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Peter Pan

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30-Dec-2018
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28-Mar-2024
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479

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Post
#1508379
Topic
Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace
Time

EddieDean said:

Here’s a little idea, I don’t know how valuable it would be, but it might be worth thinking about:

You could potentially move Padmé’s early conversation by video with the Neimoidians on their bridge to when she’s on Tattooine.

During the “The death toll is catastrophic”/“It’s a trap, send no reply” segment, you could follow that up a short time later with Padmé’s “The Trade Federation have gone too far this time” - and then follow that with the launch of the probe droids and eventual attack by Maul.

Does that make for an interesting throughline?

That is a nice idea indeed, however Padmé isn’t onboard her ship when they receive Sio Bibble’s transition.

Post
#1507543
Topic
Star Wars: Bookends - <em>A Prologue &amp; Epilogue to the Original Trilogy</em>
Time

Using the Rey/Luke plot from the TLJ as the framework for a series of flashbacks exploring the whole saga sounds amazing. Especially because it would supplement the saga neatly without replacing anything really. If I was to take a shot at it, I would try to strike a balance between flashbacks and our main story of Luke gathering his courage to escape his self imposed exile and restore hope once again.
So thinking about it from this angle, it really should start with the destruction of the Hosnian system. This sets up the story, the capital is destroyed, the FO rules with fear and all hope seems lost. All hope but for the lightsaber, so Rey follows BB-8 and takes off with Chewie to find Luke. Then we follow their story on Ach-To, intercut with frequent flashbacks to the PT, the OT and maybe some scenes explaining Kylo‘s relationship with Rey, Han and Luke. In the end Rey leaves Luke behind to face Kylo, Luke has his moment with Yoda and we can transition to Luke facing Vader and the Emperor. After the flashback Luke joins the resistance on Crait and distracts Kylo, so that the rebellion can live.
We close on Luke watching the sun set over Ach-To and the kids on Canto Bight spreading the legend of Luke Skywalker. Broom Boy leaves the building and gazes up to the stars, where in this moment the falcon and the civil fleet appear, restoring said hope to the galaxy.

Post
#1507295
Topic
Community Focus Thread 1: The Phantom Menace
Time

So, confined to my bed by illness, I thought about this movie again. Precisely I once again though about splitting up Amidala’s role, making Padmé and the Queen two separate people. To convincingly achieve this, I would age the Queen up considerably with a deep fake and remove her double from the final battle. Additionally I would record new dialogue for her and maybe something new for Gunray as well.

At this point it should be noted that though my train of though started with an edit, which I myself could actually make, it quickly shot off to the distant lands of the unfeasible. At least without a lot of help.

So, back to the meat. These changes would allow to alter the narrative substantially. In this version, the Trade Federation would initially side with the Queen, due to rising tension between the Gungan and the Naboo. They would garrison the land in the promise to aid the Naboo in case of an attack, but in reality, they would already be fighting and enslaving the Gungans. Gunray in particular would play a role akin to Grima Wormtongue, poisoning the aging regent with ill advice, thus turning her into the perfect personification of the fading Republic. Conceptionally this story should betide around her sitting quietly in the centre. In the decisive moments it comes down to her actions, but the story is about the people around her that shape her decisions.

Now, about the crawl, it should put emphasis on complacent state that the republic is in and like Faraday I fancy the wording of “a golden age is ending”, so that should make the first paragraph. The second should focus on the tensions on Naboo and the third should elaborate on the Federations part in all of it and mention the republic ambassadors.

Then, pan down to the evergreen Planet surrounded by war ships. Federation dropships descend to the surface. The holographic image of Gunray and his advisor appears and orders the droid commander of this landing force to search the swamps for Otoh Gunga and capture any Gungan alive.
Transition to Theed, accompanied by their closest advisors, Gunray and the Queen descend the stairs in conversation. The Queen stresses her intend to find a peaceful solution and Gunray describes thart a Gungan army is gathering in the marshes, expressing that the time of diplomacy has passed. However the Queen places faith in the republic ambassadors. At the bottom of the stairs a battle droid informs the Viceroy that his ship has arrived.
Then follows the original opening sequence, minus any mention of Sidious. After the Jedi spot the invasion army and decide to go and warn the Naboo, we cut to Battledroids taking a number of Gungans prisoner and see Jar Jar hiding under a cart, while observing the scene.
Back onboard the federation commandship, the Queen contacts Gunray to inquire about the ambassadors. Subsequently the communication is disrupted and Sio Bibble suspects an attack.
Cut back to the Jedi, who meet up with Jar Jar and make for Otoh Gunga with haste. A few dialogue tweaks here and there, indicating that Jar Jar is a deserter. Shorten the under water sequence and cut the Sidious hologram. The invasion of Theed replaces his scene.
After that the Jedi arrive in the city, free the Queen, persuade her to go to coruscant and the plot proceeds normally until after they escaped the blockade. Again, I would drop the Sidious scene and also cut the Queen thanking R2 as well. If we replace R2 with Anakin, this scene could be reused to a better purpose after their departure from Tatooine.
The Tatooine portion of the movie would mostly stay the same. Maybe I’d pitch Anakin’s voice down a little and Amidala’s up and change Anakin’s introduction as suggested on here before. The bet should definitely be simplified though.Maybe Anakin helping Jar Jar could be worked into a small character moment that encourages Jar Jar to stand up for himself.

