Vladius

Whatever it is you do with it, count me in for helping out.

Judge said:

Not sure if this has been suggested before, and I don't really want to dig through 234 pages of ideas, so here's mine.

What if we deleted The Phantom Menace altogether and, through reconstitution of deleted scenes (as well as little bits of TPM) make Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith into three films?

It makes sense imo, as TPM is basically completely inconsequential to the saga, but it would probably be pretty hard to execute.

That's kinda what I've been doing, just as a TV miniseries sort of thing. It works really well, because the Episode 1 "resolve the attack on our sovereignty in the senate" and Episode 2 "we need Amidala here" and "create the Clone Army with a vote" things fit together nicely.

Exactly. The battle droid is a subtle change. It's a piece of clutter that makes you go "huh, that's cool," not a change in appearance of an entire main character after their arc is finished.

Does anyone have sources for Ian McDiarmid lines?

I'm making major changes to the order of events and I need him (or someone else from Star Wars) to have a line about killing in order to preserve life, or ending one life and beginning another one.

I like it because it still shows he's vulnerable, but resourceful. It's a sort of flipped version of ESB, where he spends a lot of his time getting taken out by stronger forces, but there's still a scene early on where he destroys an AT-AT by himself. With the rancor it's the same sort of exception that proves the rule, just the other way around.

I'm still all for removing it, but if it stayed I think it would be better to have some conservative Jedi (e.g. the Jedi Council) have problems with it, but not others (maybe Obi Wan, following after Qui Gon,) and it's not really a secret, Anakin just doesn't want to bring it up at sensitive times.

IIRC, it's actually "attachment" which is forbidden, which kind of fits in with Luke being held back from going to cloud city. The idea is to make the Jedi more like monk ascetics. It wasn't executed very well and it would be better to achieve it in other ways, but that was the intention.

That's like shooting an arrow and painting a bullseye around it. Having yellow eyes is an effect, not a cause. If you don't address or don't like the causes then it doesn't make any sense.

It's a visually oriented medium, right, but that doesn't mean you need a cue. Yellow eyes would be redundant because Mark Hamill's expressions say it all.

Alright, so that's your opinion, we can't change your opinion, but how is any of this improved with blatantly obvious Lucas-league yellow sith eyes?

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

He doesn't reference it explicitly because he doesn't need to. Does he need to spell out that killing the leaders of the Empire would help people fighting the Empire?

Not explicitly, depending on how it's written, but even if that is the thought process that luke has in the scene, it's in spite of what the emperor is saying and not as a result of it......which kind of hurts the emperor's characterization as a master manipulator to me.

Well, if he tried to do it that way in the open, it would make him look weak. A large part of persuading someone is appearing confident and powerful to them. If the Emperor started talking about friendship and compassion and serving the greater good, it would be even more out of character for someone who's pure evil. He understands the complexities of the situation without having to acknowledge them. That's what makes him the manipulator who's in control.
Another problem with him telling Luke to do a little evil to serve the greater good is that it's not really that evil, either way, to kill the Emperor. He would be doing everybody a service, and doing his job as a military commander. It's just a straightforward good action that can be done for the wrong reasons. The point is what happens afterwards - if he does it in anger, then he will turn to the dark side, so he has to hide and steady himself until he can confront them properly for the right reasons.
I still don't see how what he says is contradictory, even if it is different.

He doesn't reference it explicitly because he doesn't need to. Does he need to spell out that killing the leaders of the Empire would help people fighting the Empire?

 

Sepharih said:

He should have played up on Luke's compassion towards his friends and his desire to save them (mirroring anakin's fall more), trying to convince him to give in to temptation....to do just a little evil to do a greater good.

Instead he pretty much barks about how Luke has already fallen and just doesn't realize it yet, to give into his anger towards palpatine because there is no hope left already, and to strike in vengeance and turn to darkness.

At no point in the entire exchange does palpatine ever imply anything except that luke should just give into his hatred and anger of what palpatine has done, and turn evil.  He even chides luke by declaring his friends are his weakness.

 

They, of course are his weakness....but pointing that out along with everything else he says and does is antithetical to what I'm talking about.  He uses the danger they are in to bring out the anger in luke and get luke to unleash his rage at vader and himself, rather than as a way to tempt luke into playing by his rules.....give in a little and do a little evil ultimately towards a greater good.

Why should it mirror Prequel Anakin?

Why can't he be doing both? He's clearly fine with Luke falling in any way possible. He wants Luke to be his apprentice, but he also wants Luke to kill him in anger, and he's happy when Luke attacks Vader. All of these things would lead to the outcome he wants. This isn't a contradiction, it's just using all of his available options.

