Star Wars - Episode III: Dawn of the Empire by L8wrtr

[DominicCobb]

I tend to believe that anyone who feels the need to watch edited versions of the prequels will never be truly 100% satisfied with those edits unless they do one for themselves - there's just too much that comes down to personal preference.

I completely get the desire to want to keep continuity with the OT. But I think there's a give and take. Personally, I think if we're changing the films, why not change ROTJ (especially since it's already in the need for some changing)? In my mind it's a question of sacrificing one or the other. Padme's death in ROTS, or that small bit of dialogue in ROTJ. For me, there's no question what the solution should be: remove the line in ROTJ. It's of relatively little consequence, while Padme's death is, I believe, essential to the conclusion of the story told in ROTS.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your sharing that sentiment, and I actually couldn't agree with you more. It is funny. When I first got into fanediting, that was actually something I considered, editing Jedi to match Sith (or DotE), but somewhere between then and now I shifted into a perspective that you don't really edit the holy trinity, in particular to bend them to the PT.. so now the mantra of bend the PT to meet the OT became something I no longer questioned.. I can't say you've convinced me.. but I love my original ending so it's easy to look for reasons to keep it .. 

And I really can't agree with you more about the only perfect PT edit is one that you make yourself. It is 100% the reason I made my own. No edit came close to what I needed it to be. Sure I opened it up to vigorous discussion on how to handle things, opinions on different editing options.. but always that collaborative approach resulted in me making a choice about the edit, even if it was to go with an idea that I had to be convinced, I made the choice to do it. With something so personal as how a person grew up with SW, and what it meant to them, watching anyone else's edit is always going to be some form of a compromise in my opinion. I am probably re-stating myself from somewhere on this site, but I've always held that the reason for the fact there will always be a new edit being made of the PT is that so manny of us grew up so intimately with Star Wars, it means something specific and unique to each of us, and those of us that thought about the mythos created, then all wondered what happened before? We all had access to, and had memorized the fragmented lore of the time before the events of Episode IV.. we each developed our own theories, created our own possible ways to tie the information together..  and so when each of us watched TPM, we were each disappointed in a simultaneously common and unique way.. we all saw the same shit, the same flaws, that was a communal misery.. but at the same time each of us had our own unique sense of what was lost.. what opportunities had been missed.. we each had dreamed of a possible back story that unique and specific, and in the bottom of all our hearts, was better than what we got, for a million different reasons. Lucas really had an impossible task before him, but it's shocking just how far short he fell.

Yes, exactly. Which is why, though I found your edit of ROTS nearly perfect, I knew I had to make my own version to satisfy what I felt the film needed.

Yet, I do have a slightly different philosophy. There's definitely a part of me that sees the OT as the "holy trinity," and that part will always be there and I can always return to it and watch the original versions of those films. But I believe, unfortunately, in that part of me, there can be no prequels at all. The films of the PT are just too far off from what they should have been to fit that mindset. Only thing one can do, in my opinion, is to make the films of the PT as good as they possibly can be. That's my philosophy - if it means making slight alterations to the OT, then so be it (and as I've said, I do believe in this "making the films better" mindset that ROTJ needs some fixing anyway). And thus why I feel the need to not only edit the PT but the OT as well (although I mainly blame those damn special editions for the latter).

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

I can't say I agree with your reasoning for Padme's death (or any reasoning, I tend to agree with Dr. Ball on it), but I just want to repost this:

I tend to believe that anyone who feels the need to watch edited versions of the prequels will never be truly 100% satisfied with those edits unless they do one for themselves - there's just too much that comes down to personal preference.

 

[Hal9000]

A hearty +1 to the last several posts.
FWIW, I too upheld the conviction not to edit the OT, even when doing my ANH custom SE. Even I feel the need to draw the line somewhere, and at this point it's a ROTJ-shaped line.
With my prequel edits, I tended to adopt the ""majority reading"" of past edits, or the approach on a given area that seemed best. Having Padme survive Ep3 was the most noteworthy example of going against this somewhat. If my only reason for doing so were to maintain continuity with ROTJ, I certainly wouldn't have chosen to take that path. Rather, it was the conviction about Q2's (or The Cutter's) idea to use Boleyn footage to depict Padme on Alderaan dovetailing with Corigar's idea to downplay the silliness of Anakin turning to the dark side seemingly just to save her life. Continuity with ROTJ was just the extra nudge to get the ball rolling.

Anybody restless enough to scour existing prequel edits looking for the right fit is cursed to remain that way or enter the labyrinth themselves. Star Wars is a bizarre puzzle.


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[darthrush]

A hearty +1 to the last several posts.
FWIW, I too upheld the conviction not to edit the OT, even when doing my ANH custom SE. Even I feel the need to draw the line somewhere, and at this point it's a ROTJ-shaped line.
With my prequel edits, I tended to adopt the ""majority reading"" of past edits, or the approach on a given area that seemed best. Having Padme survive Ep3 was the most noteworthy example of going against this somewhat. If my only reason for doing so were to maintain continuity with ROTJ, I certainly wouldn't have chosen to take that path. Rather, it was the conviction about Q2's (or The Cutter's) idea to use Boleyn footage to depict Padme on Alderaan dovetailing with Corigar's idea to downplay the silliness of Anakin turning to the dark side seemingly just to save her life. Continuity with ROTJ was just the extra nudge to get the ball rolling.

Anybody restless enough to scour existing prequel edits looking for the right fit is cursed to remain that way or enter the labyrinth themselves. Star Wars is a bizarre puzzle.


