brash_stryker

Entirely different voices I'm afraid...

Whatever route you go down Bob, I have replicas of each saber in the movie (though mostly the superior ANH versions) ;) I'd be happy to photograph them from whatever angle you wish.

Edit: Changed to higher quality pictures off the net.

Also worth noting, Master Replicas created an Episode 3 Vader Saber (even though we never see the prop)

I think at the apartment before Anakin leaves for Mustafar is the logical place for him to discard it, and therefore the logical place for Obi to obtain it. If someone could film a replica graflex saber against a 'greenscreen' surface and then a robed arm picking it up, Bob could maybe use it to show it on (and being picked up from) a table in the apartment?

Or it doesn't even have to be physically picked up (thus a static image of the prop could be used). Just a lingering shot of it on the table as they discuss Anakin (and then the baby)

I don't remember what the apartment looks like or if such a table exists though.

If I had a full sized replica of the saber, I'd happily do it myself, however I only have the .45 scaled replica.

But that's only if Bob were to decide to go that route. It's my preferred route, but it's not my decision :)

I'm not a fan in general of changing the OT to suit the PT, but it's your edit :)

It makes a difference primarily because he abandons his blue saber in becoming Darth Vader. It doesn't become a tool of evil as in the original cut.

Giving "Darth Anakin" a special saber for him as a sith means the saber Luke gets is still the weapon of a good man and hasn't been used to murder children.

Obi Wan saying "your father wanted you to have this" is still a bit of a lie, but less so. i.e. he WOULD have wanted you to have this, had he not turned to the dark side. It emphasises that Anakin "died" when he renounced his saber. Luke's father is not the same person that he defeats on Mustafar.

Indeed. I know a lot of "factual" info from the books, but if it defies logic (as it often does, as they pay very little care to what they write and even less so to maintaining continuity with the old info once the prequels came along) then I'm going to use the films as my primary source of "canon". Not an accompanying book.

You're arguing about info that the writers pulled out of their asses and Lucas probably ok'd without even reading. This info changes all the time. It's not important at all.

SilverKey said:

Maybe it would be an idea for an AOTC edit to show Anakin with a green lightsaber, and have him have a blue one in ROTS, so we can assume he built a new one? The one he has in ROTS now is just the spare he got on Geonosis.

Nope. Different sabers. He DID build a new one, just we don't see him build it.

SilverKey said:

And when would Obi-Wan get the saber? If we'd go Bob's route, the saber would be on Coruscant, and Obi-Wan was stuck on Tatooine at the end of ROTS.

Why can't you imagine him grabbing the saber at ANY time between him finding out Anakin is a Sith and getting to Tattooine? Whether Bob finds a way to show it or not, it's not important how he gets hold of it. The audience can fill in the gaps if need be. ANYTHING is better than Obi Wan saying "your father wanted you to have this" when really he stole it off his smouldering legless corpse.

Rogue Leader said:

Mmm... "EU be damned..." lol... I couldn't care less.....

Pet peeve of mine. Sorry ;)

Erikstormtrooper said:

Here's a thought:

If Sidious gives Anakin his new Sith saber, maybe we can assume Anakin just keeps both. But the old blue one stays out of sight until the very end of the Mustafar battle.

Right before Anakin says "you underestimate my power", there's a wide shot of him standing on the floating platform. If you reverse the sequence of these 2 shots, in the wide shot you can then add an ignition of his blue saber in his left hand - so he'll have a saber in each hand. He'll make the jump with both sabers and will drop both when Obi Wan cuts him down. When Obi Wan picks up the blue saber, you can even rotoscope in the red saber sitting nearby. (Maybe that can be a symbol of Obi Wan clinging to the good side of Anakin while rejecting the bad).

Now THAT is a potentially great idea. And very symbolic =D

DuTwan said:

Just a visual crystal idea i had.

 

Only problem I see here is that it's not really that obvious what it is. Also I've never agreed with glowing crystals. Damn the cartoons and computer games! In fact I've never agreed with coloured crystals in general. The way I always imagined it, the crystal is essentially clear, and the colour of the blade would be dictated by the specific and unique internal nature of the crystal and revealed to the Jedi building it when it's first ignited.

