Episode III DVD: Special Features

I decided to start my exploration of the DVD with disk 2, the "Special Features" disk. The disk contains six deleted scenes, the teasers, trailers and TV spots, theatrical posters from various countries, an Xbox demo, stills, a music video and various documentaries.

Tonight I watched the six deleted scenes and "Within a Minute," an exhaustive documentary detailing the tremendous effort it took to create the duel on Mustafar. Ironically, when all was said and done, for me that duel still fell short of both the Vader vs. Luke match in Episode V and the Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul fight in Episode I. It was too short, not to mention the fact that the lava and the lighting got in the way of appreciating the swordsmanship.

I'm always curious about the choices made in removing certain scenes from movies. On both the Episode I and Episode II DVDs there were scenes cut that would have made both movies just a little better. In Episode I a scene in which young Anakin gets in a fistfight with a young Greedo was cut and I feel that it was important to show that even at age nine Anakin had aggressive tendencies. In Episode II, they cut one scene where you get to see Padmé’s family and another scene in which Padmé shows Anakin holograms from her early days in politics. Both of these scenes would have served to flesh out Padmé’s backstory.

The scenes deleted from Episode III aren't on the level of the ones I mentioned above, but at least two of them would've provided a good transition into Episode IV. Both scenes, one set in Bail Organa's office and another in Padmé’s apartment, serve to establish Padmé as one of the founding members of what would become the Rebel Alliance.

It's interesting to note that the Rebel Alliance was formed by two black men, a Hispanic man and four women. Not one white guy. Yet when you look at the awards ceremony at the end of Episode IV, the Rebel Alliance twenty years later consists of nothing but young white men and a lone white female, Princess Leia. Non-humans, humans of color and women of any type need not apply to help rid the galaxy of evil.

I wonder what the hell happened in that timespan?

Of course, by the time you get to Episode VI, another white woman appears (Mon Mothma) and the Mon Calamari come out of nowhere and save everyone’s asses by supplying the ships and the tactical expertise needed to assault Death Star II.

These are the problems you run into when you film things out of sequence.