Another Update on my Jedi edit
I've finished making cuts to the movie, and now comes the difficult task of putting it all together. For those interested, here's a list of changes I've made.
- Restored the retro 20th Century Fox opening, and Lucasfilm Limited title.
- Tightened up Threepio and Artoo's encounter with Bib Fortuna (too many long pauses).
- Tightened up Threepio and Artoo's audience with Jabba (again, too many long pauses); I also restored the subtitled dialogue from the rough draft of the script to give more menace to Jabba.
- Cut the power droid being tortured (one of the first elements of unneeded silliness).
- Restored the original music number, albeit cutting it down to the bare minimum.
- New subtitles for Boushh (again, restoring the original intent of the script).
- Cut the whacking great close-up of Lando in disguise (there were 4 of these in total) and Chewbacca subsequently being thrown in a cell.
- Removed the belching frog monster outside Jabba's Palace.
- Tightened up Jabba and Han's exchange after the latter is unfrozen (again, too many long pauses).
- Removed the lingering shots of Jabba and his court sleeping.
- Removed another unneeded close-up of Lando in disguise.
- Removed the crying Rancor Keeper (a cute idea, but, again, silliness that brings the story to a screeching halt).
- Tightened up the Sail Barge battle as much as possible (making a point of removing the belching Sarlaac).
- From here until after the Rebel briefing, things are untouched. There's a lot I would have loved to have done IF the deleted scenes were available!
- Removed the lingering shot of Lando walking to the Millennium Falcon.
- Removed the shot of the two speeder bikes that start to chase after Luke and Leia. If you look closely, the picture elements do not match and this has always bothered me.
- Removed the lingering shot of Han and Chewbacca looking bored as they wait for Luke and Leia's return.
- Removed most of Wicket's silly gibbering when he and Leia are attacked.
- Removed the Speeder Bike trooper's "Yes, sir!" and lame salute.
- Twice the Emperor tells Vader, "He will come to you, and you will bring him before me"; I removed the second one and ended the scene with him telling Vader "His compassion for you will be his undoing". Then, I lifted Vader saying "Yes, Master" from elsewhere.
- Removed a lot of the silly Ewok gibbering when Luke and friends are captured.
- Removed a lot of the lingering Ewok shots when the Rebels are taken to the village.
- Removed Luke asking Leia about their mother. I started the scene instead with Leia asking, "Luke, what's troubling you?"
- Change Vader's line "Obi-Wan once thought as you do" to "Padmé once thought as you do."
- Completely removed the silliness of an Ewok stealing a speeder bike in order to distract the guards.
- Tightened up the forest battle as much as possible.
- Removed Chewbacca swinging on a vine and yelling like Tarzan (WTF was Lucas thinking?!).
- I've always felt something was needed during the pivotal scene where Vader is torn over helping Luke. So, when it goes to close-up on Vader, I added in a brief flashback of his premonition of Padme's death.
- And, finally, the biggest change was the ending of the film. I decided to incorporate the unused and reworked celebration music from Revenge of the Sith to have a montage of memorable moments throughout the entire saga in order to tie things together.
- Closed the film on the shot of the Jedi ghosts instead of the teddy bear picnic.