CT The lost pilots and scenes from the Endor space battle in Return of the Jedi

So we have at least two, and possibly three, shots in the finished film featuring the "communications ship": the shot of the Falcon flying low over a (not) upside-down, strangely-shaped Star Destroyer surface; the establishing shot where a TIE fighter slams into a Star Destroyer conning tower with five bridges; and maybe too the shot of a Star Destroyer "power tree" exploding just after a dying X-Wing pilot screams "She's gonna blow!".

All of which probably reveals the forward dorsal surface and the conning tower, but not the rest of the ship. Food for thought. Especially considering ILM would've had a vested interest in making this ship distinct from ordinary Star Destroyers.

There's also at least one audio and one visual "glitch" in the Battle of Endor scenes as released: one of the Rebel A-Wing pilots (Poppy Hands, who's in the Lost Rebels reel) is dubbed over with a male voice; and immediately after Wedge says "They're heading for the medical frigate", some TIE Interceptors are shown firing yellow laser bolts.

 

"and maybe too the shot of a Star Destroyer "power tree""
Well, that dome and that studio model are the dome and studio model used for the SSD. In that scene with Grizz Frixx we are visually recommended to think that that is a normal SD. That explosion however was only a composite over footage of the model. That model was not destructively filmed.
The tower and dome model I speak of is the pyrotechnic model that they filmed actually exploding. This model is the one on the SSD, attacked by A-Wings, and the Imperial officer laters says they lost their bridge shields. That model was destroyed during filming. That model, that was ultimately destroyed, was a large model. It is possible, and I have never seen "2" large tower dome studio models, that that is the model that Ken Ralston filmed a dogfight around (Cinefex 13). And that completed footage among others was declined by Lucas.

Yellow bolts. Good catch. (I'll trust, but verify, one of these days... )

 

Wait, so are there deleted scenes of B-wings lying around somewhere?

 

I'm having some confusion about the date of Jedi's shooting script. Is it December 1, or December 19? I've heard both dates for them. Could somebody please clarify?

 

December 1 has Lando and Falcon inside Death Star.
December 19 has Lando and Falcon escaping Death Star.

 

That clarifies nothing. Explain further.

 

Misprint. I have opened them up and am looking right them.
"December 1 has Lando and Falcon escaping Death Star.
December 19 has Lando and Falcon exploding inside Death Star."
That's the difference.

 

That still explains nothing. What's your source for these dates? Do you have two different copies of the shooting script?

 

The individual that hears of a script where Lando dies, if they are Leeland Chee-compliant, or authorized Star Wars official website compliant or authorized Star Wars information source compliant, are supposed to leap up knowingly and place their foot down firmly that Lucasfilm never allowed to be leaked in 1982 false trail / dead end / red herring segments of script, to safeguard secret story elements. No one is allowed to contemplate that the 'Lando dies' script can possibly have been sourced from Lucasfilm of 1982. The suggested assurance is that the 'Lando dies' script is a hoax from stem to stern, provenance unknown, date of origin unknown, etc.

And contemporary insider accounts from Cinefex 13, 1983, make me have to entertain the slight possibility that the content creators such as Leeland Chee and anonymous contributors to Star Wars official / authorized Star Wars information websites have not read it.

 

Is there any way to obtain these drafts?

 

There's a ROTJ "second draft" script floating around the internet which largely matches the final film, but has an alternate scene of Lando dying, and some extra dialogue where Obi-Wan mentions "my brother Owen" to Luke, as in the novelization. It's dated December 19, 1982 (rather than 1981 as would be logical for a film photographed in 1982). Its authenticity is extremely dubious, not least because it doesn't have any of the other deleted scenes from the film in the script. This seems to be the script Hernalt is talking about.

According to Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, the ROTJ second draft is dated September 21, 1981, and the third-draft script is dated December 1, 1981.

 

Coming in very late to this in-depth discussion, but IIRC, when I played the X-Wing video game, I had to take out the "shield generators" on the SDs before I could destroy them (I usually did so at the end of each mission, after taking out all waves of TIE fighters first.) It took a long time, but it wasn't impossible.

 

Then maybe the script Lt. Hija was referring to was actually December 1?

 

Can anyone tell me if, and when, the death of Red Three (Sila Kott) is actually depicted in the film?

 

1:40:35 ROTJ SE
During the phase of TIEs attacking Rebel cruisers while Star Destroyers hang back.

