gobalicious

Star Wars has a tradition of two villains per movie:

1) Tarkin/Vader

2) Vader/Fett

3) Emperor/Vader

My idea is a Godfather-like crime boss whose organization fled to the Outer Rim under the harsh rule of the Empire, but now seeks to undermine the fledgling new Republic.  His son is strong in the Force and has learned the ways of the dark side from ancient Sith artifacts and seeks to supplant his father.

MTHaslett said:

Great outline.. And doable up to a point in my mind-- I hope I see the footage I need.  

If nothing else, a really cool trailer along these lines could be cut together.

Definitely.

You could also put together stills from the movies to make a comic book.  It would make a nice "alternate history" prequel comic to Star Wars.

MTHaslett said:

Bingowings said:

You could even edit in Obi-wan calling him Qui-Gon Skywalker.

Drop ESB and you don't even have to do that.

Yoda and Mace could continue to moan about him, Obi-Wan could advise he would be on the council if he towed the line more.

Palpatine could refer to Darth Vader instead of Maul.

It's sort of makes sense really.

That's what I was thinking-- I'm going to rewatch with this in mind. Thanks, you guys!

I really like this idea.  Impossible probably, but I knew there was a good story lurking inside TPM.

A hypothetical radical edit:

The movie opens with Qui-gon and Obi-Wan escaping with the queen.  With the ship damaged, Qui-gon decides to go to nearby Tatooine, his home planet.  There he finds his estranged wife Shmi has been sold into slavery. She has a son, Luke, whom she later reveals to be Qui-Gon's (boy Anakin->Luke). 

Qui-gon devises a scheme for Luke to win a podrace so he can free him and get the parts he needs for the Queen's ship, but he doesn't tell him he is his father.  Luke wins, but Qui-Gon is attacked by a mysterious figure (Maul->Vader) as he is about to leave for Coruscant.

They go to Coruscant then Naboo (it could be renamed to Alderaan) and engage Vader where Qui-Gon is killed in the duel.  Obi-Wan can defeat Vader and scenes from ROTS inserted to show Palpatine picking up his body.  Qui-Gon's dying wish is for Obi-Wan to train Luke when he is old enough.  Obi-Wan vows to track down Vader.

However, Order 66 goes down and Obi-Wan is forced to go into hiding.  He goes back to Tatooine to fulfill his promise to Qui-Gon, but finds Shmi has been kidnapped by sand people and murdered.  The Lars' blame the Jedi for luring away Qui-Gon and never want Luke to follow the same path.  Obi-Wan rides off into the sunset to wait until the time is right to train Luke.

I'm surprised by the amount of dislike towards the PT scores.  They are the only thing in the PT I can hold at an equal level with the OT.  I admit AOTC was the most forgettable, except for the love theme.  I think some of the hate on how the rest of the movies played out gets unfairly mixed with the score.  If you can detach yourself from everything that happened in the PT they are quite enjoyable on their own.

Of course I would love to see John Williams involved, but I know he is getting old.  Hopefully he can make it to the end of the ST.  Williams also isn't in his prime anymore.  I think I'd like it best if he collaborated with another younger composer who could take the reigns for all Star Wars movies in the future.  Michael Giacchino would be an excellent choice.  I've enjoyed all his work, in particular Star Trek.

NeverarGreat said:

SilverWook said:

It's said on screen the Falcon is in the Anoat system when Han mentions Lando.

But how did the Falcon get from the Hoth system to the Anoat system without a hyperdrive?

I'm guessing that nobody making the movie noticed this peculiarity, but it could just as well be that they were talking about two different uses of the word system at that point, star systems and planetary systems. If the 6th planet of the Hoth star system was where the rebel base was located, couldn't the Anoat planetary system be in the asteroid field, or directly beyond the it?

Picture Hoth as being where Mars is in our solar system. The Falcon could fly through the asteroid field, then find itself in the orbit of Jupiter, aka the Anoat system. Bespin would be another gas giant, aka Saturn. Since the distance between Mars and Saturn is about 8 AU, it would only take the Falcon 24 hours to travel there, traveling at only 5% the speed of light. Allowing for the high probability that the planets wouldn't be directly aligned, the trip from the orbit of Jupiter to the planet Saturn could take many weeks. However, this long voyage is likely based on how long Luke was expected to have trained with Yoda while this was happening.

