AOTC Special Edition: What would you change?

DarkenedSuperman wrote:

"And I'd like the edititng for the Duels to be redone. They should be bit longer. I think adding more battle scenes in between would of made them a bit longer and more suspenceful anyway. Watching Obi-wan get "Owned" so quickly was dissapointing, and then Anakin puts up a challenge which also doesn't last as long. The Yoda duel I can understand being short since Yoda is wearing Tyrannus down so he tries to jet before he gets "Owned" himself."

Here, here. My biggest gripe (besides how annoying C3PO and Jar Jar are in the prequels) is the god awful editing during the duel sequences and this one is no exception.

I'm hoping someone else took up the duel edits in RoTS because if it's Ben B. again I won't be very happy, he so screwed up the Jinn vs. Maul duel in Ep I, and the hanger duel in AoTC could have been much more.

I also agree that the Lost 20 and Padme/Family sequences should be added back in.

I'm not so quibbly about Ewan's beard. Despite the flubs it's still loads better than Neeson's in Ep I.

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BTW I love the little nod to ANH Kenobi in the Outlander club, seeing a more polished arm removal remains a hoot to this day.

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Director... And "some" writers.

 

I think it could be helped a lot if he cut out a lot of Anakin's griping in the early part of the film , if he's not pouting he's complaining or acting hard done by, it makes the character very unsympathetic .

the cut scenes with padme's family might help, but keep them brief.

I'd cut out Dex's diner too.

I wouldn't mind seeing the scene between padme and 3po.

g

 

A full re-edit.

Some things are just plain terrible, and the movie plays out like one blurry scene instead of distinct sequences.

 

1.The Lost Twenty Scene: This scene would give more background to Count Dooku.This would be a huge improvement.

2.Tuskin Raider Slaughter: This would show why the council didn't want anakin to be a Jedi.How they knew he was dangerous.

3.The Duel: This needs to be redone.We need to see a better Obi vs dooku,Ani vs dooku,and with Yoda and Dooku,Nick Gillard should give Yoda some better moves.Yoda's scream should be taken out.The duels need to be much longer and much cooler.

4.When Obi is on Kamino and finds out that a Jedi named Sifo-dyas ordered the clone army: Sifo-Dyas should be changed to Count Dooku.

5.When Yoda says to Padme,that seeing her brings warm feelings to his heart: Padme should have some reaction to Yoda,instead of ignoring him.

6.More footage of the clone battle: This is too awesome to not show more of it.

7.Obi vs Jango: More footage of the fight,would be cooler.

 

I would ask George to change two lines of dialogue,"It's not fair!" and the line,"Why couldn't I save her, I know I could have!" In the delivery of these lines Anakin seems to immature. Or maybe that's the way George wanted it?

 

What I would like to see:

1. Put back in deleted Senate scene, WITH better effects and new Senators, but WITHOUT Mas Amedda's tongue.
This scene would help us getting into the story, and adds something to Padme's character.

2. Put back in the discussion about the Lost 20. They could cut it down a little, to keep it focussed on Dooku alone.

3. Instead of arrival on Naboo and meeting with Queen Jamillia, put back in the (re-editted) deleted family scenes, with new music.

4. Original dialogue during the first kiss scene.

5. Fix effects on the Shaak, and put in the Shaak ride, or else delete the Shaak entirely.

6. Shorten the fireplace scene a bit.

7. Touch up some of the CG in the Separatist meeting, and extend it a bit with all the other members of the CIS speaking.

8. Have Anakin and Padme receive Obi-Wan's message with Owen in the garage. This would introduce Owen to Obi-Wan, and give Anakin and Owen a bit more screentime. Also put in a decent goodbye to the Lars'.

9. Fix some of the effects in the droid factory scene.

10. Add more structure to the arena fight. Have Obi-wan and Anakin fighting droids side by side.

11. Add a little more structure to the Clone War battle. Show more Jedi leading clones, and give Obi-Wan and Anakin a greater part.

