I’m through with this semester and can get back to editing 😄, there is still an unfinished opening to TPM that I’d like to share and now I’ve got the time to catch up on that.
I can’t stand exams, math exams in particular. Its always the same: I write the damn thing, finish half an hour early, look through everything again, can’t find a single mistake, hand it in, walk to the tube, and on my way home I realize that I missed something or that there was a much simpler approach to a certain problem.
The duel is edited in multiple pieces: why not keeping that structure to embedded it into the intro dction of the movie?
What would you pair it up with? I think Padmé addressing the senate might be the most fitting match.
I think it would work even better without any dialogue, nice idea paja.
I feel shitty
If the Jedi begin on their mission to broker peace between Gungans and Naboo, then Jar Jar could simply be their go-between/guide/facilitator. (He could even be their Representative, which has supporting voice lines.) You also don’t necessarily need to have them leave in the bongo - after the Otoh Gunga scenes you could potentially cut to the second half of the scene where they originally meet Jar Jar, where the Jedi and Jar Jar talk more (ending with, for example, my ‘we must hurry’, eventually cutting back to them appearing in Theed having travelled there offscreen.)
I think I’ve got an idea for a good opening that does exactly that. Something like this:
-Crawl
-Jedi traveling to Otoh-Gunga
-Politicians in Theed, comunication disruption
-Trade Federation arrives above Naboo and start an invasion immediately
-Qui-Gon and company are surprised by battle droids while on their way to theed
I think I’ll have a rough cut ready next week.
I just watched over the original TPM opening and goddamn it just plods and plods. It saps all of your energy away. The Neimoidian ship stuff is fairly poor, but the Otoh Gunga content in particular just stops the story in its tracks.
I’m certain that Otoh Gunga has to go. And that’s feasibly fixable via Jar Jar dialogue.
What’s lost in doing that though, is the context about the Gungans and Naboo land-dwellers not getting along, so you lose some of the context that’s paid off later when Boss Nass reappears and is won over by Padmé.
I was thinking about this a little more, and wondering what could be done. Potentially, we could allude to it a little plus explain the Jedi starting in the swamp if they’re on the planet (and near the swamps) to broker peace between the Gungans and Naboo. This would demonstrate their role as diplomats, and be a plotline that’s paid off later.
Challenge there would be that you could only carry that information in the crawl.
Which then got me thinking - what if the entire movie is framed as the story of Naboo? In many ways it is - it begins and ends there, and the Tattooine and Coruscant sections are about Padmé trying (albeit failing) to get help back to the planet.
If the entire story was centered on Naboo, that’d be quite easy to grasp - the jeopardy is to the citizens, and our main characters are ultimately working towards saving it from the Trade Federation (and shadowy benefactor). The audience would need less politics up front, but through the lens of Naboo the plot would slowly (in this movie and beyond) expand to a more galactic scope - which I think is fitting for the movie which comes chronologically first.
Perhaps then the crawl could be almost entirely Naboo focused, something like:
The planet Naboo is in danger.
The Jedi Order, mystical wielders
of THE FORCE and defenders of the
Galactic Republic, have foreseen
a crisis.As tensions mount, Jedi Knight
Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice
have been dispatched to the
planet’s swamps in an attempt
to broker peace between the
people of Naboo and the native
Gungans.As Naboo’s Queen Amidala, champion
of the people, waits, the greedy
TRADE FEDERATION have massed a
deadly fleet around the remote
world, the Republic’s Supreme
Chancellor has sent a small team
of ambassadors to defuse the
situation…
This could fit nicely with the treaty that legitimates the Neimodian occupation of Naboo. The Neimodian would basically frame their invasion as a security force. That would surely strengthen them as villains, because Putin is employing the same narrative right now, but I’m not sure how I feel about this connection.
On to another, less depressing note, I actually had a rather similar idea for a 3 in 1 edit a while ago, that puts the opening of AOTC first. The Federation jumps at the opportunity and blame the Gungan for the assassination, ally themself with the Naboo and blockade the planet, only to occupy it. In the mean time Palpatine has steped in as the new Senator of Naboo and the Jedi are send to force a diplomatic solution.