He says his faith in his friends is his weakness, not his friends themselves. He's referring to their ability to blow up the Death Star ("soon I'll be dead, and you with me") not Luke's desire to save them.

Sepharih said:

 

Yeah, sorry, but I'm not buying that the scene does what i'm talking about "subtly" when Palpatine's dialogue flat out contradicts what I'm talking about.

How?

In other news, I think it's too unclear that Darth Vader disapproves of the Emperor electrocuting his son. He should say "no," maybe once or twice. And just to be sure we know his suit is malfunctioning after it's zapped, there should be sparks coming out of it.

It's also not clear that the stormtroopers on Tatooine are not on an alien planet. We need to rectify this with dinosaurs. Speaking of which, Tatooine isn't strange enough, there needs to be some cartoony antics in the background with robots and jawas or something, maybe when the landspeeder first goes into Mos Eisley?

It's also unclear what Han Solo's motivation for shooting Greedo is, I mean, how is he going to get him all the way to Jabba without Han escaping? Maybe if Greedo shot at him first it would make more sense.

Oh wow, we could go so far with this. I think it's too unclear that Luke is afraid when falling down a giant pit, he should be screaming a little bit. He should also be crying out in terror when the wampa attacks, and there should be little blue flames coming out of his mouth to show that he's scared. Maybe we can rotoscope in some little "tendrils" of the Force to show that he's using the Force to pick up his lightsaber. And the wampa should be more visible, we should see it a lot so that it's more scarier.

muddyknees2000 said:

Monroville said:

Also keep in mind guys that the Sith eyes were already established with Ian McDiarmid's make-up:

 Alot more subtly done than in the prequels

 Yeah, they should be a gradual, permanent thing rather than something temporary whenever you're angry, and they should be sickly, not bright. The villains in Star Wars make things less colorful, not more.

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

There are, you're not seeing them.
You think that he's turning to the dark side when he attacks Vader, he's not. He's angry at the idea that Vader will try to turn Leia, along with everything else that happened, but that's the thing that makes him actually start attacking. It's well established already that they love each other, romantically or platonically, in all three of the movies. In the same movie, Luke has rescued Leia and showed concern for her well being. There is a scene where he tells her that they're brother and sister.

His "near turn" is within the duel after he starts attacking, when he goes from participating to becoming the aggressor. This is because he is using his anger to help him succeed, which has natural consquences that are also well established. That's why he looks surprised and disturbed with himself after cutting off Vader's hand. He's realizing that he's gone farther than he intended to.

That's fine, but at what point can we suspend our disbelief to think that Luke would actually turn to the darkside here?  If one moment of weakness and anger is truly enough to cause a complete and total fall to darkness without any other motivation for our main character it makes the story feel extremely shallow to me.

1. It's not complete and total, but it's on the same path ("once you start on the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny," it's gradual but requires a start, this is the start)
2. It's not one moment because the entirety of the scene is the "moments" when he's having inner conflict
3. It's also not one moment because it's already shown that he can recklessly act for his emotions in the previous movie when he goes to Cloud City against the wishes of people wiser than he is

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

 That's the problem, you're oversimplifying a situation that was never simple. It's partially the Emperor/Darth Vader's influence in the Force, y'know, like Yoda and Obi Wan told Luke many times over the course of both ESB and ROTJ, and partially Luke's other motivations, which the Emperor exploits.

 

I'm saying that there should be more established and better developed motivations for Luke's near turn.....and you're saying that it's the emperor's power of persuasion in the force that defies rational.

 

There are, you're not seeing them.
You think that he's turning to the dark side when he attacks Vader, he's not. He's angry at the idea that Vader will try to turn Leia, along with everything else that happened, but that's the thing that makes him actually start attacking. It's well established already that they love each other, romantically or platonically, in all three of the movies. In the same movie, Luke has rescued Leia and showed concern for her well being. There is a scene where he tells her that they're brother and sister.

His "near turn" is within the duel after he starts attacking, when he goes from participating to becoming the aggressor. This is because he is using his anger to help him succeed, which has natural consquences that are also well established. That's why he looks surprised and disturbed with himself after cutting off Vader's hand. He's realizing that he's gone farther than he intended to.

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

Then don't watch Star Wars I guess. (???)
Is Obi Wan tricking a storm trooper because the storm trooper is a less powerful mind 10x the cop out of him dicing them to pieces with a lightsaber?

