brash_stryker

I've previously only posted on the Prequel Radical Redux Ideas Thread (there's a mouthful) as I've been confident that anything Adywan does with the OT will be for the better, but I feel compelled to post here just to tell you that this project is looking excellent! I wish I could contribute in some way in terms of ideas, but it would be quite superfluous. Empire is in capable hands indeed.

Also, Ady. In regards to your Falcon model kit going missing (glad to hear you've had a replacement by the way), and Paypal finding in favour of the seller, I've always been under the impression that Paypal seller protection requires that the seller provide not just proof that the item has been posted, but that delivery also be confirmed (via the item being signed for).

If this is true, and Paypal have made an unjustified decision in closing your claim (as they OFTEN do - I deal with them a lot), you may be able to claim the money back. Contact trading standards.

EDIT:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/securitycenter/sell/SellerPPOverview-outside

Copied from Paypal's seller protection policy:

"4. For items with a value of £150 or more, you need to provide proof of signature from the recipient if the buyer claims that the item did not arrive."

They can't argue with that. From my experience, Paypal are the most unscrupulous company I've ever dealt with, and they probably found it in the seller's favour on the offchance that you wouldn't contest it. Contact trading standards.

Hey Ady. If you get your money back thanks to me, can I be in your credits as 'Financial Advisor'? Haha jk! Please don't click ignore :P

Bingowings said:

Really it makes sense to swap the revenge and return around so TPM becomes Return Of The Sith (the Sith clearly return from being thought of as extinct) and the final episode returns to being Revenge Of The Jedi (despite what Lucas may say about Jedi being above such things the Jedi clearly had their arses handed to them in Episode III and return the favour in Episode VI.)

There is a Clone Wars TV DVD called  A Galaxy Divided and it evokes British Civil War dramas like By The Sword Divided.

So I'd like A Galaxy Divided  to be the Episode II title and The Shadow Falls is such a great title it really should be used at it would make a very good Episode III title.

Hi there mangojango, some really interesting ideas there, glad to have you onboard.

Sorry but I hate this idea, and I can understand why Revenge was not a suitable title in terms of relating to the Jedi. They're guardians of peace and justice. Revenge just doesn't suit them if you ask me. Personally I like Revenge of the Sith as a title, even if who the Sith are, and what they're getting revenge for is never fully explained. Star Wars needs a bit of mystery IMO. It's explaining everything that gave rise to Midichlorians. Urgh.

Bingowings said:

The clones don't attack and we haven't a clue what the Sith want revenge for, at least there is a phantomy menace in TPM.

Phantom Menace is the only title that makes any sense, but Revenge of the Sith is the only one that feels Star Warsy. *dilemma*

Haha, I know man. I wasn't worried :P

SilverKey said:

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.

I agree with sketchrob that AOTC is definitely the least watchable in its released form. I wish all the additional shot material was actually available to us. Anyone fancy breaking into the Lucasfilm archives with me a la 'Fanboys'? :P

However, I disagree that AOTC is the only one that needs fixing. IMO they all need a major overhaul.

sketchrob said:

brash_stryker said:

RISE OF THE CLONES.

OMG, I swear if one more film puts the term RISE OF in their title again, I'll throw myself from my apt window as fast as I can lol

Rise of the Machines

Rise of the Lycans

Rise of Cobra....

I predict... Breakin 3 - Rise of the Boogaloo... or The Endor Chronicles - Rise of the Golden God .... or Batteries STILL Not Included - Rise of the Saucer Bots from Mars....oh, one last one... Snakes on ANOTHER Plane - Rise of Sam Jackson's Salary lol okay back on topic.... WAIT Spaceballs 3 - Rise of Spaceballs 2....

Jeez, sorry dude. All I was saying was it makes more sense than ATTACK.

Personally, I'd have no mention of clones at all.

fishmanlee said:

brash_stryker said:

The ETA 2 was a nice transitional ship bridging the gap between prequel era republic craft and the tie fighters (in particular, Vader's Tie Advanced x1).

 

 

 wouldnt that confuse the average person too?

I don't see how it could....

Anyway, I refuse to argue over something so stupid, so this will be the last thing I'll say regarding this.

fishmanlee said:

the average person wont really care will he?
oh and i would like to meet him

Well yes. It's the average person that'll think "hey, those ships kinda look like the ones the good guys flew in. but these guys are the empire".

Whereas the fanboys will try to justify it with whatever half baked EU explanation that's been thought up to compensate for Lucas' stupidity.

fishmanlee said:

werent the blue prints for the xwings by incom?
wasnt incom owned by the empire?
and didnt the rebels steal the blue prints?

