Star Wars Episode I: Cloak Of Deception (Released) — Page 2

Thanks, Humby, for the very fair review. You might consider leaving a formal review at FanEdit.org. 

I share your reservations about most of the things you described, but included them in the edit anyway. Other than removing the trip to Otah Gungah, I intentionally kept a little bit more of Jar Jar than most editors do. I think I was pretty merciless with things that make him out to be a slapstick clown, and kept pretty much anything else. I wanted to avoid giving the audience the impression that he is being cut down to the degree possible; he's in the film for better or worse and I want this edit to stand on its own two feet as a film. 

I really would have preferred to have had Qui-Gon say something to Obi-Wan before he dies, but unfortunately there's nothing for him to say. Anything I keep would either contradict the OT by having him request Obi-Wan train Anakin, or reference the 'chosen one' stuff. 

Other than the probe droid deleted scene, the deleted scenes I used were not necessary. I grant that. I kept the 'dawn before the race' scene for a few reasons:

• My Episode I edit is short. It's the shortest of the three, and I wanted to minimize that aspect of it, and keeping this harmless scene served that desire. 
• Episodes II and III will be making use of several important deleted scenes, so keeping this scene helps the audience adjust to having SD deleted scenes in these movies.
• I eliminated most of Anakin working on the podracer, including starting it up. Keeping this scene lets us see the pod up close a little bit and gives us a sense of Anakin working tirelessly on it.

The repair droids during the podrace are only in the edit to help the music. I had edited together the podrace with the same musical arrangement back in 2006, though I did not include it in my first edit that came out later for reasons I can't remember. That musical arrangement has stuck with me for years, so I really wanted to keep it the way it was, even if it meant mixing HD and SD footage. The podrace scoring is not perfect, though I think it makes the scene more fun and now the unscored version seems boring to me. (The mkv version contains an alternate soundtrack that is identical except it does not have any added podrace music.)

Can anyone comment on the added film grain? Does it work for you or not? TPM already has a little bit of natural grain, so I don't think it stands out. I'm rendering Episode II right now, and the grain gives it a very different visual feel because AOTC has no native grain. It's not something we are used to for it, but I think it helps things look just a little bit less digital and artificial. It at least looks like it was printed on film before being shown.  

EDIT: For anyone interested, here is my original attempt at adding music to the podrace, from years ago. This is what I was trying to recreate in HD this time around, and the repair droids from the deleted scenes were necessary to do that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sIHt9JTkJc

The music really adds life to the beginning of the race, good work!

I've always wanted to see that race with just a single circuit. It would have music in the beginning, but actually disappearing towards the end, because in the final stretch the podracers increase in speed and everything gets faster and more intense (reference intended ;)) It tends to bother me that in movies when someone is driving a car they will turn their head for five seconds at a time to look at another person instead of concentrating on the road. There should be none of this in the race (such as when Anakin has engine trouble) as they're supposed to be going hundreds of miles an hour. Also, it would seem like Anakin's pod would be more fragile than the others, so it's totally unbelievable when the two are hooked together at the end. It could perhaps be recut to look like Anakin skillfully clipped Sebulba's pod with his own, neatly severing a coupling and paying back the Dug's sabotage.

Just some thoughts, probably useless as this is already a done deal. Eh.

Like I said on Fan Edit, I really enjoyed this edit. I really can't wait to see the rest of the films. I do really like how the Darth Maul fight was cut. It seemed more intense. Of course it's been years since I watched it.

On Attack of the Clones, will you be adding grain and adjusting the colors?

EyeShotFirst said:

On Attack of the Clones, will you be adding grain and adjusting the colors?

 Yes, very slightly. The grain will be about the same level as Cloak of Deception, and the color has been slightly tweaked to try to remove the green tint. It's subtle and you probably wouldn't notice it unless you do a direct comparison. 

We are used to seeing TPM with grain, from the older master with little or no DNR. However, seeing grain in AOTC and ROTS takes a little getting used to, but I think it helps it look like it was sourced from film. It's a small thing, but I like it. You can't really tell at DVD resolution, though. Personally I'd recommend watching the 720p version, as there's much more detail yet not so high res to make the deleted scenes stick out too much. 