12. Extend the lightsaber battles.

 

Improve the diologue in the fireplace scene.
Dooku with 2 lightsabers.
Extend the tusken slaughter.

 

After that 60 minutes demonstration on adding digital doubles to the duel, they could easily fix the editing of AOTc duel, especially since Christopher Lee didnt really do any of it.
On a seperate note, I think it would be really easy to recut and spice up the ANH duel, as Vader is suited and Obi has his hood up. I really think its essential after seeing the duel footage from Episode 3. Its the most important moment in Episode 4 with the prequel context we now have.

 

* have a senate scene at the start with count dokou arguing with palpatine about the inaction of the governing body. insert excerpts from the deleted padme's address in which she tries to plead with the senators to work together. when she mentions the attempted assassination dooku pounces and uses it as fuel for his own debate against palpatine. he then lays down his disgust and leaves the chamber with dozens of other senators following him out and seemingly achieving the goal of creating a rift in the senate.

a scene like this would set up the story and bridge the gap between the start and jumping into palpatines chambers. it also explains why the chancellor has called a meeting with half of the jedi council and to the line: "i will not let this republic fall...".
in addition to that it is a chance to see more of ian and chris lee with some good acting. an early introduction to count dooku but at this stage we would not know he was the leader of the separists, just a political idealist - as ki adi mundi put it. of course the opening crawl would have to be amended accordingly.
on top of that IMO a scene like this would show the depth of palpatines grand plan as by the end of the film we see the two who seem to be opposing each other actually working together - this would explain why obi wan does not believe dooku when he said the sith controls the senate.

*there are two instances i can think of offhand that really destroys the tension that GL has worked so hard to build. (1) when anakin jumps from the speeder. the event in itself is shocking. who jumps in to a freefall? that is insane. but obi wan says "i hate it when he does that" this tells us that he is not phased in the least at anakin's decision. if obi wan doesnt feel it then the audience doesnt feel it.
(2) when anakin is captured in the droid factory and his lightsaber breaks he says "not again, obi wan is gonna kill me". despite the obvious clue in this line alluding to THE confrontation in EP3 it is a line that shows us that anakin doesnt give a damn that he is surrounded by killer droids and the deadliest bounty hunter in the universe. if anakin doesnt care, the audience doesnt care. IMO a better sequence would have been if anakin had quickly surveyed the scene after jango said "freeze jedi" and force grabbed a gun from the nearest droid but have jango shoot it in mid air and say "i wont warn you again!" - something like that shows us that anakin has courage (perhaps foolishly so) and that he wont surrender so easily. also parallels luke in ROTJ when he falls into the rancor pit.

*the arrival of naboo was poorly edited. either stick it all in or take it all out. GL has a thing about adhering to time so i say take it all out. we know they are going to naboo and it is blatantly clear that she is a senator now and no longer the queen. if need be put a small line or two when they meet with queen jamilla to reiterate that.

*padme's parents house. reinsert the dinner table scene. and whoever said (one of the above posters) the acting was bad could not be more wrong. IMO it is some of the best acting in the movie - none of it feels forced. it also contains one look from padme to anakin out the window suggesting that she feels something more for anakin. padme's bedroom scene to me felt not as important. it shows that padme is a very compassionate person so i dont really mind either way.

*the picnic, roll in the grass, riding the shaak. this scene is crap. i feel it is just a scene to show off the beauty of naboo. i think the love story lacked a general flow through out the movie and part of the problem was because it jumped from scene to scene to scene. i would have rather seen this filmed in the boat on the lake. from there the two could have been all smiles before the kiss. as it is the kiss kind of comes out of the blue because of the lack of flow.

