cap

Jaitea said:

Sorry to be a pain again, but I've taken on board the suggestions made, I've time-stretched the 'Luke' and added more reverb. I think it sounds a bit better.......but please remember this is only a suggestion.....this is mixed down to 2track stereo, Ady would need to mix this himself for the 5:1 soundtrack.

Ady has mentioned that this clip needs to be croakier to blend in better, i think its that short and the croakiness of 'Skywalker' makes you think that its all croaky.

ImperialFighter said:

Like others, I thought about removing either "...Luke Skywalker" or "...young Skywalker" from the sentance altogether too, as the 'beat' of the dialogue still sounds good without it, before Vader eventually replies "Yes, my master".  But I ended up thinking that without clarification of <span style="text-decoration: underline;">exactly who</span> the Emperor means before Vader responds "He's just a boy...Obi-wan can no longer help him", that the Emperor might reply "Not that brat Luke you fool!, I'm on about ANOTHER enemy we've got to contend with!"

corellian77 said:

Besides, there's nothing to worry about... Ady's never let us down before.  I'm sure whatever he decides to do will be for the best.

Um, rcb, no offense, but who gives a crap what’s in the novelization?

VADER: Our destruction? Who?

Yeah, I think I like it. Ady objected to my initial “the son of Anakin Skywalker” suggestion as unnecessary repetition. If it’s not necessary to say “son” twice, it’s not really necessary to say “Skywalker” twice either, is it?

Yeah, I think I like it. Ady objected to my initial “the son of Anakin Skywalker” suggestion as unnecessary repetition. If it’s not necessary to say “son” twice, it’s not really necessary to say “Skywalker” twice either, is it?



Heh. Couldn’t resist. Can’t resist this either:

VADER: What is thy bidding, my master?

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

VADER: I have felt it.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy.

VADER: Yes, my master.

EMPEROR: He could destroy us.

VADER: He's just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.

EMPEROR: “Just a boy”? I’m talking about Jar-Jar Binks. Who did you think I was talking about?

Ugh. Any chance of getting McDiarmid to record the line? ;-)

Not willing to reconsider “the son of Anakin Skywalker”? How about “the Rebel Skywalker”? We’ve got to be able to come up with something more fitting than “young.”

Here’s an outside-of-the-box idea. They both know who they’re talking about, right?

VADER: What is thy bidding, my master?

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

VADER: I have felt it.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy.

VADER: Yes, my master.

EMPEROR: He could destroy us.

VADER: He's just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.

EMPEROR: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.

VADER: If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally.

EMPEROR: Yes. He would be a great asset. Can it be done?

VADER: He will join us or die, my master.

Wow. I have very vague recollections of seeing this in the 80’s. For some reason, it just popped into my head a few months ago, but all I could really remember was the cheeky jeans and a few zany moments. (A scene involving a dumpster sticks out in my mind.) I couldn’t remember the title or the cast, though it felt like it was always on the tip of my tongue. It drove me crazy for weeks trying to ID it before I was able to “let go.” Then just a few minutes ago I was at the fan project list (which I just discovered, I didn’t know about it, despite it being linked from the front page, which I had never bothered to read), and when I saw the title I immediately recognized it. Imagine my surprise!

Thanks for bringing this movie back to life, Doc and suntech. I’m downloading it as I type this post, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it, and to sharing it with my girlfriend, who loves this kind of stuff.

Darth Venal said:

In 26 years I never heard a single complaint about the Dagobah scenes.

Dan Vebber said:

13. Obi Wan's Appearance to Luke

In case you missed the first two films, Obi-Wan Kenobi is supposed to be dead. In Wars and Empire, he made himself known to Luke through an occasional voice in the head or in a floating vision. In Jedi, all of Obi-Wan's street credibility as a wizened spiritual guide is thrown out the window when he appears on Dagobah and shuffles around like Fred G. Sanford in a coat of glow paint.

Rather than floating in one place, he fades in 20 feet away and walks up to Luke, eventually resting his non-corporeal butt on a rock. The ensuing two-way conversation scrambles to tie up too many loose ends at once, made worse by the fact that the character saying it all shouldn't even be there on such a literal level. And unlike his similarly flawed Dagobah appearance in Empire, Jedi never lets us see Obi-Wan fade back into oblivion once his message is delivered. For all we know, he and Luke could have spent hours hanging out and gossiping like housewives.


27. Yoda

In Empire, Yoda was a sagacious sprite who brought to mind Gælic legend. In Jedi, he's an annoying toad who sounds like Super Grover (thanks to Frank Oz's forgetting how to do the voice) and looks about as realistic as his Kenner action figure likeness (thanks to bad, overlit cinematography, see point #3).

