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Ep. III Chronology Cut - by natedeug (WIP)

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 (Edited)

The New Chronology Cut

This project began a few months back as a custom cut of Hal9000’s Labyrinth of Evil and TM2YC’s Revenge of the Sith: Reborn. The goal was to use the Hal’s great edit as a base on which to tack the removal of Darth Vader as handled by TM2YC, thus creating an edit that is both enjoyable and ideal for a chronological viewing experience, saving Vader’s appearance for Star Wars and the revelation that Anakin lives for The Empire Strikes Back. I was happy for a while with the result but, upon reflection, found the jump between sources to be jarring.

I’ve gone back to the drawing board and decided to do this the right way, using Octorox’s Extended Edition as the source. This new Chronological cut now represents ideas gathered from various editors, such as the above mentioned Hal9000, TM2YC, and Octorox as well as L8WRTR, Q2, and Dominic Cobb. My own edits have also been added, and all will be listed below.

I’ve avoided the reveal of Vader in addition to the naming of the children by skipping directly from Obi-Wan leaving Mustafar to the moon base and the medical droid scene, to the discussion between Bail, Yoda, and Obi-Wan about the fate of the twins. This cuts out the birth of the twins and Vader and the death of Padme, which sounds abrupt on paper, but I think it flows well and keeps the story moving toward the end of the movie.

I’m certainly open to criticisms and suggestions, as this will probably be an evolving effort over time, though I won’t be able to work on it with any real regularity. And I’d like to thank all the editors who have already blazed the path.

A 720p workprint is now available; PM me.

Edits:

  • Cut R2 missing the buzz-droid; now scores a direct hit, and we move on.
  • Cut a bit of the droid sweep-up in the hanger, and all further antics between droids and R2.
  • Cut Obi-Wan and Anakin’s hesitation to cut down droids in elevator.
  • Cut length of Obi and Anakin’s walk over to Palpatine.
  • Cut Dooku jumping from balcony.
  • Cut length of Obi’s walk up the stairs as well as length of focus on balcony falling on him.
  • Cut Anakin’s hesitation to kill Dooku.
  • Cut Neimoidian Captain ordering batteries to fire.
  • Cut super battle droid kicking R2
  • Rescored bridge fight and ship landing with RotJ theme. (Dominic Cobb’s brilliant idea)
  • Droid stays down after Obi-Wan decapitates it.
  • Cut Obi and Anakin still slashing droids on bridge as ship breaks apart.
  • Cut “Love has blinded you?” dialog.
  • Cut Anaking saying anything beyond his incredulous “What?” in the Jedi Council meeting.
  • Cut sweet 360 lizard shot.
  • Cut down lizard/wheel chase and another shot of Obi riding lizard after killing Grievous.
  • Cut Palpatine’s badass flip and weird mouth thing while fighting Mace.
  • Cut Anakin run/jog/walk into Palpatine’s quarters.
  • Cut any mention of Darth Vader.
  • Cut Padawan talking to Anakin before lightsaber ignition.
  • Cut Yoda flipping outside of Jedi Temple.
  • Cut Obi sitting in the closet on Padme’s ship.
  • Cut Anakin saying “I saw your ship.”
  • Cut from Yoda taking out and igniting lightsaber back to Mustafar, cutting down on time we see Yoda flip-jump-fighting.
  • Cut from Palpatine telling clones to “double [their] search” back to Mustafar. He never mentions preparing his ship for Mustafar, and this is the last we see of him in the movie.
  • Cut from Obi-Wan leaving Mustafar to Bail and Yoda on moon base to medical droid saying “We’re losing her.” Obi asks, “She’s dying?,” to which the droid responds that they need to operate if they’re going to save the babies. Brought forward shot of Yoda looking despondently on Padme’s death. Music rises, then cut to Bail, Yoda, and Obi discussing the fate of the twins, implying Padme’s death without focusing on it before the funeral procession. This edit can be viewed here.
  • Cut Yoda landing on Dagobah.

Possible edits not yet made (need suggestions):

  • Rescore Dooku fight.