The thing is, he does both.
He does both with Anakin, you seem to have no problems with that. He wants the power to save Padme, his love, who he fears losing, and to kill the Tusken Raiders in vengeance for his mother's sake.
Why is it wrong when it's done in a more subtle way? Luke wants the power to save his friends, who he loves, who he fears losing, and to kill Darth Vader and the Emperor out of vengeance for the ones already lost.

I do have problems with Anakin's turn.  My problem with Luke's near turn is that while it has a decent amount of buildup and drama.....the motivation is not clear and therefore kills tension.  My problem with Anakin's turn is that his motivation makes sense (within the context of the story mind you)....but it's far too sudden and too much like a switch going off that it hurts the story.

Tricking a stormtrooper is a plot device/character development for obi-wan kenobi.  The problem I have isn't that it disobeys the rules of the universe, but that explaining Luke/Anakin's motivation as simply the emperor's influence in the force makes for a less compelling story.

 That's the problem, you're oversimplifying a situation that was never simple. It's partially the Emperor/Darth Vader's influence in the Force, y'know, like Yoda and Obi Wan told Luke many times over the course of both ESB and ROTJ, and partially Luke's other motivations, which the Emperor exploits.

If you want to go off of how much "tension" you feel, which is pretty arbitrary and not at all indicative of the rest of the viewing population, I think that scene is the most tense in all of them.
The point of the tension is not "oh no, Luke is going to turn to the dark side," which might be your problem. The point is that by this time there's so many things as stake, there's questions that it raises, not answers - will Darth Vader kill Luke? will Luke kill his own father? will Luke turn to the dark side? will Luke be able to save his friends? will the Emperor be able to exploit the end result of the duel?
That's why when Luke realizes what he's done, and he drops his lightsaber, and he says that he's a Jedi, it's a very triumphant moment. He refuses to let his emotions get the better of him. You're thinking of it as a "near turn" when the turn isn't the point, it's about the characters. Maybe Luke doesn't have sufficient motivation to turn! But that's irrelevant, it's that he easily could have without a decision to make on his part.

Emotions aren't about cost-benefit analysis, after all. The Dark Side is always described as "seducing" people. Unless you're enacting a fantasy in artificial conditions, do you ever want to be seduced? It's shown time after time that the Force intensifies your emotions, which is why using the Force in anger or fear or other powerful emotions leads you to the dark side. There's something supernatural about the evil in the Star Wars universe, because there's something supernatural about the Force in general.

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

 No, it's just more subtle. Can't the audience figure it out on their own that killing the Emperor is part of the victory, and leads to the celebration across the galaxy later on? Just like how people with the Force being angry does not mean they suddenly get yellow eyes, but it's still clear that they're angry and that the Force intensifies their feelings.

He's persuading him through multiple angles - through vengeance and anger, through exploiting his compassion ("they do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor,") through his desire for power.

You're acting like all these things come out of left field with no precedent, when Obi Wan and Yoda told Luke already. They told him to confront Vader, something he already struggled with - now that he has a reason to be angry at Vader, he snaps. He had to hide in order to avoid fighting him. You can see the concern and stress on his face, he feels overwhelmed psychologically from the weight of the Emperor and Vader tempting him, like Frodo with the Ring. It's clearly implied that even if there is no specific goal that Luke would achieve, the Emperor's powers of persuasion are powerful enough to defy reason.

Sorry....but saying the emperor's powers of persuasion are powerful enough to defy reason as a way to explain lack of character motivation is 10x the cop-out of giving someone yellow eyes to indicate they're evil in my book.

It does come out of left field for me, because the fact that he's had time to steel himself and he's been told by everyone how conniving palpatine is and to not underestimate him means that palpatine needs to have a pretty big ace up his sleeve to get to him.  He does, in fact, have such an ace....but he plays it totally wrong in my view to have any reasonable tension in the scene.

He should have played up on Luke's compassion towards his friends and his desire to save them (mirroring anakin's fall more), trying to convince him to give in to temptation....to do just a little evil to do a greater good.

Instead he pretty much barks about how Luke has already fallen and just doesn't realize it yet, to give into his anger towards palpatine because there is no hope left already, and to strike in vengeance and turn to darkness.

Then don't watch Star Wars I guess. (???)
Is Obi Wan tricking a storm trooper because the storm trooper is a less powerful mind 10x the cop out of him dicing them to pieces with a lightsaber? I just explained his motivations. He's confused, and stressed, and battered, and ready to snap, and he cares deeply for the fate of his friends and family.