Like the movie he's stuck in, Jedi's Yoda is lacking in wisdom and festering with cuteness. Get out your laserdiscs (okay, or your videotapes) and compare the two Yodas head-to-head. You'll be surprised.


39. Yoda's Death Sequence

Yoda says, "Soon will I rest. Yes, forever sleep." Less than four minutes later-Bam! He's a goner. And what does Luke do while his beloved master lays choking and gasping for his final breaths? Well, he just sort of sits there like a doofus and watches him writhe in pain. Not that dialing 911 is an option on Dagobah, but a simple "Hey, Master-you okay?" would have been a nice gesture.


41. Paradoxical Lessons in the Force

Yoda says the only way Luke can become a Jedi is to face Vader. Minutes later, he says it's unfortunate that Luke rushes to face Vader. This in addition to Yoda's assertion in Empire that if Luke faces Vader, he'll become an agent of evil. So he needs to face Vader to become a Jedi, but he can't face Vader or else he'll become a slave to the Dark Side. This is a paradox on par with the one Kirk used to confuse and blow up Nomad.


45. Generally Dumb Dialogue

[...]

Yoda, near death, to Luke: "Remember: A Jedi's strength flows from the Force." (That's more of a first-day lesson, isn't it, Yoda? Something tells us Luke had that particular bit of wisdom written on a Post-It-Note and stuck to his X-Wing cockpit long ago.)

50. The Sarlaac Pit as Freud's Vagina Dentate

Come on, like it never occurred to you.

Timstuff said:

Personally, I prefer how "young Skywalker" sounds from a dialogue standpoint anyway.

xhonzi said:

Maybe if the prequels were 'good' or 'watchable' I would watch them this way.

ChainsawAsh said:

Cap, I really, really hate myself for saying this, but ... that actually kind of makes sense ...

TV's Frink said:

Yeah, I'm surprised to agree. Interesting post, Cap.

xhonzi said:

Ditto.... good job- almost thou persuadest me.

TMBTM said:

4-5-1-2-3-6... the more I think about it the more I like it, Cap. :)

TV's Frink said:

I've been thinking quite a bit about how to present Star Wars to my daughter... I always assumed we would go 4-5-6-1-2-3, but now I've got to consider this 4-5-1-2-3-6 proposal instead...

Venal, I was flattered when you asked me out, but now that I see how low your standards are, I no longer take it as a compliment.

adywan said:

The thing is though that having the Emperor say "the son of Skywalker" twice is just repetition that isn't needed.

The original dialogue pre-2004 worked perfectly and that is how i want to return it, even though i have to substitute "Luke Skywalker" with "young Skywalker"

doubleofive said:

For me the "offspring of Anakin Skywalker" line comes down to it being way too descriptive, as if (a) Vader doesn't know who Luke is and (b) Vader doesn't know who he was/is (even worse in the rest of the 04SE).

VADER: What is thy bidding, my master?

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

VADER: I have felt it.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy: the son of Anakin Skywalker.

VADER: Yes, my master.

EMPEROR: He could destroy us.

VADER: He’s just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.

EMPEROR: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.

Have any opinions changed in the two and a half years since this thread was last active?  Anybody new want to contribute to the discussion?

As for me, I was interested in the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order back then.  Today I feel strongly that it is the ideal order.  (BTW, I think the new material is best viewed after the saga, 4-5-1-2-3-6-TCW, rather than putting TCW in its chronological place between 2 and 3.)  Watching it 4-5-1-2-3-6 I notice so many things that work best that way.  A few:

 

 

• If you like twists, the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order maintains the best surprises for Star Wars virgins who have been in a coma for the last 30 years.  In Ep 5 the viewer has the “Holy poodoo, that little green troll is Yoda!” twist and the “Holy poodoo, Darth Vader is Luke’s father!” twist.  At the end of Ep 3 are the “Holy poodoo, Luke has a twin!” and “Holy poodoo, the twin is Leia!” twists.  Thank goodness the Hoth kiss is a distant memory by the time that particular twist is revealed in the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order; the kiss is creepier if the relationship is revealed before the kiss.

 

• 4-5-1-2-3-6 answers questions in a dramatically natural order.  After the revelation that Vader is Luke’s father, there are two questions: “How the heck did that happen?” and “What happens next?”  It makes sense to answer the first question before the second so viewers can watch the resolution with a better understanding of the events and situations that lead to it and who the characters are.

Feng Zei points out that there may be another question after Ep 5: “Is Vader telling the truth about being Luke’s father?”  If that is a question then I think that watching Anakin’s early life story and seeing what unfolds is a more dramatic way to get the answer than simply having Yoda say, “Your father he is.”