In universe explanations/backstories don't cut it for me. The average person watching these films won't have read into it as much as you have, which is why my comment still stands.

fishmanlee said:can the Eta 2s be replaced with delta7's? or delta7Bs? i have some delta7b die cast models

Just had to google those craft names :) I really liked the ETA 2s, and in contrast hated the delta 7. It just looks like a flying pizza server.

The ETA 2 was a nice transitional ship bridging the gap between prequel era republic craft and the tie fighters (in particular, Vader's Tie Advanced x1).

The ships I really did not see a point in were the ones that were meant to resemble xwings. They tried showing it as sort of a predecessor to the xwing, but this doesn't work for me, as they're on the side that would later become the Empire.

ben_danger said:

in renaming the prequels, i would encourage people to remove the term 'of the', it always seems to get in the way and is too easy. the thing i like about 'the empire strikes back' is how it is more of a statement of the whole film, almost liek the narration in a boxing match.

That would make sense. Except I think ROTS is the only prequel title that works and should stay as it is. What does everyone else think?

And yeah, I love how 'The Empire Strikes Back' succinctly summarises the plot. It may as well have been called 'Episode V: The Shit Hits The Fan' :)

Well when Adywan gets around to doing his edit, that's definitely something I imagine him attempting. Such changes are beyond the scope of my editing ability, however I plan on doing some edits to demonstrate what's possible, as I'm sure Adywan (or any other editor) will take previous edits into account if their changes work well. Changing Jango into Boba In AOTC would be one such change. Also making the clone army creation not be a secret (explained in a new crawl) thus eliminating the stupid sifo dyas detective plot that goes nowhere. That way, we don't find out there was anything dodgy about the clone army until order 66 is executed.

AOTC is such a mess. Even the title. George simply wanted the word ATTACK in there to match up with his prequel/ot similarities between titles:

Menace - Hope

Attack - Strike

Revenge - Return

The problem with this is it's not even consistent - the 2 middle ones are similar, while the others are kind of opposites.

Seems to me if the title was to make ANY sense, AND fit in with this naming convention, it would be called RISE OF THE CLONES.

Bingowings said:

brash_stryker said:

I agree, but is this doable?

It would depend on how much Palpatine after the Mace battle you want to use.

The declaration of the Empire scene should be a doddle (there is plenty of sequences of pre-change Palpatine on the Senate podium to adapt and you could keep his lips pretty much the way they are so lip sync shouldn't be a problem).

Some people would like to remove or truncate drastically the Yoda Vs Palpatine duel and even after his turn his cowl covers a multidude of latex sins.

It would be great to see what results would come from people attempting such a task.

 

So what about the scene where Anakin "turns" (and I use that term loosely) and Palpatine becomes his master? Would this be cut?

I agree, but is this doable?

EyeShotFirst said:

Palpatine really needs work. I hate the way he looks in ROTS. The makeup people went way too far. Palpatine didn't necessarily need to be all deformed. I could see it as he was old and his powers were keeping him alive which in turn made him old and wrinkly. It looks crappy. I used the same approach ady did for ESB R. I plopped the ROTJ eyes on the rest of the face and blended it. Plus I undersaturated it for flow with the rest of the saga.

This looks very impressive! Makes the world of difference. Now we just need to somehow get rid of the "lightning blowback" explanation for why he looks like this.

Luke: I won't fail you. I'm not afraid.
Yoda: You will be. You will be.

If this was to tie up with the prequel trilogy (along with exaggerated yodaisms) it would go something like this:

Luke: I won't fail you. I'm not afraid.
Yoda: Good this is. On the path to the darkside you are not. No problems have we. Fucked the emperor is.

Bingowings said:

Sometimes less is more but not always, so it would depend how it worked in an edit.

Having him already killing children (in a moment of insanity which he deeply regrets at that point) makes it easier to believe he might do it again and be more outwardly callous about it in the future (as he becomes desensitised to the horror of what he is doing).

We have no evidence that he has gone that far other than his confession.

His choice of confessor needs to change though, Palpatine makes much more sense, Padme falling in love with a self confessed child murderer makes no sense at all.

Palpatine keeping the information under his cowl does.

Agreed.

TheBoost said:

But his perfectly rational reason is almost instantly twisted, so that he kills her. It makes perfect sense. Anakin thinks he can do it, but he's wrong.

Luke couldn't give into his hatred, even if it meant that was the way he could stop Vader and Empy. If he did, his noble intentions would have been twisted and corrupted. Luke cant say "I'm just gonna tap me some Dark Side to take out Palpy, then I'll be good again." It sounds rational but it would fail, that's what Anakin tried.

(are we talking about Anakin's motivation's being incorrect in-universe? If we are we apparently agree. If we're talking about Anakin's motivations being a plot-hole as suggested by the cartoon you posted, those motivations and their consequences seem perfectly consistent to me.)

