Aayla Secura's death scene - altered for DVD?

This has always nagged me a bit - in ROTS, Aayla Secura is gunned down from behind by clone troopers, who continue to fire as she crawls away.

On the DVD, the final overhead shot of this scene is eventually covered by two large plants coming into shot. However, I could have sworn this didn't happen in the theatrical version, I remembered her simply slowing down as she's overcome by blaster fire.

Clearly I could be mistaken, but is it possible the plants obscuring the massacre were added to the DVD to soften the brutality of the scene, or even to make her death ambiguous, perhaps to be able to include her in the live action TV series?

 

No, she's always been obscured by the plants/fungus as she falls to the ground. If you could see what was happening her body would be opened up into hundreds of pieces with blood and gore all over the place - Clearly not something you'd see in a Star Wars film.

 

I definitely remember the blue flowers obstructing her death. I love the way it matches her blue skin. Its a reminder of the beauty being lost with the Jedi. I absolutely fell apart during Order 66 when I first saw it in theaters. And I wasn't even much of a prequel fan at the time.

 

I think the plants were there in the theatrical version. And I agree with the above; the plants were placed there for a reason.

 

I also think the plants were always there, and for that reason. Also, this shot is even more disturbing than the other Order 66 shots, because of the way they just keep firing at her back on the ground... she didn't keep crawling for very long.

 

Yeah, it definitely was the most disturbing shot in the sequence.

 

That one scene always reminds me of how thouroghly the Stormtroopers took care of Owen and Beru in STAR WARS.

 

The death of Ki-Adi Mundi tore my heart out. But this scene is shocking in its brutality. I don't know how many times I've seen ROTS but whenever I see the troopers open fire on Aayla Secura I always think "Please, please, stop shooting!"

 

Exactly, me too.

 

I've never thought about it this way before, but I completely agree.

 

The most striking thing about this death scene -- at least, it's obvious in retrospect (I could kick myself for not noticing or mentioning it in the CBC discussion for Order 66) -- is its placement in the montage. It is the second death scene, coming right after Ki-Adi-Mundi being gunned down. That is significant because it is being contrasted with KAM's death. KAM was a male Jedi, shot until dead and then shot no more. However, the clones behave rather differently to Aayla Secura, continuing to shoot her after she has both surrendered and fallen to the ground. One cannot help but speculate that this is because she is female. It's almost as if the clones -- all male, seeded entirely by a male, given their chilling order by a male -- have been programmed to fear femininity totally and utterly. And we know what Yoda said about fear: it leads to anger, which leads to hate, which leads to suffering. Of course, there is no direct evidence the clones are shooting in anger or hatred, per se, but there is no denying their brutal act. It can hardly be insignificant that it is after this shot that Yoda drops his cane, perhaps shook by the depravity of this episode; his later encounter with the Emperor acquires even more depth and meaning as a result. For here, in one dark, quick, vicious, and haunting moment, we see the hideous foundations of the Empire: a cold, maternally-void world, bereft of compassion and hope. It also lends a darker edge to the stormtroopers of the classic trilogy. The stormtroopers may have been bumbling, keystone cops, played by guys in plastic suits, that we all sort of laughed at more than feared, but their progenitors were mass-produced soldiers that meant business. Interestingly, the all-CG nature of the clones adds to their inhuman qualities (and the bigger, more damning inhumanness of their origins). Computers are machines that obey strict instructions "without question". They are staggeringly efficient in the right contexts, with no forgiveness of human frailty or error. In this light, the image of poor Aayla being blasted seemingly without end could reasonably be considered the most sinister and harrowing image in all of Star Wars.

 

Blimey. Excellent point and well made.