 

• 4-5-1-2-3-6 has an opening that grabs viewers from the start.  “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...  Star Wars - Episode IV - A New Hope.  It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy....”  That’s one of the great openings in cinematic history.

It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than “Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.”  If the viewing experience starts there, it’s not a good hook.  Why should viewers care about how the Galactic Republic decides the issue of taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems?  Why should they care about the battle between the Trade Federation and Naboo?  The opening crawl lets them know who the bad guys are and who the good guys are by calling the TF “greedy” and calling Naboo a “small planet,” but it isn’t one tenth as compelling as the opening crawl in Ep 4.

If Eps 4-5 are watched first then the viewers see Ep 1 knowing that they’re seeing the events that lead to the rise of the Empire, so they have a reason to be interested.  This is even more compelling after 4-5 than after 4-5-6.  After 4-5, the Empire is a scary evil power that rules the galaxy with brutality; after 4-5-6, the Empire is a flash in the pan that ruled the galaxy for about 23 years.  The former inspires more desire to know its origins than does the latter.

 

• Fang Zei said, “That last scene of Empire is just as much if not more about how they're going to get Han back. This gets completely interrupted if you stop to watch the PT between Empire and Jedi.”  I think that interruption is a good thing because it’s a cliffhanger and cliffhangers become more compelling when one must wait for the resolution.  TV shows typically place their biggest cliffhangers at the end of the last episode of the season so that the viewer has to wait all summer to see how it’s resolved, instead of placing them in the middle of midseason episodes so that the viewer only has to wait through a commercial break to see how it’s resolved.

Waiting through the PT also makes Han’s hibernation feel longer.  If the end of Ep 5 is followed immediately by Ep 6, it feels like the carbon hibernation was brief and just another incident in the life of Han Solo.

 

• The arc of Anakin’s redemption is more connected.  At the end of Ep 3, Padmé says of Anakin, “There is good in him. I know there is still...”  This flows right into Ep 6 in which Luke believes, despite the protests of Ben and Yoda, that there is good in Anakin that can be brought back to the surface.

The Emperor’s arc is more connected.  In Eps 4 and 5, he is a shadowy presence of which we know little, then we see who he is and how he rises to power in the PT, then we see his big showdown and ultimate fate in Ep 6.  If instead the viewing order is 1-2-3-4-5-6, then by the time the PT is over the viewer knows Emperor Palpatine as a real specific person who is conspicuously and without explanation absent in 4-5 before returning to his prior level of visibility in Ep 6.

So basically in the 1-2-3-4-5-6 order, the stories of Anakin and Palpatine are developed for three episodes, put on hold for two episodes, and concluded in the final episode.  Watching their stories as 1-2-3-6, without interrupting them for 4-5, makes those stories more cohesive.

 

• Many of the characterizations in Ep 6 are inconsistent with the characters presented in Ep 5.  Perhaps the most glaring (but far from only) example is the cocky “They're not going to get me without a fight”/“Never tell me the odds”/“I know” Han Solo of Eps 4-5 being replaced by the insecure “Could you tell Luke, is that who you could tell?”/“All right, I won’t get in the way” Han Solo of Ep 6.  Putting the PT in between 5 and 6 makes the inconsistencies between 5 and 6 less glaring.  (It makes the continuity error of Leia remembering her birth mother more glaring, but that’s a minor point.)  Obi-Wan and Vader in particular seem more like the characters we see at the end of Ep 3 than the characters we see in Eps 4-5.

 

• As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like having the series bookended by Death Stars in the first and last episode viewed.  When 4 and 6 are viewed with only a single episode between them, so that a Death Star is present for a movie, absent for one movie, and back again for the next movie, it makes the Death Star feel more commonplace.

 

• The tone of 6 is more consistent with the tone of 1-2-3 than the tone of 4-5.  In 4-5, the Empire is evil and brutal; Ep 5 is especially dark.  Ep 6, with its shih-tzus and slapstick approach to action, is more like the “This is where the fun begins” approach to action in the PT than the darker approach in 4-5.

 

 

There are more reasons, too.  If you have never watched the saga in the 4-5-1-2-3-6 order, give it a try and let us know what you think.

I was watching the trailer, and the “Young Skywalker” in the VO sounds a little awkward to me.  I think “the offspring of Anakin Skywalker” actually works better once you get rid of all the wishy-washiness around it:

VADER: What is thy bidding, my master?

EMPEROR: There is a great disturbance in the Force.

VADER: I have felt it.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy: the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.

VADER: Yes, my master.

EMPEROR: He could destroy us.

VADER: He’s just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.

EMPEROR: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.

(Or maybe “son” instead of “offspring.”)