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True. It's nearly impossible to find an edit that is 100 % exactly the way we want it. That's why I mash together parts of different edits. I use your ep.3 edit the entire way through right up until the end where I switch to L8wtr since I prefer Padme dying. And for episode 2 I use Hal's for everything except one scene. I prefer the Q2 version of the tunnel kiss since it has even less dialogue than Hal's. See but that's the thing about fanediting that ya'll have said in the past couple posts. You can only truly satisfy yourself by doing a little mix and mashing of your own or making your own fanedit entirely.

 

[EddieDean]

Great chat here today and I want to throw another voice in to enthusiastically encourage all editors and those who contribute ideas.

Unlike a number here I don't necessarily hold the originals untouchable, and while I do think the Prequels lessen some of the value of the originals (force lightning being something you earn with enough darkside points, rather than to illustrate just how monstrous Sidious truly is being just one example), I'm in the camp of people who accept it all as One Saga.

Further, as a fan of Clone Wars and Rebels, which I really do see as a huge value-add, I often think "I like ALL of Star Wars more than I like ANY of Star Wars" - meaning that the growing Star Wars body of story as a whole over any format increases, the saga as a whole is better than any one movie or TV show story arc, and the more media consumed, the more it feels like one cohesive universe.

And let's be honest - there's not a single SW movie that doesn't have some flaws. We want to love it all in spite of its imperfections - that's why fanedits exist. But for me the more sheer story volume - the more Star Wars 'world' I can keep (while minimising those flaws) the better. For me that means maintaining as much canon as possible: I've no interest in seeing JarJar dubbed into something else because I know he speaks in the Clone Wars. The use of 'Darth' as a title beyond Vader, and the existence of Dooku as a Sith (not just a rebel Jedi) are capital-C Canon now. The prequels for me can't be melted down into a single movie because they're interrupted by the Clone Wars. For this reason I tend to seek edits which cut the cringe more than anything else, or which restructure the films to better position the jeopardy and threat, while maintaining all of the key story beats the rest of the Star Wars world may later rely on.

Looking over the last decade or more of fanediting, I think the editing approach has 'matured' (though I don't mean that derisively) into a similar approach as I'm sure many feel the same - which is why I think your edits L8wrtr and yours HAL9000 are right at the top.

Similarly following that maturity I'm glad we're talking about things like Padme's death. It's absolutely a contradiction (unless you really need to handwave it as force visions or... a bit of a memory mistake?) so it does need attention, and while I love the use of Anne Boelyn, you're right that her death has more value as an important point in Anakin's fall than the lack of it does as a nice memory for Leia.

That brings me back to where I began - I wasn't raised on the Original Trilogy and it's less nostalgia-shielded for me so I am comfortable touching it. I think one of its flaws (and it is a minor one) is that they do look a little dated - which is why I think Adywan's ANH and forthcoming ESB are a terrific (non-sacrilegious!) baseline. I also really enjoyed an edit of ROTJ which reshaped the ending slightly - cleverly placing the Emperor's throne room on the Super Star Destroyer so there was more jeopardy when the rest of the cast were trying to destroy the Second Death Star.

For me then, my "maximise worldbuilding / polish story flow / minimise cringe" Saga plays out like this:
* TPM: Either L8wrtr's or HAL9000s (favouring L8wrtrs I think because he's a little tighter on JarJar)
* AOTC: Either L8wrtr's or HAL9000s (both equally viable)
* Clone Wars: Using Smudger9's moviefied versions at the front end which purge a lot of the early dross and reshape the episodes into solid narratives, then at the back end watching it in chronological order but with a few of the more offensive arcs just excised altogether.
* ROTS: Either L8wrtr's or HAL9000s (favouring HAL9000s Anakin fall just a little more, and for Padme living in the absense of a ROTJ edit)
* Rebels: Pretty much untouched though I could be convinced of a little tightening. That said a lot of the weirder one-off episodes are kind of lovely worldbuilders in their own right.
* Rogue One: Again pretty much untouched. I don't think there's much to object to at all here. The threads here and on OriginalTrilogy don't seem to have come to any consensus about really offensive elements and I think that's for good reason. Though it could maybe do with some appropriate application of John Williams. (I'm pro opening crawl though, again for me because it's just another film in the whole multimedia saga.)
* ANH: Adywan's for the visual polish. Though I always liked his unused slower-Alderaan-destruction sequence, and moreso now that Rogue One featured some nice slow Death Star laser destruction.
* ESB: Perfect as is... until Adywan's comes out (for visual polish only).
* ROTJ: The edit I mentioned above, for the increased jeopardy, though it doesn't kill off Boba Fett which might be relevant eventually.
* TFA: Great as is (and we want to be careful with it since you never know what future films may call back to), but I'm 100% behind HAL9000's gentle restructuring of when Starkiller Base fires and the minimised Rathtar sequence someone posted recently.

 

[Hal9000]

There is a totally different set of parameters to grapple with after the Disney purchase. Before that point, prequel edits could be as radical as desired, in service to the OT. Now, most people would prefer keeping it open and cooperative with what the franchise will have in the pipeline.


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[DominicCobb]

I prefer the Q2 version of the tunnel kiss since it has even less dialogue than Hal's. 

Really? Interesting...

 

[ssj]

I prefer. . . the tunnel kiss

whoa, son. this is a family-friendly forum.

 

[Nic]

Having just watched it, I like how A Galaxy Betrayed (3-in-1 edit on youtube) managed to have Padme die AND solve the "do you remember your true mother" continuity snarl: when Padme is giving birth, LEIA is born first instead of Luke. Obi-Wan holds the first baby up to Padme's face, which would give baby Leia a good look at her birth mom (which she would remember because of The Force). Makes total sense!

 

[Hal9000]

Good idea. It would, however, preclude using the prequels off-label in machete order to reveal the Luke and Leia connection in a dramatic way.
Well, sort of. Not really.


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