No I agree it's not a plothole. In capable hands it could have worked as his initial rationale, so long as other temptations were presented to him along the way. As it is, it's just badly executed and unconvincing.

I only posted that cartoon for laughs. Here's some others:

TMBTM said:

brash_stryker said:

TheBoost said:

 That's the whole point. The Dark Side twists and corrupts. There is no 'but I did it for such and such a good reason.' The Dark Side is an insidious cancer.

Exactly. Which is why Anakin giving rational reasons for turning to the dark side does not work.

 

 

Well, Yoda always said that fear leads to the dark side. Having fear of something (like loosing someone) is a rational reason that can lead someone to the dark side. The thing is that it cannot be the only reason, indeed. Because sometimes we all do bad things for good reasons without being bad persons in our heart. Anakin is doing bad things for good reasons, but we don't actualy really see when and why he became corrupted by the dark side. The movie needs scenes where Anakin learn more and more dark side powers that makes him feel unvulnerable and makes him loose his mind.

Well the problem with this is you're rationalising it with a prequel in-universe explanation. Any justification should be drawn from the OT in my opinion, as this is the Star Wars we know and love, before George took a crap on the franchise. In-universe reasoning aside, his turn is never convincing as a FILM. The fall from grace we were promised in the OT never happened. Anakin was a dick when he was meant to be "good" and when he turned we never got a sense he was any more evil than he was before, but rather, making conscious decisions to commit these atrocities to save his wife, rather than WANTING to do them.

EDIT: Just realised you agreed with what I said about the film never giving us a sense of him getting corrupted. Yeah more scenes (either side of him pledging allegiance to palpatine) could help, but whether this would be doable, I remain skeptical.

TheBoost said:

 That's the whole point. The Dark Side twists and corrupts. There is no 'but I did it for such and such a good reason.' The Dark Side is an insidious cancer.

Exactly. Which is why Anakin giving rational reasons for turning to the dark side does not work.

Also, going back to my point on Padme being his reason for turning to the dark side:

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

 Keep his lines the same? oh no no no! Well, some would stay the same  ;)  But that is the beauty of dubbing! I will work on a video to show you what I'm thinking...

Do you mean, along the lines of having him say his lines normally whenever we see his lips move, but whenever there's a cutaway (or an editing opportunity for one) having new lines?

Much like I imagine Trooperman's (if I'm not mistaken) edit is doing with Anakin's dialogue. He's definitely someone who needs to be dubbed. His voice just grates on me so much. Sounds whiny even when he's not whining.

I was thinking that this way perhaps it would just be assumed by the audience that he'd freed her, and knew her whereabouts.

Makes more sense her having been freed than him saying "I don't know why I keep dreaming about her"

Errrrr, how about because you left her high and dry enslaved on tatooine, you evil bastard?

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

This is good stuff SilverKey! Also I agree with brash_stryker about the "to maintain a peaceful transition" line.

Thanks for the feedback on the vid brash_stryker! :D

Yeah, so talking about that scene with Mace saying "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi"...how do you guys feel about redubbing Mace for the PT? I think it could go a long way...not only for his character but for the plot as well. Thoughts?

Not sure how doable redubbing mace entirely would be, along with what it would actually achieve. The lines would afterall be the same, right?

Who's for removing the scene with Watto saying he sold Shmi, and just having Anakin turn up at the Lars Homestead? (as well as cutting the wooden introductions from Owen and the one from Cliegg) That way it can be assumed that the Jedi/Anakin came back to at least free the poor woman after the events of episode 1.

SilverKey said:

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".

That could work VERY nicely. The only problem with this I see is the bit about the Jedi having to take over the republic "to maintain a peaceful transition". WHY?! We saw in Episode 1 that as soon as a Chancellor was removed from office, another was immediately elected in his place. Mace only said this because George's shitpile of a plot needed him to, so in my opinion, this part needs to be cut so he merely says about removing him from office. NOT the Jedi taking control. I think this would still suffice as something for anakin to overhear though, as not only are they talking about interfering with government, but they are also excluding him.

And also, yes, one of the other big problems of his turn is that the audience already see Anakin as a complete asshole anyway. If we can tone down the whining/bitching/creepiness in AOTC, then his turn can be a bit more shocking and we might actually start to LIKE him. Also, that Anakin with Padme's family scene, in AOTC whilst being a bit cheesy, works very well in the Phantom Editor's edit, and actually makes us like the guy, so I see this scene as a must for replacing much of the gag worthy and wooden romance scenes.

I think the tusken murdering scene needs to be left in, whether in full, or as you say implied. It's a powerful, and character defining scene- he's not necessarily an asshole, but overwhelmed by his anger and grief. What definitely needs to change is Padme knowing about it and still loving the guy. It should be a secret weighing down on him, and the only person he's confided in about it is palpatine.