I’m sure this has already been discussed to death when I wasn’t around; can somebody summarize the pro and con arguments?

n/m

Oh, I get it now.

EMPEROR: We have a new enemy, the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.

VADER: How is that possible?  Anakin Skywalker has no offspring.

VADER: How is that possible?  He was living on the planet farthest from the bright center of the universe, Owen and Beru were keeping him down on the farm, he knew nothing of the world around him and had never even heard of the Force.  Then within two days he had come out of nowhere, showcased Jedi skills, and forever changed the course of Galactic history by DESTROYING THE FREAKING DEATH STAR!!!  How the fuck did that happen to us?!!

EMPEROR: He could destroy us.

VADER: He’s just a boy.  Obi-wan can no longer help him.

See?  Makes much more sense now.

Do we have an estimated delivery date more precise than “sometime in 2010”?  Are we talking early 2010, mid 2010, or late 2010?

.

I had a kind of weird thought about the final words in the saga.

As of 2004, the final words of the saga are “Wesa free!”  I think we can all agree that sucks and needs to go.

Before 2004, it was the “I won’t get in the way” conversation between Han and Leia, which is so completely out of character for Han.  I cannot stand that conversation, or the similar “Could you tell Luke, is that who you could tell?” conversation earlier in the film.  I pray that Adywan will excise those terrible moments. 

If we get rid of that, the last line becomes 3PO’s “They did it!”  It’s not nearly as painful as the Han-Leia exchange, but it’s not worthy of being the final words of the saga.

So I started going back and looking for something that is worthy of that honor, and there’s really only one candidate: Anakin’s dying words, “You already have, Luke.  You were right.  You were right about me.  Tell your sister... you were right.”  If anybody besides me gives a damn, I think it’s doable.

Luke follows up Anakin’s dying words with, “Father, I won’t leave you,” but I don’t think it’s necessary for Luke to say that to his father’s corpse.  Mark Hamill does some fine nonverbal acting in this scene, and I think it would be more emotionally powerful if Luke just endures the moment silently, expressing himself with his face and body language rather than unnecessary words.

Then there’s some chatter between Lando and Wedge coordinating their attack on the power generator, and Akbar ordering the fleet to move away from the Death Star.  There’s nothing wrong with this dialog per se, but there’s nothing necessary about it either.  The action is easy enough to follow and we don’t need the characters to narrate it for us.

There’s “Yeehaw!” as the Falcon escapes the Death Star.  I’m not sure whether it qualifies as a word, but it sounds rather out of place in a galaxy far, far away.  If Lando dies, that goes away.

Then there’s “They did it!”, the “I won’t get in the way” conversation, and “Wesa free!”, none of which will be missed.

BTW, if “Yub Nub” is reinstated, then the final words of the saga are “Celebrate the love.”  I personally like the song, but I don’t expect it to be reinstated.

Monroville said:

cap said:

Monroville said:

Vader would be smart enough to know that eventually Luke would go to save his friend Han from Jabba, and being that Luke came from Tatooine to begin with, it would be no different than cops staking out a criminal's parents or girlfriend's home.

Vader is under explicit instructions from the Emperor not to go after Luke, but to wait for Luke to come to him.

True, but Vader wouldn't be above disobeying the Emperor for his own agenda, provided of course he could talk his way out of any punishment.

True, but Vader and the Emperor aren’t really working at cross purposes here.  They both want to turn Luke to the Dark Side.  The Emperor believes that the best way to accomplish that goal is to wait for Luke to come to Vader instead of going after him and grabbing him, and I think Vader trusts his master’s wisdom.  Certainly he does later in the film, when he tells the Emperor that Luke has landed on Endor, the Emperor tells him to go to the moon and wait for Luke to come to him, and he does as he is instructed.

Monroville said:

Vader would be smart enough to know that eventually Luke would go to save his friend Han from Jabba, and being that Luke came from Tatooine to begin with, it would be no different than cops staking out a criminal's parents or girlfriend's home.

Vader is under explicit instructions from the Emperor not to go after Luke, but to wait for Luke to come to him.

There has been talk about killing off Lando in ROTJ.  I’m not sure whether I think that’s a good idea or not, but I’ve been thinking about how to do it if the decision is made to do so.

Here’s a thought.

The fleet starts moving away from the Death Star before the fatal shots are fired.  They’re well coordinated and they know what’s coming.  Wedge and Lando fire their shots more or less simultaneously and BOOM.  They never have a chance to outrun the explosion.  They know when they pull their triggers that they’re not getting out of there, but they don’t hesitate for a moment.  The true epitome of heroism.

Bingowings said:

Ingenious Frinksta, now all I need is a length of tube that can reach to Australia :D

 

I have that.  My girlfriend considers it a mixed blessing.