Bingowings said:
I think you could have more ROTJ dialogue in that opening from the Emperor's arrival in the theatrical version.
PALPATINE : Rise my friend. I sense you wish to continue your search for young Skywalker?
VADER : Yes my master.
PALPATINE : Go to the Death Star and await him.
VADER: He will come to me?
PALPATINE : His compassion for you will be his undoing. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.
VADER: Yes my master.
These lines are practically said twice in the same picture it makes more sense to condense them into one conversation and have it at the beginning as it sets out what the Emperor has in mind for Luke and leads to Luke on Dagobah.
I really like this idea. Next time I do some work on this edit I'll try to do something along these lines. The only problem I can see is that when Palpatine says "Death Star" it's from the TESB SE, and McDiarmid's voice had deepened noticeably by then. Last year I played around with trying to change the pitch to match how he sounded in 1983 but to no avail.
"After the glove going on the stinger to the sequence could be our first view of the Death Star out of the window."
Nice idea. I doubt I could pull it off (see: nonexistent fx abilities), but I'll give it a shot.
"As for briefing my only suggestion here would be to swap Threepio's lines in this act.
So when Luke joins the crowd he says "here we go again" and when the leave "Exciting is hardly the word I would use"."
Agreed. I would have cut the second line years ago but the audio editing was problematic. Guess I could give it another shot, but my philosophy has always been to leave things alone unless the change can be made smoothly.
"I have to agree with Ryan, the squished shots must go they really do detract from the ideas on display here."
I thought I'd got rid of all the squished shots by now. Obviously I missed some.
"I wish there was a way to replace Yoda repeating his first lesson to Luke (which turn out to be inaccurate) with ...
YODA : Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not, miss them not.
It was such a great line that it seems better served in ROTJ."
(Another) good idea, but I wonder if Frank Oz's voice had also deepened and changed in the intervening years. I'll add this to my list of things to try in the next workprint.
Thanks again for all your thoughts. Appreciated muchly.