How wouldn't it "make sense" in ANH? So you're saying that just because we don't see Obi Wan physically picking up the saber in ROTS, that the audience can't connect the dots themselves and assume he's recovered (Jedi) Anakin's discarded saber off camera at some point?

Are you Lucas? lol

Regardless, seeing Obi Wan picking up the lightsaber after cutting off Anakin's legs and leaving him to burn to death just makes you think "what a lying bastard" in ANH when he says "your father wanted you to have this"

It has to go!

At least this way, he's not giving Luke a saber he used as Darth Vader that was used to murder children.

And as for the hilt in the battle matching the one Sidious gives him...who on earth has a quick enough eye to spot it unless they know what they're looking for...plus Vader's saber didn't match between ANH, ESB and ROTJ anyway. In fact, the ROTJ one was completely different and made from an entirely different camera flash because they lost the ANH/ESB prop.

I think (hope) the red saber ANH clip is intended as a joke. :p

Coov, one can assume that Obi Wan picking up the saber near the burning Anakin would be cut. And unless a way can be found to actually show Obi Wan finding his discarded saber at some other time, it can just be assumed, come ANH, that he's found it after the events of the movie.

In the apartment scene with Padme when Obi Wan tells her he's turned, maybe it could be possible to insert the saber there, suggesting that Anakin's been back and discarded it....I dunno.

I agree that the saber ignition looks a bit wrong. It's hard to get the angle right when you have no point of reference though. I say put more emphasis on what's inside the opening hatch (by creating a closeup) and leave actually seeing the saber lit until the attack on the temple. Excellent work though :)

If not, he can hardly write back to correct you...

Bingowings said:

I know you are going to hate me for asking this (especially after all your hard work) but is it even remotely possible to ditch Palpatine (and Yoda) ever using a lightsaber and still keep the scenes?

I agree that Palps should never use a lightsaber, just like Yoda. However you've got to think about what's possible without reshooting. I imagine it would be possible if you reshot a new actor from certain angles, but as a straight edit with some AE tinkering, it would be almost impossible. And if it is, you'd have to get VERY creative with the editing (only using closeup shots of palpatine from the front or shots from behind where you can't see his hand gripping the saber, and erase the saber blade from all shots - which with the Prequels' apparent disdain for static shots, replacing the sabers with background would largely have to be done frame by frame)

Of course, Mace Swinging his saber would have to go then too, unless you want him hitting air? Palps stopping his blows with the force? :p

Oh my god! You magician! Add a brief closeup shot as the panel opens and it'd be perfect. Wow. Seriously in awe here. You've got to keep this.

And yeah, the red glow on the tip of the saber makes little sense, but you should still illuminate the compartment red, like it's lined with leds.

I believe Jaitea just made a point that modern advertising has lost its touch, whereas Ady with his one man project is getting us more excited than Lucasfilm has in years with official releases...

I don't think there was a suggestion of Ady commercially endorsing his edit (other than inadvertantly gaining exposure from positive word of mouth) plus Ady isn't stupid enough to invite a lawsuit. Nor would promoting something he can't possibly make money from be in his interest either.

I think people give Lucas too much credit when they see metaphors in what he writes. In all likelihood, they were probably an excuse to insert more CGI :P

Glad you liked my video, though I can't say I've executed it very well. This is how the scene appears in my cut (at the moment anyway)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK6iTx3it0c

Unfortunately, that's always going to be a problem with it unless someone gets rid of the droid entirely and finds some way of showing her attempting the assassination directly. :-/

Why the bugs are necessary in the first place, I don't know.

Red Letter Media pointed out as much in his review....basically stating "if a droid can get deadly centipedes into a room, why not just shoot her? KABLAMO! No more Amidala." =p

Seeing as this is the only place Benja's scene is being discussed I may as well post it here. I decided to see what a hybrid of my version and Benja's without a leaping Obi Wan would look like. It's very rough and the sound is all over the place, but I only spent 15 minutes or so on it. If I was doing this in my edit, i'd be a lot more meticulous in choosing appropriate shots. it's a little too fast paced the way it is now, but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siFkMU9pQW8

Haha I didn't mean for it to come across as "duking it out". I apologise if I got a bit passionate in my rebuttal =)

bobgarcia74 said:

Good ideas everone I'll see what can be done. right now I'm tampering with the window behind palaptine. This shot would be in the dark tho. I was thinking of having the window being blown in right after he lights his saber and attacks. Almost as if Palpatine gathering of the Dark side has done it. It will also sell the lights going out.

