Rogue One and Episodes 4-6
I
actually would not change much with any of these. Rogue One was fine to me except perhaps a few
things that I thought were discrepancies.
One was jumping to lightspeed while on a planet’s surface. Nope…that goes against Star Wars rules. You have to clear the planet’s gravity well
before jumping to lightspeed or it could destroy the whole ship. If they didn't have to do this, then why would Han have even needed to get out of Tatooine's atmosphere in Episode 4 in order to escape from the Empire?
Communicating while in hyperspace is also not
a thing. Vader even had to get out of
the asteroid field to communicate with the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back, so
that kind of thing should not have happened. There are NO incidences in the original trilogy of individuals communicating while in hyperspace.
Also, it would have been good, I
thought, to have audiences unsure about the fate of Jan and maybe a few of the
other main characters in Rogue One. It would have been good to make
it so that they appear to be escaping when the Death Star hits and devastates
the whole landscape. The scene cuts as
Jan is aboard the escaping ship and someone says, “I don’t think we’re gonna
make it.”
"Try jumping to lightspeed!" Jan cries.
"But we haven't even cleared the planet's atmosphere. The planet's gravity well will..."
"Just DO IT!" cries Jan. Then it cuts away, leaving you
hanging…just to drive fans crazy...as they try jumping to lightspeed from the planet's surface. You see an explosion, as if the hyperdrive blew up...but you also see a streak of light as if they did manage to make the jump successfully.
And the best scene in the movie
was too short. Vader should have been
seen killing rebels for a lot longer. Even as the battle is winding down around
the ship that is receiving the transmission from the planet (the Death Star plans), Vader should have been making his way like an unstoppable force towards the terminal. Then, at the last second, just before the transmission is complete, Vader cuts down the last rebel and moves to the terminal to retrieve the data tapes - only to discover that it was a decoy. The real transmission was to Leia's ship. The terminal Vader was at was only receiving it as a backup copy.
One of the
officers that Vader had just cut down then mocks Vader and laughs at him.
“We were just the decoy…you’ll never get the plans now. The stolen plans were just beamed aboard a different ship. We were only the backup." (After all, Vader, in Episode 4, says that the plans were "beamed aboard this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.")
Then Vader sees Leia’s ship escaping towards the hyperspace jump point. He kills the guy who was
mocking him by clenching his fist. He then turns to an officer standing behind him. "Alert the Avenger. Intercept that ship at the jump point. We cannot allow it to escape." And he storms off without another word.
The scene cuts to the Avenger pursuing Leia's ship. Vader's TIE fighter is seen flying into the hanger bay from below. Immediately after, the scene returns to the Star
Destroyer pursuing Leia's ship as it launches through hyperspace, the Avenger right behind it…thus triggering the end
credits.
As for Episode 4, about the only
thing I’d have changed at all about this movie is that I would not have touched
it. I would have left the original as it
was, only tweaking some of the special effects, like taking out the cardboard
figures lying around, changing the computer terminals to look a bit more modern, and so forth. I
also would have added more fighters during the end battle. There should have been a trillion TIEs flying
around littering the skies. After all,
we’re talking THE DEATH STAR…It was a huge battle station! Why did they only send out a few
fighters? Therefore, there should have
also been more rebel fighters to compensate.
It should have remained clear that the rebels were vastly outnumbered,
but ultimately there should have been maybe a few more rebel ships. They did this kind of thing in some of the video games, so why not in the movie special edition?
As for Episode 5, again,
wouldn’t have changed a thing except to return it to its original state. The only enhancement that they added to the
film was changing the Emperor out and replacing him with the Emperor from all of
the other films. That, I thought, added
consistency. I especially hated that
they took out Vader’s line, “Bring my shuttle!” and they replaced it with,
“Alert my Star Destroyer… blah…blah…blah.”
Nope! The original was much
better. Short and to the point, just
like Vader would be…and much more menacing and powerful. Showing the shuttle fly up to the star destroyer also took away from the excitement of the scene.
As for Episode 6, again, the
special editions butchered many aspects of the movie. The catchy tune that the band sang was
replaced by some weird tune and all the CGI…no thanks. Put it back.
The Sarlaac looking like Little Shop of Horrors creature was also not as
cool. The original was better. It was almost like they wanted to replace
something so they just decided, “Well…I don’t know what else to do to make it
special edition, so we’ll do this weird thing with the Sarlaac I guess.”
One thing I would have
preferred, however, was a consistent Jabba. Either
make him all CGI in every movie or make him a puppet in every movie. Don’t have him look like a CGI thing in the
Prequels but then leave him a puppet in Return of the Jedi. I actually liked the puppet Jabba better, and
I thought they should have just used that same puppet for the prequels, since
Jabba was not a huge part anyway. They
could have still had other Hutts look all CGI, because they aren’t Jabba. However, the CGI and the puppet looked too
different to be the same. Again, though, if they couldn't use the puppet for all the movies, I'd have preferred a CGI Jabba for all the movies instead in order for there to be consistency. It just didn't feel like the same Jabba in Return of the Jedi as in the other movies.
Oh…and Yoda
too! If you can’t get the puppet right,
just CGI the whole series so Yoda is always the same looking. Either that or get a puppet that at least
looks really darn close. Don’t mix and
match.
The only thing I would have
changed in the original Return of the Jedi story-wise was how Boba Fett had “died” in the
Sarlaac Pit. It was a bit lame how the
most notorious Bounty Hunter died by accident at the hands of a blind Han Solo who just so happened to have caused a mishap with his jetpack. I would have liked to have seen Luke and Boba
Fett duke it out a bit more; making it more like the fight between Obi-Wan and
Jango in Episode 2 except hovering over the Sarlaac precariously. To keep Luke from being overwhelmed by
enemies, it would have been more awesome if Lando had planted some sort of
explosive ahead of time to detonate at that moment, sending lots of enemy thugs
flying overboard. Then focus on a
near-death fight between Luke and Fett.
So rather than having Luke
slaughtering endless idiot thugs, one blast would have taken a lot of them
out. Then focus on Luke fighting Fett,
hopping from one skiff to another while Fett jets from one to another; both
more evenly matched. Then it would make more
sense that Lando, Han and Chewie could hold off whatever stragglers of Jabba’s
survived the blast while Luke concentrated on Fett.
In the end, I think it would
have been awesome to see Fett fire his missile from his jetpack, blow up Luke’s
skiff that he was on, and have Luke barely leap from the skiff just as it
exploded. Thus, Luke would have flown
through the air into the sail barge at that point, and only by using the Force
he was able to grasp it and dangle there for a moment. Then, as Fett launches again into the air
with his jet pack, Chewie lines up a shot with a blaster rifle that he acquired
from one of the thugs. He blasts Fett’s
backpack, detonating it and launching Fett into the sail barge and then down
into the Sarlaac Pit, saving Luke’s life.
Then the scene continues as it did in the movie. Why not have Chewie be the hero of that scene instead of a blind Han Solo? Go Chewie!
And for the Ewok celebration,
again they replaced a catchy tune with a weird one. And the ghosts of Anakin and Obi-Wan and such
were also not right. They should not
have put young Anakin in there with older Obi-Wan. If you were going to put young Anakin there
as a ghost you should have replaced old Obi-Wan with young Obi-Wan so that it
was consistent - and a younger version of Yoda. I prefer the older
versions myself, but either way it should have been consistent.
And The Restoration Trilogy
comes to an end.
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