*fireplace scene. i would be interested to know what lines were cut from this, from the very start of the scene. again this is a flow problem. we jump into the scene without establishing why the moo

 

Thinking about this there is not much i would change. Which is an odd thing to say about a Star Wars film!
1)Padme family scene put back in along with the lost 20.
2)More Darth Sidious screen time something confirming that Dooku is Tyrannus and explanation about Sifo Dyas.
3)Cut down the Zam race by a couple of mins.
4)Longer fight secne with dooku V ani.
Thats about it.

 

This movie has lots of problems, as we can see.

Did they really say they will edit it, or are we only speculating they will?

 

poker, this is more a wish list than anything else.

This is what we would change, not what we think they'll change.

 

LOL, no speculation needed. Lucas's own crew knows how his mind works. Listen to the commentary if you haven't already. One talks about how some water on the floor slipped into the film which was supposed to be cleaned up on the day of filming but wasn't. So he says, something like, "good thing the movie's no longer in production so we don't have to digitally paint it out. Yipee" Some other guy replies, "That's what you think."

I was quite satisfied with the action scenes and junk food for the eyes like that. It was the more personal moments between padme and her lover boy that 'really' faultered. A few edits would be nice. And Jar Jar falling off a balcony into the coruscant traffic wouldn't be too bad either. That voice its so... *sigh* why does GL like him? I'll never understand billionaires.

 

First things first, I'd fix the damn lightsabers in the Anakin/Obi/Yoda vs. Dooku duel, which look so bad.

Also put in the Core ship raid with Ki-Adi-Mundi that was filmed, but now only available to hyperspace members!!!!!!!!!! That just pisses me off so much!!!!

 

the zooming is terrible, especially on the gunship. Delete the whole bit. And poilish up the Dooku/Anakin duel, as all they do is swirl their sabres at each o9ther and then dooku cuts off Anankins arm. Boring.

 

I would mostly add the things shown on the AOTC animatics from disc 2 of the DVD's. The 3 coolest which some to mind are: the clones using speeders and magnetic mines to destroy spider droids, the Seperatist tanks speeding across the rocky hilly terrain while firing and running over clone troops and droids, and the awesome shots of the clones blasting Geonosians out of the sky. It wouldn't be hard to do, most of the shots would just be CG or miniatures, and wouldn't require any re-shoots or additional dialog (just some music editing, like the few seconds of music which had to be looped when the Slave 1 follows the Falcon in ESB SE).

Basically, just expand on the Geonosian war by a few minutes, maybe add in some AATs, STAPs, more Geonosian ground forces in close combat with the clones, and give the Republic some faster walkers, similar to the AT-ST.

Nevermind, I would just make the whole movie a 2 hour clone war.

 

LESS CGI!! Make the ships teh realistic-looking models they were in teh first three films, and make the freakin' Clone Troopers REAL Clone Trooprs!

Re-edit the Yoda fight scene with less lame shots of him leaping around. Taht was just dumb. It started out good, and then just went to him campilly jumping around when it wasn't needed.

Do new takes of Anakin's lines, after giving Hayden Chritiensen a few acting lessons. AM I the only one that got sick to their stomach when he diliverd lines like "Don't say that, master. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a father."?

Slimy!

 

The film is too slow to begin with!

 

Completely re-do the light saber fight with dooko and re-cast him with somebody who can actually use a sword. It was pretty lame with Anakin and amateurish compared to what the Matrix films and even Episode 1 came up with. Lucas, mate, you really stuffed it up big time. I could have come up with a better fight scene and I know sod-all about it. What was Lucas thinking casting Christopher thingymajig? The joda fight was good but Dooko needed a smack and a bruising!!
Dooko needed to get hurt and got away far too easy. After all, the jedi (good side of the force) are supposed to be stronger than the dark side arn't they? JOda could have smashed Dooko's ship with his "good side of the force" and killed Dooko couldn't he?
I really hope Lucas has come up with a really good and violent saber fight like in Ep 1...
I am really hoping the emperor gets bruised but Lucas is
abit of geek so Joda will get beaten up and the Emperor will get away with a broken nail...I hope I'm proven wrong.