I’d like to get a link as well please.
I liked it, especially Jar Jar’s new lines, thats a massive improvement. The only thing I would add is a line like this after the ambassadors ship exploded: “Sir, two escape pods have been launched right before landing.” This would explain how the Jedi were separated in the forrest, add a bit of tension, because we know the Jedi will show up any minute and connect the opening scene to the following Zoom-meeting with the Queen. It would also amplify the impact of the explosion, if we have a character reacting to it.
double post
You’d have to change the Neimodians holo transmission after the invasion force landed. It doesn’t make sense for them to search their ship for the Jedi, if they landed on Naboo directly.
However now that I saw this, I had an idea. What if we show how the Jedi pass the blockade, without the Neimodians taking notice? I’m imagining something like this:
-Crawl
-Sidious hologram
-Obi and Qui-Gon are briefed by pseudo 3PO
-Gunray contacts the Jedi’s ship, they’re asked to land onboard
-Wide Shot of the Jedi’s ship approaching the droid control ship, add in a tiny escape pod flying away
-we follow the pod and see the droid invasion fleet lowering to the surface
-from here on we’re back on track with the original plot
This would bridge the Jedi and the invasion plot and mirror the opening of ANH nicely.
All we would need is a model of an escape pod.
There os a discord? Why haven’t I heard of that till now
Thanks for the reply, I agree with a lot of what you said.
For example the point about the rough transition between the arena and all the coruscant stuff that happens immediately after that. I have been thinking about adding a scene like this in between: https://youtu.be/a9MtRYmqkRc
Obviously with some different dialogue about the arena battle, but I don’t really see myself returning to this project any time soon, because I’ve got a lot going in n at the moment.
About the whole Anakin/Padme stuff and the republic not having an army/trying to negotiate with the separatists, I’m afraid that I didn’t manage to get my ideas across. The Gunships in the beginning are supposed to belong to the jedi.(I cut out most of the clones, however there are still some in the background)
I see that the Republic is still pushing for a diplomatic solution after Geonosis seems stupid, but it’s the only thing I can do with the footage. I’m reading it as the republic desperately trying to settle a diplomatic spoliation as there is no other way for them left, while the separatist happily negotiate with the republic while completing their army. That is also the reason why the Jedi don’t openly blame Dooku for the assassination attempts. Not because they are not convinced that it’s him who is responsible, but because they have to have to be damn sure of the consequences if they publicly blame the separatist, that’s why they spent so much energy on the investigation.
However I see that this is a stretch. Maybe I’d have to drop the last beat in the arena sequence where the gunships arrive and have them show up simultaneously with the Jedi, this might level out the power imbalance between the Republic and the separatist, because we wouldn’t get to see most of the Jedi being decimated.
Now to Anakin/Padme: My main problem with their romance as it is portrayed in the original is that it feels so forced that they fall for each other, so I skipped all the questions whether they love each other or not (because nobody thinks the do) and build up the forbidden nature of their relationship to be the single conflict that their subplot is about. Sort of like Moulin Rouge, the plot is not about them falling in love, but rather what challenges their love can endure.
Cody wasn’t on geonosis, he says so in a short exchange with Obi-Wan during the Geonosis episodes.
I think they should be reworked into worse movies
yes
You could also add a throwaway line to the Vader Boba scene that indicates that Jabba might get in the way of their plan. Now that I think about it, this might work better if we enter the scene mid conversation, something like this:
Vader walks off, cut to the Slave 1 approaching Jabba’s palace
Cut to a schematic diagram off the Sarlacc, we hear Boba:
“…I can guarantee that, Jabba rules with fear.”
Cut to Vader in his chamber talking to Fett via a monitor:
“I want him alive”
Boba: “He’s a Jedi, He’ll survive”
Vader: “A fierce plan, bounty hunter, but I hope you do not underestimate Jabba’s temper.”
Boba: “So I have your approval to proceed?”
Vader: “Don’t disappoint me.”
Slave 1 lands near Jabba’s palace
Obviously 42
No
The edit is done. However I restructured the second half of the movie again.
I posted the idea before, but I figure it might fit in here as well.