^ I'll definitely get it in 720p. Only reason I chose DVD for TPM, was so I could show it to my brother in law. I gave him a view of the original trilogy, so he said he wanted to watch TPM. I said if I was going to watch it, it was going to be a fan edit.

Ultimately, I think newcomers benefit the most from fan edits like mine. If you don't know what you're missing, you can walk away with a different perception than if you were parsing it to notice differences. 

That being said, it's still a huge letdown coming off the OT.

It really is, but I will never introduce anybody to Star Wars without starting with the original trilogy.

The numbering is really the only thing that bothers me, but that's an OCD problem. I still think they shouldn't have numbered them, and you just watched in the order of when they came out.

The PT works (yes, I said it works, don't shoot) because it's connected to the original trilogy. I feel you get more out of the PT if you watch the OT first.

Numbering them just makes the OCD people snap. I get a twitch in my eye thinking:

(1977) Episode IV

(1980) Episode V

(1983) Episode VI

(1999) Episode I

(2002) Episode II

(2005) Episode III

I've never been diagnosed with any kind of mental or chemical imbalance, but the ordering drives me up the wall.

EyeShotFirst, I'm wondering if your brother-in-law noticed anything weird about Qui-Gon's lack of last words, as well as whether he noticed anything about the podrace music (especially tracked music from ANH) that prompted him to ask if these things were changed. 

Hal 9000 said:

EyeShotFirst, I'm wondering if your brother-in-law noticed anything weird about Qui-Gon's lack of last words, as well as whether he noticed anything about the podrace music (especially tracked music from ANH) that prompted him to ask if these things were changed. 

 He isn't really familiar with Star Wars. Episode 1 was the only film he'd seen, but it was back in 99, so he most likely forgot most of everything.

He, like me, remembered Darth Maul being a badass, and Jar Jar being annoying, but he didn't notice anything different.

I pointed things out, like toning down the politics, Jar Jar not being as annoying. I also pointed out Anakin being a heroic pilot, instead of a dumb kid getting himself into a battle.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm glad you enjoyed it. No edit is going to be perfect (for the editor, let alone for others). I'm not sure the ideas you present would be convincing given the footage we have to work with, but I'd certainly encourage you to try it out on your own. I hope better edits than mine are made in the future, and that perhaps the better ideas I put forth are picked up and ran with by others. 

That being said, it's a labor of love, and takes more time and effort than I would have guessed at the start. 

darklordoftech said:

Hal, why did you remove Sidious from the movie?

 I didn't. The first workprint removed Sidious, but I backtracked on that once I watched it a bit more and gave it more consideration. The main reason I backtracked was I realized it swerved from my goal of leaving these to function as prequels, rather than as what one would watch first.

ExNihilo said:

This was a great edit and the one I will watch from now on. Thank you and excellent job!

 Thanks! I'm glad people are enjoying these. I wish I could wipe my memories of working on them so I could just sit back and enjoy them. 

DoomBot said:

Can't wait to watch these, i just now got them!

Any chance of releasing PCM audio or (lossless) of your work for all 3? Then I can mux them with your BD version.

Do you also have higher res movie posters for them?

 The only audio source used for Episodes II and III were the retail DVDs, because I encountered mysterious issues when using the BR audio. Besides, I would have wanted to undo some of the 2011 audio alterations anyway. Episode I was mainly BR audio, because I did not encounter said issues, though I used the Laserdisc audio in a few places to undo 2011 audio alterations. For all three films, the audio for the deleted scenes came from the DVDs. As such, the 448kbps AC3 audio track used in all released versions of these fan edits is the only sensible thing to export IMO.

FanEdit.org user OnlyOneKenobi is responsible for the great cover artwork. I've included everything I have from him along with these edits, and have not withheld anything. Only he would be able to export anything in higher res. 

Version 2 is in the process of distribution. The DVD5 version is being seeded on the 'spleen, and being uploaded to a file locker. The 720p and 1080p versions will follow as they finish encoding, which takes about a week each.

Nope! OnlyOneKenobi over at FE.org seems to have vanished, and he's the one who put the covers together. The covers also reflect v1, and don't match up 100% to the contents of v2.