Yes, and I agree that scene should go if we're playing Dooku this way. How is that scene necessary to the film's conclusion? It tells us NOTHING we need to know.
I understand what you say, I just understand that it's wrong. Have you even seen any of these edits to judge how it works?
Who said anything about making him any less developed? The point is to make him more complex, rather than the two-dimensional villain he is. I consider this to be strengthening. Nobody's suggesting that we remove the film's conclusion or make it any less satisfying. If you like the film the way it is, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!
It doesn't get the chance to blow up planets. We know it can. The Empire already raped the dog with Alderaan; if they did it again in ROTJ it would be yet another rehash of ANH, which we're mostly trying to avoid.
This is why we're editing the movies in the first place, you nitwit. We can MAKE him mysterious and ambiguous. It's trivial to remove his scene with Sidious, as many edits do. That he's the enemy of the Republic and therefore the Jedi isn't in dispute; whether he's actually a bad guy can be made to be much less certain than it is in the official cut.
And if you care to notice, I'm basing my argument for changing his sabre colour based SOLELY on the fact that most people will make the association red = evil, which you yourself admitted. Any more symbolism risks being wanky, but so does a lot of what we do here.
Venal, you are not a vast majority. If we're accustomed to red = bad guy, blue/green = good guy — which even if we've only seen TPM and AOTC up to this point we would be — Dooku wielding a red sabre is the giveaway that he's a villain. If you give him a different colour — any different colour — it's less likely to pigeonhole him as a simple villain in the viewer's mind.
Notwithstanding my defence of a yellow/gold sabre for him, I don't mind him getting a green one, provided the only other characters with one are Luke in ROTJ, Qui-Gon and possibly Windu if we're painting him as the unduly suspicious character that was thrown about a while ago in this thread, and all the other Jedi get blue.
It's quite possible to make them look as good as the original sabres.
STONKING GREAT....
Yeah.
One thing to point out: a purple (JasonN) or yellow (MagnoliaFan) blade is much easier to pull off than a green one, because any remnants of red will stand out a lot more if you try to make it green, red being the opposite of green but a component of purple and yellow. Myself, I'd go for yellow, but that may simply be because I saw MF's edit first.
I also think it would be interesting to see a much greater range of colours for the Jedi, rather than uniform blue and green — have each sabre a slightly different shade of blue or green, maybe even ranging from purple at one end to yellow at the other. Of course, this would be very difficult and time-consuming for any editor. It depends on whether we want to paint the Jedi as individualistic and free (in which case the more variation the better), or dogmatic and ordered (in which case the less the better).
There is a big difference, as I clearly explained in my reply. If you want to be pigheaded and ignore it go ahead.
Read it again then, DV. Notice that I never said I think them unimportant, YOU made that jump. Kindly stop insisting that I said something I didn't.
If you had such trouble believing it, why didn't you read it again and realise that I didn't actually say that, and that given I'm here in the first place I obviously don't think the problems aren't important?
Thank you for your most courteous and intelligent reply, Darth Venal. By what I said I mean nothing more than that they are small things relatively easily corrected with editing (and the other post-production work we do here); they are surface details, not inextricably embedded in the film. If they were so embedded, fan-editing the films would be futile. Nowhere did I suggest that they are unimportant flaws; if I thought them unimportant, I wouldn't be here wanting to see them fixed. But if the films had no overall story worth telling within them, no amount of good editing, witty dialogue or other work on our part could give them one; we'd do better to start from scratch.
Bravo, Bingo. Very well put. My 2c to add concerns the nature of these films as tales: IMO the reason the prequels are able to be edited into grander films is that they do still have a good world and overall story underpinning them. Their flaws are superficial and smaller-scale: editing, dialogue, acting and the occasional effects failure or strained suspension of disbelief.
I agree: Luke knew it, he just wanted it not to be true. That's why he had to ask Yoda.
I haven't seen the cartoon, but if it isn't as dreadful as the rest of the Special is said to be, it would be very interesting.
...Isn't that exactly what technobabble is?
First off, hello and welcome. It's an interesting idea, albeit one I don't see being used in ROTJ:R or any other forthcoming edit at the moment. Most of us aren't complete prequel-haters — the attitude of most of us is that they're not irredeemable, just in need of improvement. Personally, I think George Lucas is fairly good at plotting, and great at worldbuilding and visuals, but he doesn't do dialogue well and he's not great at working with actors. Given that, the prequels are more than salvageable.
From a plot point of view, I frankly don't think Anakin deserves to have his family returned to him. He was the second-baddest guy in the galaxy for over 20 years, and while he did redeem himself in the end, it's at least as important that he was defeated as that he was redeemed. While I don't particularly want to see his force-ghost removed or anything, I don't think his ending needs to be any happier than it already is.
As just as staunch an atheist, I think you're rather missing the point. It's fiction, more to the point it's fantasy, and the Force is one of the most archetypal fantasy elements in there. It loses a LOT of its character if you reduce it to some technobabble that doesn't actually explain anything. Either explain how these midichlorians enable telekinesis, telepathy, precognition and what-have-you, which would take a whole movie in itself, or don't try to handwave it away and instead embrace its fantastic nature.
Dude, The Passion made me puke. Firstly because it was considered entertainment at all, and secondly because I knew a LOT of children were being taken to see it. America is fucked up culturally: Janet Jackson's nipple leads to lawsuits and fears for the children, but Jim Caviezel getting the snot beaten out of him, VERY graphically, for two hours, is family fare?
Something has gone dreadfully wrong somewhere...
I actually disagree. TPM should be like Star Wars was originally: a movie that can stand alone, with just a sequel hook or two to link it to the next one. (Star Wars only really had one sequel hook, but it was in neon lights — DARTH VADER GOT AWAY!) The end should feel like "the end" of the TPM story, like ANH ends on the celebration scene.
My oops. Ta, 005.
Adywan used a shot from Star Trek: Enterprise for the Alderaan explosion, I believe.
You got the credits wrong, FML — ESB was neither written nor directed by Lucas, he only gets a story and executive producer's credit. It was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Irvin Kershner.
Ric, stop hacking Angel's account.
I'm in a similar boat. I have no idea what will be happening in my life beyond about February, and only a sketchy idea beyond November.