SilverKey

How about we minimize seeing Palpatine with his lightsaber, but shifting the focus of that scene to Anakin? The scenes in Palpatine's office are a big turning point in his life, so why not stretch it out a little, and center it around him?

I'm just brainstorming aloud here, most of it probably wouldn't even be doable:

• Anakin mulls over Palpatine's words in the council chamber.
• Windu arrive at Palpatine's office. They exchange their dialogue. Palpatine activates his lightsaber. The music builds.
• Then cut to Anakin taking off from the Jedi Temple platform.
• Cut back to Palpatine's ante chamber. The bodies of Kolar, Fisto and Tiin are on the ground. In the distance we hear the sounds of the fight going on between Palpatine and Windu. Maybe we could add some screams, stuff breaking and other sound effects, to give the impression that there is really something big and epic is going on in that room.
• Cut back to Anakin arriving at the Senate building. It would be nice if in this scene, and in the other scenes with Anakin, we can cut in some close ups of him, to show that this scene is really about him.
• When Anakin arrives at the office, he hears the sounds of the battle going on (making him pause and adding in another close up might add to tension here, even Anakin is wondering what the hell is going on in there.
• Anakin enters the office, and we finally see the final stages of the fight. Maybe we can even add the suggestion here that Anakin never saw Palpatine with his saber at all, which could prove Palpatine's prediction that the Jedi are planning to betray him to Anakin.
• The rest of the scene plays as it normally does, and it would be great if we can add in Davnes' awesome idea of having Anakin and Mace's sabers clash in front of Palpatine's face.
• The music underneath this scene could be just the Emperor's Theme, adding to the mystery of the scene.

Nice work, Davnes!

Overall I liked it. Some of it was choppy, but this may still be a rough edit. Mace and Anakin's sabers clashing in front of Palpatine's face was just awesome!

I liked how you tightened the scene of Anakin telling Mace about Palpatine being a Sith Lord. It still is kind of underwhelming, but that's because of the material, not the way you editted it. But did Anakin sneak aboard the ship? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't Mace and the oter Jedi sense him being aboard with him?

I think the scenes of Anakin telling Mace about Palpatine being a Sith, Mace's confrontation with Palpatine, and Anakin's final turn are all a bit underwhelming. The ideas are all there, but the execution, staging and pacing of it all is just off. They need to be seriously reworked to give them the punch they need. Maybe I'll make my own version of Anakin's turn later on.

I think Lucas said on the DVD commentary that he gave Yoda a floaty chair so he could make eye contact with Mace and Obi-Wan in that conversation. Lucas thought it wouldn't work to have to cut "up and down" between Mace and Obi-Wan and Yoda. I think that's a good enough reason. I like the floaty chair, but I agree with Bingowings that the scene with Mace and Obi-Wan in the hangar is better. Pity about those effects indeed.

Amazing work, Vaderios! Looks so much better than the original, not only for the continuity it creates, but the comp in general is much better.

You make a good point about the perspective, in the original shot, the perspective always seemed kinda off. You fixed this very nicely!

Ripplin, you can watch all the episodes of the first season of the Clone Wars cartoon on StarWars.com.

Adywan, those color corrected screenshots from TPM look great! I never really noticed the pink tint until it was mentioned here in this thread. I like that you kept the color correction subtle. Personally, the brightness of the prequels doesn't bother me at all. The look of the movies are the least of their problems, I think.

Downplaying the colors might work in some scenes, such as the droidfactory, to make it less cartoonish and to mask some of the bad CG, and in the lower levels of Coruscant, to make them appear a little more seedy.

Nice mockup Bingowings. What is the story behind it? Is this part of your suggestion of making the movie start with Amidala already on Coruscant and making the movie about her return to Naboo to help her people? Now that's a radical idea!

I tried to do a mockup myself of the scene I mentioned earlier. I tried to put Mace and Obi-Wan in the Jedi Temple hangar from the AOTC deleted scene into a background of the hangar we see in ROTS. I wanted to salvage the scene, because I like it better than the one replacing in the final movie. It didn't work though. The angles are all off, and it's almost impossible to get a clean plate of the background.