Just a test shot on one half of the window.

Hmmm,  not sure about this one. Will have to see it in motion. The lights flickering with a force rumble effect before dying down to almost nothing is a must, but I think the glass smashing might be too much. With the lights it's more ominous and atmospheric. With the glass it detracts from the impact of Palpatine moving so unnervingly quickly because we've already had something sudden happen.

MTHaslett said:

I respectfully disagree. How could the original cut be "more" ridiculous? At least he had seen her-- that his attention to the Force allows him to predict her route to some degree is totally in line with what they tell us the Force can do.

How does having "seen" her have any relevance at all to how they track her down? (having "seen" her is also pure speculation on your part as you don't see any reaction from Obi Wan to even imply that he's spotted her before she shoots the droid)

Did you see how far he fell?! All the while she flies off in an unknown direction. Him having (apparently) seen her makes no difference. They find her "through the force" (at least that's the only explanation that comes to mind seeing as it would be otherwise impossible for him to have known where she was headed, nor did he relay this information to anakin, who is after all the one who's flying, or for them to have even been on the same altitude as her so quickly). Both methods of finding her are "through the force" however the original is much more far fetched as Anakin tracks down two people travelling at high velocity through a massively populated city, miles from his original location and miles apart from eachother. All through the force.

MTHaslett said:

The new cut exaggerates the flaws of the original. By finding the culprit without the slightest trail or clue, in the space of a single cut gives them extra superpowers that we never see anywhere else in the saga. If they can do this, they can never be fooled or lost or anything.

Nope. The way mrbenja has cut it leaves Zam's location open to interpretation. She could be around the corner or across the street (which is implied by the shot of her immediately making an escape after she's seen that her plan has backfired).  You're implying that mrbenja's cut makes the Jedi seem infallible, yet you're saying it's completely fine that Anakin can pinpoint her exact location miles away, having just done exactly the same with Obi Wan too. Lol. It's not far fetched at all when you interpret Zam as being nearby.

MTHaslett said:

But by having Obi Wan jump out the window and grab the floating thingy, Obi Wan at least gets dragged in the direction of the bad guy. At least they get a hint about, I don't know, what point on the compass they should be looking in. What half of the city. What general area to focus their amazing powers. Without that, it's like a Superfriends cut-- no connecting tissue of logic at all-- just: "Hey, there he is!"

MTHaslett said:

When Anakin and Obi Wan follow the drone, they are given "clues" to follow back to the culprit. Without that, the jump cut is too vast and illogical for me, especially considering the material that is cut makes at least as much sense, if not more.

Erm...how do they get any "clues" exactly? In the form of what? Obi's the only one being dragged along, and Anakin finds Obi Wan and the Assassin's location without Obi Wan relaying anything other than "there he is" when they've already caught up with her. And they never even get a chance to implement any "clues" as they find her just like THAT! The way you've described it as a "superfriends" cut is exactly how the original plays out!

Bingowings said:

It might be better to shift the "I understand" to after Mace has said he isn't a Master but still have Anakin give everyone a bit of dirty look (dropping the "What?").

Your take is better but it still shows Anakin's hand too openly.

^ This. Anakin being pissed off should just be implied. We should be eliminating all these whiny "throwing all his toys out of his pram" moments.

Also, I find it hilarious that in Lucasfilm, the left hand never seems to know what the right hand is doing. They seem to want to establish in this film (out of sheer convenience I'm guessing) that Anakin would be the first non-master ever assigned to the council in the history of the Jedi. Yet I remember reading specifically in previous books (notably the visual dictionaries) that Ki-Adi-Mundi was the only Jedi Knight currently on the council, and this was because he had not yet taken a Padawan. So not only have they fucked up continuity between a (factual- not eu) book and film within a 3 year period, but also they've changed the meaning of master from having trained an apprentice, to just being some shallow rank.

Irrelevant if you view these films as self contained, but it just shows that Lucas doesn't give a shit about continuity and will force any bullshit storyline or facts in order to get his contrived CGI laden events to happen.