If we take the Anoat and Bespin systems to be different star systems, however, they would likely be many light years away, which would take years to reach, even traveling at a high percentage of the speed of light.

This was probably just a mistake on the part of those making the movie, but in this way it could work.

I just like to think the Star Wars galaxy is in a very far away region of the universe with different constants of nature (speed of light, gravitational constant, Planck's constant, etc).  Then I don't have to worry about the fantastical violations of physics as we know it.

captainsolo said:

A spin off with an amnesiac one armed Mace Windu who is now a mercenary would be pretty good, especially since there would actually be a story there. But then they would likely do something stupid like have him change his name to Calrissian and have a child.

I actually wouldn't mind if they made a spinoff with a clone of Mace Windu.  Palpatine recovered his body after his fall and performed experiments with his DNA, yielding an insane clone, a sort of Jorus C'baoth.  I think Samuel L. Jackson could play it well.

I think the titles are fine too, except for Attack of the Clones.  The clones work for the good guys?  Very misleading.

Fan edits of the PT are running out of titles too.  There are only so many ways to jumble 4 words together into a good Star Wars title that resembles what will happen in the film.

I don't have a problem with editors renaming the films though.  It gives them a different flavor, and perpetuates the illusion of watching a completely new film.  But I think the era of original titles is coming to an end.

I first saw the Star Wars SE in theaters at age 8.  I didn't like it.  Darth Vader weirded me out, and the fantasy elements like the Force turned me off.  I was more of a hard sci-fi fan, and even then the non-realistic elements bothered me.  (Why didn't the x-wing pilots wear spacesuits?!?!)

My cousins later encouraged me to watch ESB and ROTJ on VHS at age 12.  I really enjoyed ESB.  I suppose at that age, the more mature story of ESB was able to appeal to me.  Unfortunately, I don't remember if the father revelation was a surprise to me.  ROTJ was fun, but I knew I liked it the least.  I rewatched the trilogy many times that summer, and my cousins even gave me the VHS set.

TheBoost said:

timdiggerm said:

Well, more than that: He killed the Emperor. When you get down to it, the Emperor is the real villain and the real problem that the Alliance are fighting. Vader ended that problem.

He assassinated his boss 5 minutes before he would have died anyway.

If Himmler choked out Hitler in the bunker, I wouldn't name my kid after him.

Well, if Luke escaped the Death Star, then the Emperor could have too.

daneditor said:

I've been working on this so-called experimental edit of ROTJ again the last few weeks, and have made some pretty big changes.

Here's the new opening of the movie to show what I mean:

http://www.mediafire.com/?f9p83mns4kkudz8

To put it in context, here's the crawl that immediately precedes that opening:

Relentless in their pursuit of the Rebellion, Imperial forces led by Darth Vader have pushed the Alliance to the fringes of the galaxy.

Meanwhile Luke Skywalker has returned to Dagobah, believing that only a fully trained Jedi will be powerful enough to rescue Han Solo from the clutches of vile JABBA THE HUTT.

While the Rebellion appear doomed, the Empire has begun construction on a second DEATH STAR.

In their most desperate hour, two Rebel Spies have successfully penetrated Imperial defences on the capital planet of Coruscant, and stolen plans to the terror weapon. Now they must flee the system and safely deliver the plans to the Alliance....

This edit now includes footage from the following Star Wars fan films:

Broken Allegiance

Vader Extincion

Revelations

Seeds of Darkness

Knightquest

SW:THX

Tydirium

Also, there is footage from the ROTJ deleted scenes, from the Interactive Board Game, and from Star Tours 2.

The edit is online now. If anyone wants it just PM me.

This looks absolutely fascinating.

I'm not entirely on board with starting the movie with the rebel spies escaping.  It seems like too much of a rehash of the opening of ANH.  But I'll leave judgement until I see the rest of the edit.