The thing is, he does both.
He does both with Anakin, you seem to have no problems with that. He wants the power to save Padme, his love, who he fears losing, and to kill the Tusken Raiders in vengeance for his mother's sake.
Why is it wrong when it's done in a more subtle way? Luke wants the power to save his friends, who he loves, who he fears losing, and to kill Darth Vader and the Emperor out of vengeance for the ones already lost.

Sepharih said:

Vladius said:

 

Vladius said:

...the Emperor shows Luke that the rebels are losing and that he can save them by turning,

I disagree....and if that is what he's saying it's not well established.  The only thing he plays on is getting luke to strike him down in anger....when does he imply that if he turns he can spare the rebels?

 

 Were you asleep when he mentioned how badly the rebels were losing, "see for yourself," and then told Luke, multiple times, to take his weapon and kill him?

 

...did you read my post?

 

The only thing he does is tell luke to strike him down in VENGANCE for what he has done.  He even flat out tells Luke "strike me down, and your Journey towards the darkside will be complete!!!"

Where in that does he say "be my servant and I will spare your friends".  Or "learn my power, surpass me....power to save your friends."

 

Now that WOULD have made his close turn far more convincing....but that's not the direction they went.

 No, it's just more subtle. Can't the audience figure it out on their own that killing the Emperor is part of the victory, and leads to the celebration across the galaxy later on? Just like how people with the Force being angry does not mean they suddenly get yellow eyes, but it's still clear that they're angry and that the Force intensifies their feelings.

He's persuading him through multiple angles - through vengeance and anger, through exploiting his compassion ("they do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor,") through his desire for power.

You're acting like all these things come out of left field with no precedent, when Obi Wan and Yoda told Luke already. They told him to confront Vader, something he already struggled with - now that he has a reason to be angry at Vader, he snaps. He had to hide in order to avoid fighting him. You can see the concern and stress on his face, he feels overwhelmed psychologically from the weight of the Emperor and Vader tempting him, like Frodo with the Ring. It's clearly implied that even if there is no specific goal that Luke would achieve, the Emperor's powers of persuasion are powerful enough to defy reason.

 

Vladius said:

...the Emperor shows Luke that the rebels are losing and that he can save them by turning,

I disagree....and if that is what he's saying it's not well established.  The only thing he plays on is getting luke to strike him down in anger....when does he imply that if he turns he can spare the rebels?

 Were you asleep when he mentioned how badly the rebels were losing, "see for yourself," and then told Luke, multiple times, to take his weapon and kill him?

Actually it's one of the best parts of the movies ever. There's plenty of lead up - Yoda tells Luke not to underestimate the powers of the Emperor, Luke knows he has to confront Vader, the Emperor shows Luke that the rebels are losing and that he can save them by turning, he draws attention to Luke's weapon, both the Emperor and Vader taunt and persuade and attack him the whole time, and finally, Vader goes for where he is most vulnerable, with his care for his family. It's perfect as it is, don't cheapen it with Lucas-level obviousness.

Remove episode designations! Roman numerals to the back of the line!

The idea is, you watch em in this order, with no episode designations:
A New Hope
Clash of the Jedi
The Empire Strikes Back
Agents of Evil
Return of the Jedi

This would work for the same reason that the 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 order works better (see the thread about that) because it preserves the twists and develops the characters at about the same time they are introduced in the OT.

Proposed crawls:

STAR WARS

Clash of the Jedi 

The galaxy is at peace. The wandering Jedi Knights keep order

and justice in the lawless areas. 
 
In the darkness, a threat stirs. Led by the

warrior Darth Vader, the army of the greedy Separatist Confederation

makes an attack on the tranquil world of Alderaan. 
 
Two Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi and his elder brother Qui Gon, lead the 
liberation of the conquered planet...

STAR WARS 
Agents of Evil 

The Republic's Clone Army is hard pressed to battle the Confederation. 
The Jedi are caught in the brutal fighting, spread thin across the galaxy. 

The evil Darth Vader has risen again. With the knowledge of the corrupted Jedi,  
he has swept into Coruscant and captured its Chancellor. 
 
Above the city planet, Anakin Skywalker and his mentor Obi Wan race to  
rescue the beloved leader...

Clash of the Jedi (or a better title) is Episodes I and II.

It starts off with the final battle of TPM, sans Gungans (if permission is obtained, perhaps Lone Gungan Edition's version.) This starts off with Qui Gon talking to the droid about taking the people to Coruscant, but flipped horizontally so he is going towards the end of the hangar where Maul arrives.