Original Post Below:

A couple years ago, I finally came upon this beautiful community when searching for Harmy’s Despecialized Editions. At the time, I had no idea how many serious faneditors there were out there doing quite amazing things with these movies we love and hate. I’ve watched about just as many prequel edits as I possibly can, noting along the way the particularly impressive works of people like Q2, L8wrtr, TM2YC, and Hal9000. There were things I found great about each edit, and things that still bothered me. Recently, Octorox has produced edits for Episode I and II that I think take the best aspects of these previously mentioned editors and collect them all in one place. Honestly, I’m just eagerly awaiting what they will do for Episode III.

So in the meantime, I’ve made for myself something to hold me over. It’s literally just Hal9000’s Labyrinth of Evil, but any mention of Darth Vader has been replaced with TM2YC’s edit, and the last ten or so minutes, from Anakin’s death to the delivery of Luke, has been replaced with TM2YC’s edit. This retains Padme’s death/funeral as well as keeps the birth of Vader out of the movie. The original crawl has been reintstated as well.

Many will think this is pointless, which it largely is, and some will think it’s a bit disrespectful. But it’s what I’m going to be using personally (allowing, in some esoteric part of my mind, me to watch the movies in chronological order without spoiling anything [I’m calling it a Hal9000/TM2YC Chronology Cut]), and someone else may find it useful as well.

MP4 and DVD5 now available.

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Very interesting.

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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Hal 9000 said:

Makes sense, I suppose. No problem about it from me.

Hey, thanks. I mean, this honestly only makes sense in my own obsessive nitpicky sort of way. But, I figured, if I was going to spend time to splice these edits together, I should at least make it available. And it seems that the obsessive nitpicking is kind of central to this forum anyway.

Have to admit that what I’m doing feels a bit like:

But I feel I was able to insert TM2YC’s edits seemlessly enough.

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O’dem?

Please tell me that’s not of them.

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I like the idea a lot, I would be happy to take a look at it. I know RogueLeader is coming up with a full saga edit to remove as many plot holes, etc. So I like the idea of sitting down and watching it from start to finish!

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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jarbear said:

I like the idea a lot, I would be happy to take a look at it. I know RogueLeader is coming up with a full saga edit to remove as many plot holes, etc. So I like the idea of sitting down and watching it from start to finish!

PM sent. I didn’t know about RogueLeader’s saga edit? I’ll have to hunt it down.

JEDIT: Oh, duh. Yes I’ve been checking in on the collaborative edit. Is removing the birth of Vader in the works over there?

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That topic has not been discussed yet, it has actually been quite for a bit. There were so many ideas going out it would make sense to tackle things one by one. I do believe removing the Anakin and Darth Vader connection in Revenge of the Sith should be considered to try and make the movies be watched in order. Tinkering with some of Obi Wan’s lines in A New Hope will help that as well. But not much has to be done.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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Have reworked what I’m doing here. See original post above for more details.

New 720p workprint available; PM me.

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 (Edited)

Here is the first pass at the removal of the birth of the twins and Darth Vader.

Here is a second attempt, which I think may be cleaner. It keeps Yoda and Bail on the moon base as a buffer between Mustafar and the medical droid.

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This seems very interesting. I just made an OT account so I’m fairly new to this website xD any chance I could get a file please?

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BGum16 said:

This seems very interesting. I just made an OT account so I’m fairly new to this website xD any chance I could get a file please?

I’m uploading a new work print this weekend. I’ll let you know when it’s done.

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natedeug said:

I’m working on a color correction to remove the magenta overtones in the film. I’m also adding a film grain. Below you can see color comparisons.

It’s times like these that I really wish I was any good at color correction.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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SparkySywer said:

It’s times like these that I really wish I was any good at color correction.

(I over-corrected and it turned out a bit green when I burned the dvd and played it on my tv screen.) I’ve tweaked it since then, and I think it’s better. Will get new pictures soon.

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Can’t help but notice that in the sunset picture, the thing on top of the moisture vaporator changes, but nothing else in the frame does. What happened there?

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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SparkySywer said:

Can’t help but notice that in the sunset picture, the thing on top of the moisture vaporator changes, but nothing else in the frame does. What happened there?

That’s only because the image was taken just a couple frames apart. So the moisture vaporator has a small spinning thing on top. What I’m trying to show is the slight change in color from the color correction I applied, which has pretty drastically reduced the magenta skin tones I was getting from the source.