Let me take a stab at the opening crawl.  I'd like to keep the traditional three paragraph format, and shorten it up a bit to be consistent in length with the other movies.

After his disastrous duel with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker has returned to complete his Jedi training under Master Yoda.

Impatiently waiting for Luke, Lando Calrissian has infiltrated the palace of vile gangster Jabba the Hutt in hopes of rescuing Han Solo.

With the Rebel Alliance scattered across the galaxy, the Empire has begun construction on a second Death Star.  In a daring mission, two rebel spies have stolen plans for the weapon and now flee carrying the last hope for the Rebellion....

Bingowings said:

MrInsaneA said:

DominicCobb said:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There's not much of a point to preserving the OT secrets in the PT, especially not if you're trying to create a definitive edit saga.

Exactly. Plus the OT is so ingrained in pop culture there's no POINT in keeping the secrets anymore. 

That's like saying the crapness of the PT is so ingrained in pop culture there's no POINT in changing it.

The point is providing a demonstration of the PT as it could have been, and providing an alternative to how it turned out.

It's episodes 1 to 3 so we shouldn't have the surprises to 4 spoiled.

I'd always be interested in seeing a saga edit where the surprises of the OT are preserved, but I fear such doing a thing detracts from the very reasons the story of the PT is so interesting.

To me, the most compelling point of making a PT in the first place is to show the transformation of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader.  Hiding that transformation creates a giant hole in the story and will ultimately leave me unsatisfied (unless a clever editor can prove me wrong). 

The only compelling argument there is to preserve the surprises is simply because the episodes are numbered 1-6.  I view the episode numbers merely as chronological indicators, having nothing to do with a preferred viewing order.  Perhaps that is misleading to a first-time viewer, but hopefully other means can be used to convey otherwise. 

I've always thought the saga was meant to be viewed for the first time as 4-6 and 1-3.  4-6 is a classic tale that assures us good will always triumph over evil, building our interest in this far away galaxy and its people.  1-3 is a cautionary tale that shows how that evil arose in the first place, having lessons that are close to home.  A fun adventure story turns complex and thought-provoking.  I fear chopping up 1-3, merely to preserve a supposed viewing order, can damage a better, more complete story.

aalenfae said:

Titus, I like your idea about not showing Jango's face at all during the scene. It might work pretty well, and I'll give it a try. 

I wonder if it's possible to not show Jango's face at all in the movie.

Of course, the awkward questioning scene on Kamino would have to go, but I'm not so sure it's all that important.  The next obvious problem would be Mace Windu putting his lightsaber to Fett's throat.  Could it be possible to put his helmet over his head?  He doesn't move very much.

As the Phantom Editor pointed out, it's really a shame we didn't get a final confrontation between Fett and Obi-Wan.

I think it could be done.  Perhaps have Obi-Wan jump down from the rafters, show Grievous turning around, then immediately cut down to the clone troopers rappelling downwards.  Cut immediately to Grievous running towards the donut car and then proceed as usual.  Unfortunately, it may not be possible to get rid of the ridiculous chase sequence.  Obi-Wan needs to lose his lightsaber to explain why he doesn't use it when killing Grievous on the landing platform.

aalenfae said:

Aiya, well, it seems all my updates have been everything BUT RotS lately, but don't worry!
I've just gotten excited about some AotC stuff in recent days. Here's what I've been working on:
http://vimeo.com/47064520

 So glad you took out Jango flying away.  It's bothered me in numerous fanedits.  No good sniper would give away his position by flying away like that.

Bingowings said:

The ideal option would have been to continue Palpatine's physical decay from AOTC (something Lucas backtracked on causing a continuity error) so that he just looks the way he does in ROTJ because that process has just brought him there.

However seeing as Lucas thought his audience too stupid to fill in the blanks themselves and had to show Vader wearing a more perfect and less interesting version of his OT costume and have the wrinkly Emperor by his side he went down the route of having the Force lightning blowback explanation which is daft as neither Anakin,Mace, Yoda or Luke receive any facial warping from the full blast of direct Force lightning but Palpatine does on the rebound.

The transition effect is rubbish so I don't mind losing it on a technical level either.