Yeah, the quality of the scene is pretty bad. But that's because it was abandoned, and replaced with the scene with Obi-Wan, Mace and Yoda in the hallway. The original scene was 'finished' for the DVD release. Obviously, they didn't put as much time and money in it compared to the scenes in the final movie, but I still appreciate that they put some time and effort in making the scenes presentable for the DVD.

The scene with Obi-Wan and Mace in the hangar works better, in my opinion, because it explains why Obi-Wan is worried about Anakin, and not just that he is worried. I also like the setting better. That said, we could only add the scene in if we give the hangar the same background as we see in ROTS. I'm going to try and see if I can make it work in Photoshop.

Again, well done Vaderios!

And since you posted that shot of the hanger inside the Jedi Temple, how about we use that particular background for the scene with Obi-Wan and Mace in AOTC? The scene I mean is on the DVD among the deleted scenes, but I think that scene works better than the one replacing it (the one with Obi-Wan, Mace and Yoda in the halls of the Jedi Temple). If we use the background with the gunships like we see in ROTS, it could answer the question where the Republic got all those ships from, since they didn't even have an army to begin with.

SSWR, that was simply amazing! I had my doubts about changing Windu's character, but you did it very well. The voice could use some work, but it matched perfectly. As someone else said, it really makes Windu a bette character, and not such a d*ck all the time.

Great mockup, Vaderios! I suggested earlier in this thread that Mace should be the only Jedi to confront Palpatine, and your mockups are exactely what I had in mind. That way we can also get rid of Mace's folding chair posse, and be spared their lame deaths. If we are going with Mace being the only Jedi to confront Palpatine, I suggest we add some more empty seats in the Jedi council scenes. It's logical Mace brought backup to arrest a Sith Lord, but by adding some empty chairs, we can show that Mace didn't really have any other option than to go alone. It makes him more brave too.

So many great ideas and mockups...who said this thread was dead? :P

Nice work on the color correction, EyeShotFirst, but it doesn't seem really necessary in that particular scene. I mean, of course the image is going to be yellowish, they are on a planet covered in lava! The color correction  looks pretty good on Anakin, because he is wearing dark clothes. But Obi-Wan looks too bright to me, he really stands out in that particular shot. The smoke in the background looks a little weird now too. Then again, I don't know a whole lot about color correction, and I guess it comes down to taste as well. Personally, I like the intense reds and yellows.

Looking forward to your new clips Davnes and SSWR!

Davnes, since you are working on the meeting on Dagobah and the birth of the twins, can I make a suggestion? In ROTJ, Leia says she remembers her mother, but the birth scene in ROTS is the only time they spend together. How about we make Leia being born the first. It wouldn't require a lot of editing, only switching around some dialogue. If we do this, Padme holds Leia for a while, and I was thinking of inserting a new shot of the baby opening her eyes, Padme looking at her, the baby looking back at her, with the Force theme playing underneath this little exchange. It's not much, but it could imply that the impression Leia has of her mother came to her through the Force.

You are right, Bingowings. I downloaded TotR and it turned out to be TBKR. Does anyone know where I can get TotR? It would be much appriciated!

I think the prequel titles are just fine. I don't really like Attack of the Clones, not because of the cheesiness, but because the Clones don't exactely attack. Revenge of the Sith sounds the most Star Wars like, even though the actual revenge is only alluded to.

I like Return of the Jedi much better than Revenge of the Jedi, and think it was a good call by Lucas. The title actually works in two ways: Luke is returning to the war as a Jedi, and with the Sith destroyed at the end of the movie, the Jedi order can return to the Galaxy. You could also even interpret the title being about Darth Vader: after he has turned away from the Dark Side, the Jedi Anakin has returned.

JasonN, you mentioned your fanedit of AOTC in the Prequel Radical Idea Redux thread, and after reading some reviews, I decided to check it out. Downloading it right now. I'll let you know what I think when I've seen it.

You are right, brash_stryker, AOTC is a mess (but I think the title is the least of its problems), but for me, it's also the most interesting of the prequels. What I find interesting about it, is that it could have been a much more complex movie. Lucas shot a lot of material for it, but he wants the Star Wars movies to all run around 2 hours and 15 minutes, so a lot was cut, and way more than we see on the deleted scenes section on the DVD.

I'm especially interested in seeing the entire Tatooine segment, Anakin finding the farmers who went after his mother, Padme and 3PO in the garage, a conversation between Padme and Beru and Anakin and Padme viewing Obi-Wan's message in the garage.