 

The film does seem to plod along doesn't it? Where has the humour gone from Lucas's writing? I Lucas is far too
secretive and should have 20 scriptwriters to help him. I really think that the 1 & 2 suffered from a Han solo type Character...

 

There was a part in the shooting script where Anakin is helping Padme pack and she gives him a hard time for whining "like that little boy on Tattooine." I think this would be good to put back in to show that yes, Lucas acknowledges that hs is a bit boastful and whiney, but that's how he intended Anakin to be at this stage (This seems to be an 18-20 Skywalker trait - who says "It's not fair" more, Luke or Anakin?). Also, this grounds the story a little more in reality for the audience - Padme (and us) realize that Anakin is being whiny, but she thinks it's funny.

To make the love story flow better, I'd add in two short scenes of exposition (using my fledgling screenwriting skills here):

1) Padme w/ Dorme (or Corde, whichever was the one taht wasn't blown to bits in the beginning) before they leave Coruscant:

DORME: I'm worried about your journey, m'lady. Will you be able to handle yourself?

PADME: (laughing) What are you talking about? It's my home planet, I'll be fine. Besides, I have my Jedi protector.

DORME: That's what I mean...I've seen the way he looks at you...and I've seen the way you look at him. You're a Senator and this is a critical time. You can't get caught up in your feelings right now.

PADME: (annoyed) I am a senator and I am doing my duty. My personal feelings will not get in the way. They never have, and they never will.

DORME: Just...be careful m'lady.

A short scene like this establishes a beginning to the Anakin/Padme relationship by alluding to the fact that Padme may be thinking about Anakin. It also reinforces the fact that Padme ALWAYS acts like a Senator - formal, polite, impersonal. That would make her scenes with Anakin where she softens up have more meaning.

Fledgling screenwriting scene #2: After the Naboo fields, before the fireplace, Padme has a private conversation with a handmaiden

HANDMAIDEN: M'lady, are you sure you're not enjoying your Jedi protector's company a bit much?
PADME: (embaressed) What do you mean? Ani's just an old friend.
HANDMAIDEN: You act different around him. You laugh and you smile much more when you're around him. I'm worried that you both might let your guard done.
PADME: He's a Jedi, he can sense when we're in danger. I let my guard down around him because I know we're safe.
HANDMAIDEN: Is that the truth?
PADME: (sighs and pauses) Ani's one of the few people who treats me like an actual human being instead of just a senator. It's nice to feel like a person instead of a politician...it's been so long, I've almost forgotten how that felt.

Bad screenwriting aside, a scene like this gives the fireplace scene much more impact. We want to know WHY Padme is falling for Anakin. It's hinted at (and shown a tiny bit in the field scenes) that Padme lets her guard down around Anakin and stops being regal. Well, heck, since most of the development of this relationship has been cut out, let's add this little bit of exposition to at least tell the audience that yes, it has been happening, and yes, there's a reason why Padme enjoys Anakin's company. I don't mind if their relationship is shown over a cumulative of 5 minutes, but at least tell us the WHY so it seems logical.

 

Excellent... excellent. Everything is going as I have forseen...

Well, I'd like GL to delete the meadow tumbling in the grass scene and insert more bail organa scenes if possible.

 

Christopher Lee is 75 + years old! He's one of the greatest actors ever, and a great swordsman, but at his age he can't do all his own stunts!

 

I would change the following...

1) Introduce General Grievous somewhere at the end of the movie, maybe on Geonosis in the War Room? ...Or, in the abandoned warehouse where Sidious speaks with Dooku?

2) Don't make Obi-Wan & Anakin stand up so quickly like nothing is wrong after Dooku flees the fight with Yoda. It's stupid how they both just lay there, unconscious, until the fight is over & then both stand up with little or no problem.

3) Eliminate half of the stupid C-3PO puns on Geonosis.

4) Cut out some of the Anakin whining lines (such as when Padme is packing).

5) Put the longer version of the lightsaber fights in.