The only problem it leaves is why doesn't Palpatine restore his false face and how does he explain it if he can't?

The obvious answer being he can't for some reason and he lies about being the victim of a Jedi assassination attempt and scarred.

Which then makes it seem to make as much sense that he is scarred.

In the end it all rests on the editors ability to pull the effect off because no form of tinkering (that I've read or seen) can make the scene make narrative sense thanks to Lucas.

This is one of the best arguments against the 'canon' explanation of Palpatine's face.  In addition, what kind of Jedi assassination attempt leaves a man with a white, wrinkled face?  It's absurd.

I prefer the idea of Palpatine closing himself away after he declares himself Emperor (normal appearance intact), immersing himself completely in the study of the dark side, and handing over governing duties to the likes of Tarkin and other Imperials.  He gains his appearance through the degrading effect of the dark side as well as natural aging.  This was a pre-PT EU idea.  The general public never knows what he looks like as his appearance grows worse.  This also fits in with the original conception of the Emperor in the Star Wars novel.

Unfortunately, this can't come to pass with the footage we have available.  Kerr's idea might be the best we'll get.  However, BobGarcia had attempted to have Palpatine's face melt as soon as he revealed himself to Mace Windu.  It looked very promising.

MrInsaneA said:

Has anyone considered removing Grievous COMPLETELY from Revenge of the Sith?

It may be fairly simple to remove him from the opening battle.  Anakin mentions "General Grievous's ship is dead ahead" but I imagine this wouldn't be too hard to remove.  TheCutter did an edit where Anakin and Obi-Wan get away in the escape pod while the ship is being attacked.  I thought it worked pretty well, and it avoids the entire confrontation with Grievous after they rescue Palpatine.

The appearance of Grievous on Utapau is more tricky.  What exactly is Obi-Wan doing while Anakin is off falling to the dark side?  It's troublesome to have him go after the never-seen Grievous.  Maybe it could be arranged to have him looking for the Separatist leaders instead and have them escape to Mustafar while the clone army attacks.  There are the couple times when Grievous is mentioned when Anakin is talking to Bail Organa and in a Jedi Council meeting.  Perhaps these could be reworded or cut to refer the Separatist leaders or maybe the Viceroy instead.

EDIT: Along the lines of a resurrected Maul idea, TheCutter also did an edit with Duel of the Fates playing during the Obi-Wan-Grievous duel.  It really improved the mood and could really sell the idea that this is Maul back from the dead.  A good Maul impersonation could go a long way too.

It's hard to justify how average citizens could be unaware of the Force.  Surely a documentary would be made at some point about the Jedi, who supposedly had such an important role in the Republic.  Surely there would have been some sort of scientific investigation into the claimed abilities of the Jedi.  Surely there were cameras to record their supposed feats during the Clone Wars and broadcast them to the masses.  The only real way to make sense of Han's statement is that the Empire had been suppressing the media and any and all information about the Jedi for at least his entire lifetime.

Great job on the revised opening.  I actually got a real sense of danger from the droid fighters.  I almost thought they wouldn't make it into Grevious's ship.  Given total lack of suspense in the original, this is a great accomplishment.  Well done.

Monroville said:

You know, that's something that annoyed me about JEDI even as a kid... why is everyone who is part of the A-Team a "general"?  Is C3PO a general?  Why not R2D2?  Hell, let's make Luke's lightsabre a general too.

Though I will say General Calrissian has a nice ring to it...

A shady businessman who ran an illegal mining operation suddenly becomes a general in only 6 months.  This "general" also happens to have betrayed one of the Alliance's main leaders and made secret dealings with the Empire.  Lando must have been one sweet talker.

And who's to say he wasn't still in contact with Darth Vader?  Maybe Vader offered him amnesty in exchange for infiltrating the rebel's highest ranks?  I think I would have liked to see Lando's character take a darker turn.

If you believed you killed your wife/girlfriend, could you stand to look her family in the eye?  Wouldn't you hide in shame?

It's all a moot point anyway.  To me, Vader should have lost all his humanity after he was put in the suit and never thought twice about Padme again.