There is a lot of other cool stuff, such as the complete version of all three the lightsaber duels (really, what where they thinking when they were editing those?!), the Jedi raid on the droidcontrolship, the original arrival on Geonosis, the Lost 20 scene, and a conversation between Mace and Yoda about the Dark Side.

I think there is a very interesting movie hidden in AOTC, but what was good about it was lost in editing and reshoots.

That's why I'm usually the most interested in fanedits of AOTC. TPM and ROTS could do with a few tweaks but AOTC is the only that really needs "fixing" in my opinion.

Watto is a great character indeed, that's why I wouldn't want him to be cut from AOTC.

Having him in Jabba's palace in ROTJ would be pretty cool. Doesn't have to be anything big, just show him in the background. I even remember rumors that we would see Watto hanging around Jabba's palace in AOTC, when the movie was in production.

^ LOL

Shmi not being freed after TPM is a big plothole. Especially Padme could have sent someone back to Tatooine to make sure Shmi would be alright, since she cared for Anakin, and owes him a little for helping her save her planet.

Maybe Obi-Wan could mention she was freed (but is still on Tatooine) when the subject is brought up in Padme's apartment. It could go something like this: "I don't know why I keep dreaming about her" - "Anakin, we freed her after Naboo, you're going to have to trust everything is fine with her", or something to that effect. I don't think we can make that work with the material we have though.

However, if we could make this work, that would solve the entire issue. I'd still keep in the Watto scene, because it's one of the few scenes that connects AOTC to TPM, just edit it down. Have Anakin ask Watto if he knows what happened to Shmi after she was freed. Maybe we could shuffle Watto's lines around to have him say "I heard she married a moisture farmer named Lars...at least I think it was Lars".

Again, very difficult to do, but it would do a lot for the story if we could make it work.

I see your point, brash_stryker. I don't mind that Anakin's turn was a conscious decision. Vader himself in the OT was a pretty calculated villain, who wasn't constantly "drunk" on the Dark Side whenever he killed anyone.

That said, I agree with you that there isn't a good sense of Anakin being turned. I don't think the problem is his motivations though: it's because he already is a pretty dark character at the start of ROTS: he already has a case of genocide below the belt, and just let himself being goaded into killing an unarmed man. After he has turned to the Dark Side, he does the same things: comitting genocide (the Jedi) and killing unarmed people (the kids and the Separatists). 

I think this can be helped if we "nicen" Anakin up, starting back in AOTC: cut him talking back at Obi-Wan in the elevator and in Padme's apartmant, cut him arguing with Padme in front of the Queen, add the scenes with Padme's family (Anakin at his nicest here, I think), tone down his creepiness around Padme, imply, but don't show the Tusken slaughter and cut the following confession.

Same goes for ROTS: cut down his whiny and brooding moments (what little there is) before the turn, and take out every display of emotion after the turn, such as him crying on Mustafar.

If we are going to make Anakin's distrust of the Jedi a big factor in his turn, here's my suggestion: after Mace sends Anakin away to inform Palpatine that Obi-Wan has engaged Grievous, let him overhear the following conversation between the Jedi about the possibility of having to force Palpatine from office and taking over the Senate. If I'm right, you can even see Mace looking over, to see if Anakin has left yet. It could fit perfectly. I'm sure there is some blue scene footage of Anakin on the ROTS DVD that we could use.

Anakin overhearing this conversation could work nicely with the earlier scene with him and Palpatine at the opera house, when Anakin confesses the Jedi don't trust Palpatine, and Palpatine accuses them of being against democracy and the Senate. It would also be nicely paid off in the turning scene where Mace as Palpatine at saberpoint and Palpatine says "I told you the Jedi were taking over".

brash_stryker said:

I think saving Padme's life being Anakin's rationale for turning to the dark side needs to be cut completely.

Either cut the dream, or replace it with a more symbolic dream sequence, and don't have Anakin mention the dream to her or promise that he can save her (Luke never talked about his vision in the cave; we just saw it, and that worked just fine)

Also get rid of all Palpatine's promises about saving her. Just keep the parts of him seducing Anakin with promises of power.