I think the Hallway scene from R1 would fit very well into ROTJ, because Vader seems to tame in the original.
I’m asking myself whether it is actually possible to achieve this in a fan edit.
We could use the scene of Anakin and Padmé arguing on her ship after they retransmitted Obi-Wan’s message as a starting point, paint her out of most of the shots and then add a little hologram of Palpatine to the console.
To finally sell it as a new scene we could replace the background outside the ship with a sunset.
In this video someone did this for the R2 receiving Obi-Wan’s message bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhCnW79f-z0&list=PLrrjPYdsCSWraGbJBLRd_YrWuHUyJOdAf
(around 5:15)
Maybe we could even delay the reveal that it is Palpatine that he is talking too, this way the audience might assume that it is Obi-Wan at first.
I only wonder what dialogue to chose exactly. Maybe like this:
-Opening shot of Amidala’s starship
-Whatever can be pieced from Anakin’s line. Here lies the real challenge because a line has to either fit the existing footage from the scene on the ship or we would have to rotoscope him out of the garage scene and fit on a background that matches the geometry of the ship.
-reveal Palpatine to be the person Anakin is talking to, he could say something like this:
“It is only natural, they took your mother and you wanted revenge”
Now that I think about it, I feel like I read about a similar idea in the Prequel Radical Redux thread.
Edit: If we go with the sunset idea, we could also use shots of R2 and 3PO arguing on the ship after they landed on Geonosis, color wise they would match a sunset.
I wonder if 3PO could mention Leia’s attempt while on their way to the palace. Thanks to AI voices that should be feasible.
I might be mistaken but wouldn’t that suggest that there are two sabers?
We see Luke working on one and cut to R2 and 3PO not waiting for him, so there is no time for Luke to give the saber to R2.
Maybe you could move Vaders arrival at the Death Star or Leia’s failed rescue attempt between the two scenes of Luke working on his saber and the droids walking up to Jabba’s palace.
So I think it is time for an update, a lot has happened since the last time.
Approximatly 60 percent of the edit is done, however I did make some additional changes to those I outlined earlier. For example I changed the crowd reaction to Padme’s speech in the senate, now she gets applauded and I added Anakin to the scene. I figured it might be nice if we had a scene where he shows genuine interest in her political career. I trimmed the speeder chase and dropped the industrial district part as well as a lot of the bickering between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Then I trimmed the Dex’s Dinner scene and reordered some of the dialogue. I also cut the first part of the deleted scene on the landing platform, the bits that take place inside the hangar. Other than that I shortened the arrival on Naboo scene and cut the bits of Anakin in Padme’s father talking in the garden. The biggest changes where made to the dogfight between Obi-Wan and Fett.
I reconstructed the scene a lot to remove most of the shots with geonosis in the background. Now Obi-Wan arrives at Kamino and gets greeted with one seismic charge (not two), then Jango opens fire, then Obi-Wan flies through the asteroid to evade the blaster fire and then he gets targeted by a missile. I also removed any footage that showed Jango or Boba piloting the Slave I, this way the identity of the attacker remains a mystery and adds to the kamino plot. This works brilliantly with Taun We’s line, which expresses that they have been awaiting him.
And in regards to the kamino plot I have made some slight alterations to the structure of the second half of the movie, to make room for the deleted analysis archive scene. Now Obi-Wan visits the analysis archive on kamino after he spoke to Jango, to find out more about the toxic dart and the droid tells him that the toxin is only found on Bogden. Obi-Wan then realizes that Jango must be the bounty hunter who shot Zam and rushes off to fight him on the landing platform. I had seen this idea executed in poorandin’s edit of AOTC and liked it a lot, so I decided to include this, as it shows Obi-wan acting autonomously. I also trimmed the fight on the landing platform to remove Obi-Wan hanging there for hours.
I think that is it for now. Currently I am working on some vision sequences for Anakin utilizing footage from BOBF. I am planning to include three vision in my final edit, one in the beginning after Anakin has been knocked out by the robot arm in the factory, one in the middle as his nightmare and one in the finale playing as a flashback that hits Anakin as Dooku is about to deliver the killing blow to Obi-Wan.
I agree that looks really clean. Good work.