The Concierge said:

I've never really understood the reasoning that Obi-wan and Yoda ought to appear as idealized projections like Hayden-Anakin did. There are obvious crispy and darkish factors affecting Anakin that don't apply to the others. 

It would seem established that once you become one with the Force and gain the ability to appear as an apparition, it is restricted as you appeared when you died. Not a problem for Yoda and Obi-wan! They have all their limbs! So either way, unless you want a horrifying vision of a reanimated, disarticulated corpse bidding Luke farewell (which would follow established "canon", and morbidly make the most sense...), there HAS to be an idealized, kind of wish-fulfillment ghost-projection of Anakin.

But which makes the most sense? A vision of what Anakin *could* have been, but never actually was? A kind of mystical plastic surgery? Is this perhaps more vain than the Force should be? Or do you go the route of a vision of what Anakin *has* been, the Force reaching back to the "good man who was destroyed" (debatable though it may be exactly how "good" he really was)? Or is that still the Force appealing to Anakin's vanity?

Personally, I prefer the idea of going back to a younger version of himself. But it's not a slam dunk case by any stretch.

If you wanted to take the idea that the force ghost looks like the person when they died to be literal, then we would have to acknowledge that Ben should have appeared beheaded.  The only interpretation that is consistent within the OOT only, is that the ghost appears as remembered or idolized by the viewer.

I knew that would get a rise out of you.  It is merely my preference.  Undoubtedly, it has something to do with having listened to it so many times.  To make an even more dreadful confession, I didn't even like ANH when I first saw it.  Only ESB drew my interest into the larger story.

"Perhaps because ANH was written to sound like Classical Music?"

Obviously it draws heavily from classical music, which is why I like it.  However, it has influences that were modern at the time, which haven't aged so well.

I think the fact that the OT is uniformly loved has something to do with some here preferring its score to that of the PT.  Knowing the context of the music significantly adds to enjoyment.  And if we have painful, awkward scenes associated with the music, we will not love it as much.

I can't say I prefer one or the other.  The music is about the only thing in the PT I can hold at an equal level with the OT.  The music really defines what little I can enjoy from the PT.  Some great moments were the arrival on Coruscant in TPM, Dooku's arrival at the end of AOTC, and nearly all of ROTS was well-scored.

The OT music will always be a classic, but I feel it is aging somewhat, especially ANH.  I can hardly listen to most of ANH anymore except for the main theme, the Death Star battle, and Leia's theme.  ESB has the best music of all the movies to me.  There is not a dull track as far as I'm concerned.

I have to say the recordings of the main theme are always better in the OT.  The PT recordings sound way too clean and suppressed.  As someone said before, there is something raw and primal about it that unfortunately the PT never matches.

His videos have disappeared from YouTube.  Hopefully he gets working again soon.  It would be a shame if all of his brilliant ideas were lost.  We really need to get a repository going of all the prequel edit videos.  This isn't the first time this has happened (e.g. SSWR's videos).

Another thing to consider is Anakin's dream.  He says she would die in childbirth.  Granted, his dream doesn't need to be literal.  As Yoda says, "Always in motion is the future."  But I like the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy.  Maybe the dream could be altered to show a death somehow due to illness.  Maybe this could set up the idea of Padme falling ill without coming out of nowhere at the end of the film.  This could possibly involve changing Anakin's dialog when he informs Padme of the dream.

3. Perhaps her injuries at the hands of Anakin could have something to do with it. Might explain things a little.

Yes, that would be most desirable.  Serious brain injury can result from a choking, as happened to this reporter who was strangled by a vet suffering PTSD.  However, this wasn't a terminal illness.  Perhaps the medical droid could say something along these lines:

Medical Droid:  The strangulation appears to have cut off blood flow to the brain, damaging it permanently, and destroying the ability of the body to repair itself.  Unfortunately, it is too risky to perform surgery.  We estimate the odds of survival beyond one year to be 1:10.  Given the odds, we recommend delivering the babies as soon as possible.

edit: Another idea is to have the brain injury destroy the regulation of the heart, weakening it day by day.  This plays into the metaphorical "death of a broken heart" Lucas went after.