While I’m still working on the difficulties and hardships of sound editing with ec-3, I think this is a good time to say that I’ve taken out two more scenes. The first scene I’ve removed is this one:
The scene where Obi-Wan apologizes to Qui-Gon is one that gets removed from a lot of fan edits. l8wrtr removed it. HAL9000 removed it. Even the Phantom Editor removed it. I guess you could say I was soft on this scene compared to other fan editors.
My reasoning for keeping this scene at the time was because this is one of the few scenes where we see some character development between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. For all of its faults, we never really got to see any relationship between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and they’re the two characters we follow for most of the film. I figured it would be helpful to throw in something for these two jedi, however haphazard it may be.
But as I watch the edit repeatedly (thanks to the great computer crash I had a few months ago), I’ve noticed that this scene sticks out like a sore thumb the more I watch it. The main problem I’m noticing is that it distracts from what we’re all focused on at the moment. A.K.A. Amidala’s asking Jar Jar for help. Focusing on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s friendship in the middle of this does nothing but distract us from the main plot. On top of that, resolving Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s little spat over Anakin seems unnecessary when it’s far more effectively resolved at the climactic Darth Maul confrontation. As much as I want to keep it in, I feel it needs to go.
The other scene I’ve removed is this one:
This is the scene most noted for Palpatine’s line: “This is an unexpected move for her. It’s too aggressive.” I think the reason I kept this in was for Darth Maul. I confess that I was trying to keep in as much of Maul as possible for v1 and v2, since he’s arguably one of the strongest parts of Episode I. I also thought it might be a good idea to know what the baddies are going to do next due to Amidala’s return to Naboo.
The problem with that line of logic, however, is that we get another scene where Palpatine talks with Gunray about what they’re going to do a couple scenes later, and that one ended with “Wipe them out. All of them.” That scene gave us enough information, and it made Gunray and Palpatine look much stronger. This scene, on the other hand, makes them look weaker. I get that it’s typical for a movie with a three-act structure to show the cracks in the villain’s plan just before the third act kicks in, but this scene (in fact, a lot of scenes) made the villains look incredibly stupid. Palpatine is the one who suffers most from this one. Him looking so dumbfounded over Amidala’s choice to go home ruins the sinister atmosphere his character is supposed to extrude. He might as well be saying, “I can’t believe she did that! Gee, I wonder what she’s thinking! Hey Maul, could you let these people make the first move? Because I’m absolutely stumped over this.” It just kinda ruins his superiority as a villain. I know it’s a Darth Maul scene, but I think the movie will be just fine without this one.
Anyway, that’s it for now on the editing changes. I’m working on the sound editing in the film’s climax, so I will be checking the edit to see if any mistakes showed up due to Resolve’s dislike of ec-3 soon.