 

Well, I found a copy of the December 1 1981 shooting script for sale on Etsy, but the darn thing is $4,000. I was hoping I'd be able to get it (and share it) so that we could finally set all this straight, but I'm not so sure if it's possible.

 

Not a lot of energy to pour into this. I have an etext version of the December 1 1981 script. It has the section where Obi-Wan says "So I took you to live with my brother Owen on Tatooine... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan." Now, if this etext is a hoax and the expensive script available on auction sites is definitively different, I cannot know.

What I can observe is just another of those fun frustrating puzzles: Lucasfilm released filmed footage, taking in March and April of 1982, of rebel pilots saying the lines that appear in Khan's novelization. Those lines do not appear in this etext of a script I have dated December 1 1981.

Am I to believe that the December 1 1981 etext is legit, and that there was no Empire main communications ship on Lucas mind as of December 1 1981, and that the Empire main communications ship, and lines that were recorded that became the 'lost rebel' lines, were added to the shooting script in between December 1 1981 and March 1982? It's not hard to believe that. Lucas wrote script for Gerald Home, during shooting, on the fly in February. If you count up the total lines of Lost Rebels, it's on the same order. It is possible that Lucas generated some filler script to send to Khan, and then did also film it qua filler material, and then did not include that footage as of fall 1982, and this sequence of events all took place between December 1 1981 and March 1982.

 

The "December 1, 1981" ROTJ "expanded script" on the Starkiller website is a fan recreation, which takes the published script (which Lucasfilm altered to match the film) and adds in the sandstorm scene, and the scene of Obi-Wan telling Luke about "my brother Owen Lars". According to a note at the beginning, It was created by Mark Johnson in 2006.

There's also a "second-draft" script from "December 19, 1982" floating around the Internet, which is very likely a hoax (though Johnson's "fan recreation" uses it as the source for the missing scenes mentioned above).

According to JW Rinzler's Making of ROTJ, the real December 1, 1981 third-draft script has numerous differences from the final film.

For instance: the spelling of Jabba's "Gammorian Guards"; C-3PO says of Endor, “No, I don’t think it’s pretty here. With our luck, it’s inhabited solely with droid-eating monsters.”; Leia's blaster wound is in the leg rather than the shoulder, and Han's declaration of love to her is "You know I love you". Plus, there's a false ending to fight leaks where Luke is the one who throws the Emperor in the reactor shaft, and Vader refuses to admit being redeemed even as he dies.

Whereas the "12/19/1982" script on the Internet is basically the published version of the shooting script, which was altered by Lucasfilm to match the film as closely as possible. However, somebody then added in the deleted sandstorm scene, and Obi-Wan's mention of Owen Lars being his brother, which are in the novelization. As well as an alternate ending where Lando dies, long a subject of rumors and fan speculation.

Otherwise, it's exactly the same as the film - something extremely improbable, since we know several other things were different in the real shooting script. (For instance, where are the scenes of Palpatine telling Moff Jerjerrod to fire the Death Star laser at Endor?) On balance, this script smells phony.

On the other hand, the copy of Miki Herman's script on Etsy seems legitimate - it has a revised page from February 15, 1982, where Yoda says to Luke, "face Vader you must, and sorry will not help." Which is in James Kahn's novelization, but not the Internet script.

 

Cool. This is the kind of thing I knew a long time ago and then forgot, and just treated it as usefully close to legit, or legitimately close to useful.

If you're really close to the fire on these matters, @BlackRanger , would you have an estimate of what time period James Khan's working scripts date from?

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen a clip of the rebel fighters pulling up where one of the X-Wings crashes into the shield and explodes. It was used in a trailer or a special or a featurette of some kind.

 

That was described in the novelization, but I never saw it on film. Something very similar happens during the big space battle near the end of Rogue 1.

 

It was in the story boards. Maybe even an animated story board or animatic. But to my knowledge none of the Rebel ships hit the shield in any finished form of the shot.

 

It's very possible that ILM did film it, though, and it just ended up cut from the theatrical release.

Like how we know the modelers filmed General Veers' death scene in ESB, and even recycled an unused take of it elsewhere in the Hoth battle... even though the Blu-ray deleted scene only features a hand-drawn animatic of the explosion rather than the live-action modelwork footage.

 

Did I miss something? When was an X-Wing supposed to crash into the shield?

 

In the novelization, it was immediately after Lando's "Pull up! All craft, pull up!" - 3 X-wings pull up just a little too late, nick the shield, and explode.