Hello, OT’ers! I’m back, sort of…

As all fan editors will know, sometimes you have step away from your projects and focus on your mental health for a time. Not that there was anything in particular that I was struggling with, but these sort of projects can become extremely taxing and mentally consuming. Spending hundreds of hours analyzing line by line, scene by scene, looking for all sort of threads in the plot and theme connections etc… I stepped away from my Legends ST Trilogy to work on some other projects. As you can see in my profile, I began working on a Bad Batch re-edit (I do plan on finishing this at some point!), started messing around in the Marvel films to make a saga (I released the first 2 films, but then grew weary of this project and have officially abandoned it), and actually spent a ton of time on a currently completed but unreleased edit of Game of Thrones (edited all episodes into film length, removed gratuitous nudity, minor dialogue and story beat changes, and hugely reworked the final season/ending!). All of that to say I simply needed to take an extended break from OT and my Star Wars trilogy… But after 3 months away I am ready to begin working my way back in.

I should have posted a message about my sabbatical, so I apologize to anyone who has been looking for the workprints and I am appreciative to those of you who shared the links with one another in the meantime. I will be going through all of my unread messages and sharing the edits with everyone who has asked. If you do not receive the links by the end of the day and still wish to watch, just send me a new DM because I probably just missed you in the huge list I have in my inboxes.

So why do I say I’m only “sort of” back? Well, it’s because I don’t have any immediate plans on preparing the edits for their final releases. They are still only in the Beta stage (Episode 9 in Alpha) and I need to slowly start getting back into the editing room, taking a fresh look at my trilogy to see where improvements need to be made. So let’s examine the status of each film:

Episode 7: Heirs of the Force - This edit is close to completion, but it’s not 100% there yet. I’d say it’s around the 85% mark. I have gotten a ton of phenomenal feedback on this film’s workprint and there’s not a ton more that needs to be completed. However, I have been very intrigued by some other ideas for this film that I’ve been reading about on other forums and do have plans to integrate some of that into here. I also need to take another crack at color correction on some scenes, another pass on audio transitions etc. So while the main story beats are here, and I love the structure and setup for my trilogy, there’s still a decent amount of new things that I want to add in before final release.
Episode 8: Fate of the Jedi - While I am very happy with the primary storyline and how I have transformed Luke into the Grand Master of Legends, I think this film still needs the most technical work and as many of the ideas in here were very experimental (teasing Palpatine at the end, World Between Worlds, etc), it certainly needs another full pass on a lot of the scenes. So let’s say this film is 70% where I want it to be. I’ve gotten a ton of great feedback on this one too, primarily when it comes to Luke and Kylo, but as a whole in this trilogy I need to take another look at what to do with Rey, especially considering how I ended her arc in Episode 9. There is still a lot of potential with this film, and while this is by far the most transformative film of my trilogy, I am not opposed to going even further with how I changed the plot. At the end of the day, it still has a lot of that TLJ feel that people disliked. I want to change that feeling so much that you barely recognize the TLJ from theatrical version.
Episode 9: Legacy of the Force - This film has always been a doozy… I could not even whip this film into a Beta version in my original attempt. I got it into an Alpha cut where I considered it watchable and a definite improvement over theatrical, but there were some ideas that didn’t look visually convincing enough, abrupt endings to certain plotlines, a remainder of some of the major flaws in theatrical etc. As I have set out to make this Legends trilogy a completely transformative work, this movie is not yet near where I want it to be. I’ll put this at the 40% mark right now, so while I am very happy with how I altered certain aspects, there are other parts where I know things are missing, or that I altered and have found to not work. I have a LOT to do on this before releasing a final cut.

What’s the timeline, you ask? 2022. That’s about the best I can give right now. I will be going in chronological order with editing here again, but will also be doing touch ups on each film concurrently as needed. I’d say a realistic goal is for me to release the final cut of Episode 7 in late Q3-Q4 2022, with the other films releasing after that. As you know from my changelists, I take a great deal of inspiration from other Fan Editors in addition to my own original ideas, and I watch nearly every ST edit that comes out. Every time I watch someone else’s vision of these films I gain new perspective, new ideas, eureka moments! There are some other upcoming fan edits that I am very excited about as well, people who’ve had ideas that haven’t come to me yet so I am excited to watch their creations before finishing mine. I greatly appreciate the community think tank, and your feedback and reviews have been absolutely essential in me creating the best Legends-esque storyline possible. Thank you for all the support and contributions you’ve provided me, it has been a great joy to share my films with all of you and I look forward to continuing this project in the near future.

(As this was a general update of my trilogy as a whole, I will be double posting in this thread so that my following post is responding directly to the missed comments that have been left in my absence. This one is long enough and not directly related to the comments other users have left.)