Naboo is Alderaan. Obi Wan and Qui Gon (both full Knights) are brothers. After the duel of the fates, Qui Gon's final words are taken as cryptic; Obi Wan only later finds out that a boy single handedly destroyed the control ship. The next scenes show the podrace and the events surrounding it, where Qui Gon went through considerable effort to free the boy from slavery. The camera pulls back, and an older, Ep2 era Obi Wan is watching the footage (recorded by R2 I guess) in the library (just a database he has access to, no Jedi affiliation.) The movie then proceeds as an even shorter Attack of the Phantom-esque cut of Episode 2, which is a pretty good standalone movie when edited correctly. Most of the new cuts would be in scenes with Palpatine where Anakin does not appear, and scenes with the Jedi, who are relatively unimportant. The idea is to keep the focus on the main characters, something the OT does very well.

The major changes are that Anakin and Padme as a couple are not secret, as there's no reason for them to be, and Anakin takes Padme to Tatooine, not because he has a vision of his mother, who isn't a slave, but because he wants to show off his new girlfriend to his mom, and his sister Beru. Only then, he finds out she's kidnapped. The Sand People aren't just some indigenous beast people, they're a failed attempt at making clones by the Confederation, which is why they're humanoid with the weird masks, and they're insane. Anakin has a real motive for revenge on the (real) bad guys, and Padme can be more forgiving - they are pretty close to animals, and they were specifically created to be evil barbarians. Padme is a hawk encouraging a normally peaceful Anakin to war, or at least a supporter of the creation of the army, which explains why she is a target of assassination.

Instead of a large, organized body, the Jedi are roaming warriors who decide what they want to do. The Jedi in the temple under Mace Windu work directly for the Senate. This explains why they don't send more Jedi to go fight Darth Maul, why Mace arrests Palpatine in the name of the senate, etc.
There could also be a subplot similar to Han Solo returning to help Luke blow up the Death Star. The Senate Jedi scold Obi Wan and Anakin for recklessness, but they show up at the end to save them anyway.
Ideally, borrowing Spence's idea, Darth Maul is just Darth Vader, which is an honorific title of the most powerful evil Jedi (no Sith, just evil Jedi.) In the next movie General Grievous is the new Darth Vader reborn, as other people suggested. This is an easy change to make as it can be done in the crawl and most of episode 1 isn't there.

Also as other people suggested, Geonosis and Tatooine are the same. The enemy army is hidden on the other side of the planet, maybe Anakin finds out from a redubbed (car salesman?) C3PO or a dubbed tusken raider.

For simplicity's sake, Boba and Jango Fett are the same, and the Federation and the Separatists are just the Separatist Confederation. Dooku is not named, but called "the Count," and this way, he shows up in the same movie as Qui Gon, which makes him being his master more powerful.
Yoda is not seen until the (Force only!) fight at the end, where the Count and Obi Wan both recognize him. Maybe there's an offscreen line where Obi Wan addresses him as master. He is a mysterious figure so when he comes next in ESB, it's even better.

Agents of Evil is mostly Episode III.
The main changes would be:
Darth Plageuis is Darth Vader instead, a legend.
Anakin keeps his visions about Padme a secret. She dies in childbirth while he is away, relatively early on. Anakin is too ashamed of his dealings to go to the funeral. The deaths of the Jedi feed directly into his ability to keep her alive. Mace Windu's death triggers a scene of her waking up, and the ruminations scene takes place after Anakin marches into the temple (of course he's crying!) This lets her stay alive long enough to be Leia's mom that she remembers. It also explains why she dies while she is still young; Vader no longer cares, and there are no Jedi left to kill to keep her alive. Bail Organa is the king of Alderaan after Padme is seen as dead, making Leia an actual princess.

This is a good video for this, credit to The Cutter:
Padme still alive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adxvS_vjOTo&feature=channel_video_title

The Cutter has another good one that's been posted before, where Padme "no longer has any meaning" to Vader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvpT_7BMAc
 

Obi Wan and Padme conspire (possible explanation by C3PO, he's not doing anything else on that ship) to fake her continued pregnancy in order to hide the children from Anakin, which is why she's still got the belly on Mustafar, unless someone wanted to do the creepy work of removing it.

Sorry about that, nevermind, I found it!

Angel said:

Are the cutscenes in HD?

Im afraid the quality differences might be too obvious :/

-Angel

Are you suggesting Star Maps on Tatooine and Coruscant? :O

Or putting the actual Forge in an opening sequence, or in the final battle?