Drakul

I just watched this and great job Hal! If not for my memory and a few quirks like low res deleted scenes I would have totally forgotten this was an edit.

I don't know if you're still taking opinions for v4 but I'll just throw a few things here while it's fresh in my brain:

- Thank God for the cuts in Jar Jar and Ani antics. Particularly the ending battles were really improved because of that. There's one more i feel you could cut and it wouldn't hurt is Jar Jar "wissa going home!"

- For deleted scenes I feel the probe droid one is indispensable, it explains why Qui-Gon is rushing to the ship which was never done in the movie. The others are fine but don't really add much.

- The added SotE soundtrack on the pod race is very well done. At first I was concerned because I always loved the SFX on that race and felt the lack of music enhanced the action but you didn't bring the music to the forefront so it merged very well.

- I'm glad you're re-adding "the negotiations were short" because I always like that little playful side of Obi-Wan. Though if I'm honest I didn't even notice it was cut until Qui-Gon is on Naboo and says "there were no negotiations"

- I noticed the opening crawl faded to black very quickly and early. I don't remember how it is in the original movie but it felt much faster than ep 4-5 (that I just watched recently).

- Similarly the end credits stutter a lot and it's a bit jarring. Presumably you sped them up to catch on the inserted Edit Credits but I'm not sure why it's not a smooth scroll and it takes you out of the movie. I would prefer if you let the credits roll normally and then add the Edit credits at the very end (similar to what Harmy did)

- I thought the Gungan part would feel rushed without the underwater stuff but it flowed very nicely. I do love the submarine "there's always a bigger fish" part but there's no way to include this without the Gungan city. Do you think there's a way to cut the antics in that part to allow you to leave it in or is it not salvageable?

- I'm not sure you should cut the part where it's mentioned Anakin's never won a race because then Padme's reactions feel very weird. She goes from being friendly in the deleted scene when she wakes him up for the race to being very annoyed 3 mins later saying "you jedi are far to reckless the Queen does not approve"

- Another scene I'm not sure why you removed is "this one is a decoy!". I felt it was clever and I always loved the sound of that door closing super fast :P

- There's one edit I wish you'd made and it's Darth Maul' death. I always felt the time that elapse between Obi-Wan hanging and Maul cut in half was ridiculously long and completely made Maul appear dumb for not realizing what was happening. I feel if the scene were quicker it would be a matter of not being able to react in time as opposed to just looking like an oblivious inactive dumbass. Particularly if you cut the part were he furrows his brows and Obi-Wan is looking pretty much straight at Qui-Gon's lightsaber it might enhance the scene.

I think that's pretty much all I got. Sorry for the wall of text.

Can't wait to watch TAS!

Hal 9000 said:

 I'd like for them all to be out well ahead of TFA. 

 Go ahead and go kick his butt!

JK, can't wait :)

I kind of agree. I watched both clips and while he's not saying "Noooooo!!", which is the one thing everyone seems to get hung up on since Team America, the tone of his voice seems to different from the original voice.

Anyone else having issues streaming the .mkv of ESB v2?

I use PS3 Media Server to stream to my Oppo and I just watched Star Wars with no issues and tested RotJ likewise. But ESB starts stuttering pretty much right after the crawl like it can't buffer the file.

Not sure why it's doing that since SW 2.5 is the same size.

I really like your idea for the series. I watched the whole series when it aired and really enjoyed it. I made a 'best of' episodes list as I watched it for an eventual second viewing but your movies may be a great replacement. Obviously in my best of I would watch full episodes but there are some that have great moment inside of a an overall crappy episode so here you gain the advantage.

My question is towards your philosophy for the whole thing. Do you plan to use every episode or skip some that you find not interesting? Do you plan to trim all episodes? For example towards the end of the series the tone and drama really pick up and I'm not sure what you could trim. 

Are you planning (is it even possible?) to replace the Tim Curry voice over for the Emperor at the end of the series after Ian Abercrombie died?

Duh! I knew it wasn't right but didn't feel like looking it up and didn't even register it was LotR.... no comment.

And it's not so much hardware as HDD space... :/

For sure, you wouldn't want your final version to leave anything to desire in technical / visual terms. Just in terms of edits and choices. I read all of your threads for the PT and your changes mostly seems fine to me (hard to say until I watch them of course).

For ep1 it seems you reverted some changes anyway (like the "negotiations were short!", always loved that line) and the rest to me is hit or miss I guess. I actually like the underwater scene, find it visually striking and a nice change of pace (like Kamino in ep2) but I don't like the Gungan antics and the submarine part would make no sense without what follows so I guess it's a casualty of war. Likewise I don't dislike the Numenorians so I don't care either way about those changes but I'm curious to see how it feels with your changes. Most of the rest I approve and excited to check out.

Ep2 is my least favorite of the saga, I dislike how Anakin is such a brat to Obi-Wan and you changed that (btw if you want the best representation of Anakin watch the Clone Wars). I'm not against the romance but the excution left much to be desired especially the frolic in the meadow, the sand and the AWFUL music cut when they stop kissing. ugh. Also not a huge fan of the sequence from the arena to the sandstorm fight, it's too messy, too... 'bullish'. I like the Dex part but that's minor so we'll see.

Ep3 to me doesn't need much changing apart from the way Anakin is acting too angry all the time, feels like a forced thing to justify him becoming Vader by the end of the movie. I'm curious to see the Padme lives ending since I never saw it and the "noooooo" never bothered me as much as others since the visuals of him force breaking everything adds a lot to the gravity of the scene. Likewise the Death Star cameos, while unnecessary are a cool little wink to the OT.

Anyway enough rambling :P

One more question though. I noticed you mentioned in a thread that you recommend the 720p version over the 1080p so that the deleted scenes don't jump out as much. I'm assuming that applies to ep1-3? What I'll probably do is grab the 720p for v3 and then since apparently v4 will have higher res deleted scenes maybe I'll splurge on 1080p bluray burn then.

I've been in a big SW mood lately to get ready for ep VII (buying an ultra saber, reading Dark Disciple....). Decided to re-watch the whole saga including maybe the Smudgers' Clone Wars.

Originally I only knew of the phantom edit and had no idea how many there actually were. I grabbed Harmy's for my OT and a bunch different ones (Q2, Jasonn, L8wrtr) for PT but I think I'll go with yours first.

You seem very cerebral aout your edits and I like that you reason everything. Even though honestly I like the PT lot more than most and I could survive with the only edits being Jar Jar's antics in ep1, the romance in ep2 and the whinny Anakin dialogues in ep3.

in any case I'll probably start watching PT stuff by next Saturday. Do you think you'll have done v4 by then or should I grab v3 and watch that for now?