After Anakin tells Windu about palpatine being a sith, and he's in the Jedi council chamber, and you hear the echoing voice of palpatine saying "any chance of saving her will be lost" etc. Replace that with sound bytes of his senior jedi masters being critical/holding him back/saying things that hint at dishonesty, interspersed with palpatine's promises of power.

When he then rushes to stop Windu, it is clear then that it is his distrust of the Jedi, along with the promise of power that's seducing him. It's not perfect, but it's better than "I'm making a conscious decision to turn to the dark side to save my girlfriend"

I'm sorry, but I disagree with that, brash_stryker. I actually think Anakin's issues with attachment is one of the few things that works very well in the PT. It's a thread that runs through all the three movies: he leaves his mother in TPM, is too late to save her in AOTC, and in ROTS, his one attachment has become such an obsession he turns to the Dark Side over it. It's actually pretty character defining.

Anakin's whole turn in ROTS hinges on him wanting to save Padme. If we cut out all of the references to saving Padme, pretty much nothing of the turn remains. The scene in the opera house would be gone, we'd have to cut pretty much half of the scene where Palpatine reveals himself to be Sidious and the "ruminations" scene, and cut Palpatine's plea to Anakin "I have the power to save the one you love, you must choose". Also, the very moment Anakin actually decides to turn still hinges on Padme: "I will do whatever you ask, just help me save Padme's life". I think removing the "saving Padme" aspect from the turn, there would leave nothing left of the turn.

Also, where is Palpatine promising Anakin power? It's only in one scene, and that's the scene where he reveals himself to be Sidious, that's hardly a seduction.

When Anakin turns, cut Palpatine telling Anakin that he doesn't have the power to stop death. It makes no sense for Anakin to turn of Palpatine can't actually help him. Later, when Anakin has become Darth Vader, and asks about Padme, we could dub in a line of Sidious saying something like "It is too late..." followed by the original dialogue of "in your anger, you killed her". Again, Anakin realises he was too late to stop (and even had a hand in) a loved one's death, hence the agonized scream (the NoooOOOooooOO must go though). This would also keep vague whether or not Palpatine actually did have the power to stop death, which adds to his character of being a manipulator.

After Anakin has turned though, he should be evil. Cut him crying on Mustafar, make it more of a brooding scene, as if he is already plotting to overthrow Palpatine, as he later says to Padme. I don't think Anakin needs to be killing kids though, that's taking it too far, and makes him irredeemable. My suggestion is: have Mace Windu face Sidious alone. We can make that logical by adding some empty chairs in the council chamber. The Jedi are spread across the Galaxy, and there is no backup. The deaths of the other three Jedi could be reworked with footage from the Separatist slaughter, with a blue lightsaber rotoscoped in, making it look like Anakin is killing some Jedi during the raid on the temple.

Making Jango Boba could work too. I don't really mind young Boba though. I think Lucas showed just enough of him for us to figure out what will happen with him (the shot of him picking up his father's helmet at the end of the arena battle says it all) without showing everything. It's also a nice little touch we now know what Boba looks like under the helmet in the OT, without having to see it. We know he is a clone, and with seeing Jango, we'll have a good idea of what Boba looks like in the OT.

As for Jango arresting Anakin and Padme, and omitting the droidfactory sounds like a good idea too. Personally, I like the droidfactory scene, but I think we can't have both the droidfactory and Padme's conversation with Dooku. It would destroy the momentum of the movie.

I think both scenes are good and I could go with any of them, but personally, I like the droidfactory a little better. It's fun, but also helps the pacing of the movie in the end a lot.

But the scene with Dooku and Padme is still pretty good: there are some great lines in there, it's nice to see a bit more of Dooku, and finally see the two opposing sides in the war sitting down and talking face to face. I don't think that happens anywhere else in the PT.

Great ideas for the droidfactory scene, guys!

Personally, I like the scene, but it's not perfect. I see why Lucas added it (for pacing issues), but the problem with the scene is that it doesn't serve any purpose: it's an action scene for the sake of having an action scene. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't add to the characters, nor to the story.

Adding Jango could be cool, but I wonder what it would add. I'd rather see an extra scene with him and Obi-Wan. Better yet, have Obi-Wan kill him in the arena. Their "competition" never got a good pay off: we see them size each other up in conversation first, then they fight, which ends in a draw and then...nothing. I understand Lucas wanted to give Mace something to do, but I think it would have been better for that particular arc if Obi-Wan had killed him.