It would create a nice arc for his character. He goes from being a coward that is being pushed around by droids half his height. Then he learns to stand up for himself and in turn encourages the Queen to do the same for her people. And finally he himself would lead his people against this very same enemy.

Anyway back to Tatooine. During the dinner scene and the conversation about slavery, Jar Jar should add a small remark like “Gungans get pasty too, eh?”, to tie the grim fate awaiting the Gungans to Anakin’s reality, forming a strong motivation for him to help.
I think I would skip Maul and Sidious talking on Coruscant, I’d like to keep Sidious out of the picture for as long as possible. Instead Maul should be sent by Gunray, building him up to a Tarkin like villain.
After the pod race is won and we have left Tatooine, the Queen thanks Anakin for his help. Maybe she could even promise him to help his mother.
On coruscant things proceed similar the original. Obviously Palpatine introducing the Queen to the senate would need to be altered. We would need to use a new name for the Queen, it should be a name that McDiarmid uses in some other movie he’s in and it should still sounds nabooish, but I don’t know if there is anything usable.
The biggest challenge might lie in the meeting of the Queen and Boss Nass. Ideally she should unintentionally anger Boss Nass, almost spoiling her plan to forge an alliance with the Gungans. This is the moment that Padmé should step in, essentially saving their only hope of freeing their people.
The finale plays out as usual, although I would cut most of the Gungan battle, Jar Jar has to look heroic in this and there isn’t that much footage to support that.
Lastly I would like to add a line of dialogue to palpatines arrival. After he addressed Anakin, he should promise him that the republic will free the slaves on Tatooine.

That’s basically the brought outline of the changes I have in mind. Surely there are still many small tidbits of dialogue that would need some attention to sell this new plot, but nothing too serious, unless I forgot about a major scene.
Besides that I am struggling when to introduce Palpatine as the shadow figure. I would like to tie it somehow to Qui-Gon’s feeling that something else is behind the federations move, but I have no idea how to implement this into the story.

I hope this wall of text is somewhat comprehensive, I had to take a few brakes form writing to rest a little.
Anyways I would like to hear your thought’s.

Post
#1506430
Topic
Anakin/Vader and mortality
Time

Maybe this could be connected with Anakin constantly losing his lightsaber. In the movie he rarely reacts to this, but if he did show some signs of anxiety due to being defenseless, it could work well with this narrative. After all Obi-Wan reminds him that this weapon is his life.
If we could somehow draw the focus to Anakin’s shock about losing his arm and lightsaber to Dooku, then we would have a good set up to include this plot point about Anakin’s own mortality in III.
Firstly this could be deliberately be brought up by Palpatine after Anakin killed Dooku. Then Obi-Wan could remind Anakin to jump from the elevator shaft a second time and we could change Grievous offense against Anakin’s age to a threat to kill them, to which Anakin response with an insult.
Finally we could change some of the dialogue during the opera scene, so that it focuses on the power to avert death rather than to save others. On top of that we could add “forever” to Anakin’s line about ruling the galaxy.

In conclusion I think that it definitely is possible to add this theme to Anakin’s fall. Not as the central motivation to turn his back on the Jedi, but rather as a contributing factor like his frustration with the council.

Post
#1504024
Topic
LOTR: The Rings of Power Spoiler Thread
Time

I hope to see the blue wizards making an appearance in RoP and it would make some sense canonically because they arrived earlier than the other istari, but I don’t think the stranger will turn out to be one of them (where is the other one?).
However now that I think of it, is it stated somewhere that only five istari were send to middle earth? He could be the sixth, who fell fighting Sauron or a Dragon or Balrog for that matter 😉.

But I am afraid that you’re right and he’ll turn out to be Gandalf.

Post
#1503978
Topic
LOTR: The Rings of Power Spoiler Thread
Time

It’s awfully quite in this thread so please tell me, what are your meteor man theorys?

I for one hope that he‘ll be an original character, but if I had to choose from any of the existing characters, then I would like him to be Tom Bombadil, although it wouldn’t make any sense and for that reason it surely won’t happen.
But I would really like to learn about his character and simply having him on screen would be extremely cool.