these rights are contingent on the whims of a court which is wildly unrepresentative of the population at large, and entirely free from oversight and precedent. The last fifty years in America didn’t happen, Constitutionally speaking, and that’s before getting to work on reinterpreting the actual Constitution and its amendments.

This is a ride down a mountain without any brakes.

Servii said:

Realistically, Anakin should have been fully on the Dark Side after the Tusken massacre. The Dark Side is supposed to be like a drug that takes hold of you once you tap into it. The act of hate-fueled murder should have been more than enough to push him over the edge. It should have been a more damning moment for Anakin, since him hesitantly killing Dooku or attacking Mace is much less severe by comparison.

Exactly. It also robs all power from Luke’s confrontation with Vader in ROTJ because Luke could have done a full genocidal rampage across the Death Star Stormtrooper and Officer Daycare Center and it would have been just a little whoopsie doodle that everyone would instantly forgive because he’s dealing with a lot right now and who hasn’t killed an entire village in a rage before, you sanctimonious hypocrites.

I was thinking earlier about the Immolation scene in ROTS and how it feels off. It’s a standard complaint that the end of the fight feels small in comparison to the rest, and it has never felt right to me that Obi-wan would tout having the high ground when he’s just on a bit of a hill. Both of these issues stem from the fact that they are fighting on the side of a nondescript gully and they could have gotten off the platform whenever and wherever they wanted. Anakin could have just stepped off the platform and walked around Obi-wan, but instead he attempts a dramatic leap over his head.

The obvious solution would be to change this hillside into something more dramatic, and I imagine it wouldn’t be too terribly difficult to change some of the landscape to indicate that this gentle slope is actually a narrow promontory surrounded on both sides by fissures or sheer cliff walls.

Original Location:

Dramatic Peninsula:

There are quite a few shots of this location across two scenes, but I imagine with all the smoke and distortion to hide imperfections, it wouldn’t be an insurmountable task.

RogueLeader said:

I know others don’t agree with this, and that’s totally fine, but Cosmonaut Variety Hour summed up my own feelings about the show rather well!

https://youtu.be/QPYpHPC5acg

I watched the same thing!

Agree with most points, except that where Episode 6 worked for them, it fell apart for me. The best stuff in the show for me is still primarily the through line of Obi-wan and Leia, with almost everything else being good on paper but falling apart in execution.