Anyway, if we're going to add Jango in the droidfactory, maybe we could use footage from the Bounty Hunter game for long distance shots. I like this trailer of the game too. Not sure if it's useful, but it's still cool :P

Great work on the droidfactory, ben_danger and SSWR!

I think the original scene is pretty good, it makes for some nice Star Wars action. I'm always happy to see different cuts of this scene, because I think that had it been cut a little tighter, it would have been a bit more exciting. You both did that, and I liked both of your takes a lot! I have to admit I liked SSWR's cut a little better: ben_danger took out a bit too much, taking out whatever drama it had.

What I liked best about SSWR's version was Anakin calling after Padme. I agree he overdid it a little, but in the scene as it is, Anakin gets on the conveyor belt to rescue Padme, but as the scene progresses, he leaps from belt to belt, as if not concered by saving Padme anymore. I liked that your brought that back into the scene.

Great experimenting with the music too. Has anyone ever tried to put in the music Williams wrote for the scene? I have tried to put the scene together with that music, but I couldn't really make it work. The music is great, really fits with the look of Geonosis, but I think Williams wrote the music for a different cut of the scene (which happened throughout AOTC).

Here is how I would try to put the scene together (which I'm going to try once I'm finally done with school :P): I'd cut the scene a little tighter, mostly cutting out Anakin's jumping about, making it look like he is going after Padme. Anakin calling out to Padme like SSWR did would fit nicely here.

I like Williams' music for this scene, so I'd keep that too. Not the whole track, but parts of it to highlight the action here and there. The rest of the sound could be the sound effects, this could make the factory feel a bit dirtier. Darkening the scene a little might also help a little here (and mask some of the bad effects).

Most cuts remove them completely, but I'd keep in R2 and 3PO, because I don't think Anakin saving Padme with an out of context, casual Force gesture really works. I'd cut out all of 3PO's antics: he is pushed off the ledge, and we don't see him again untill the scene is over. After Anakin and Padme are captured, I'd try to rotoscope R2 and 3PO out of that shot after the arena battle (with 3PO saying he had a peculiar dream), put in a droidfactory background, and put in a line of 3PO saying something like "we'd better get out of here". This would also eliminate them from the arena battle.

Maybe this is a little too ambitious, but it's something I'd might give a try someday, because I think there is great potential in the droidfactory.

Looks great, sketchrob.

Though personally, I like the design of Kamino. If anything, I'd like Tipoca City to be much bigger in the establishing shot. It always seemed kinda small to me, especially once you see it from the inside, with those enormous rooms where they grow and train the clones.

Great work Bingowings!

I agree with JediMasterFisher, this would be a great change to the prequels. I remember there being a lot of speculation around the time of Episodes 2 and 3 where Luke and Leia would be born. With Dagobah seeming so familiar to Luke, I too always asumed they were born on Dagobah.

Your mockup looks so good, it might actually be done. I never liked how random Polis Massa was anyway. One problem though, how are we going to get Obi-Wan, Padme and the droids from Padme's ship (which they use to leave Mustafar) to the Tantive 4?

Bingowings, if you are planning on doing a little more with Boba Fett in your edit, maybe the mockumentary Return of the Ewok could be of some use. If I remember correctly, there is some footage of Fett in the hallways of either a Star Destroyer or the Death Star.

There is a video of it on YouTube. The quality isn't very good, but maybe you can use it to see if there is any material worth salvaging in there. I'm sure there is a better quality of the video floating around on the web ;)

That deleted scene from AOTC is great. I remember everybody talking about it when it was released on Hyperspace, and knew a lot of fans signing up for Hyperspace just to be able to view that video.

To me, that scene, even in its rough form, is even more exciting than battle we see in the movie. The added subplot of the Jedi actually creates some tension: we are lead to believe the battle is won once the Jedi shut down the controlship, because it worked in TPM. But when the droids start back up, we know the situation is much more serious. Also, it shows the Jedi went into the battle with a plan.

I also like the mayhem that is going on that scene. Jedi, droids, Geonosians, and even the two remaining beasts are kicking all kinds of **** out of each other. There is a great shot in there too, of the camara panning over dead Jedi on the arena floor. With Williams' score, that could have been a very powerful moment.