Working on a PT Remix of Spence, Anti-Cheese, and Hal Edits

Hello All,

Oh no not another PT edit…

I’m working on a PT remix based on Spence, Anti-Cheese, and Hal Edits (as long as they have no objections). It will be using Spence’s edits as a base and applying AC (anti-cheese) changes. This is to get edits that match my head canon more. I have some video editing experience but I have a lot of audio editing experience as I have recorded, mixed, and mastered my own music cd before.

I’m up to the Gughan city right now TPM will probably be the hardest edit of the three as there is so much cheese and cringe to deal with. Here are my plans:

Overall Goals:

• A more grown up version of the prequels (sorry kids)
• Less cheese and cringe! Consider this an update to the anti-cheese edits I suppose. There’s still some cheese in the anti-cheese edits that I’d like to fix (C3-P0 stuff, Some cheese in Anakin vs Obi-Wan, etc…)
• Good flow to the story (Spence mostly took care of this)
• Take my favorite parts of these edits. Cut parts I don’t like as much.
• Yoda Unleashed: Yoda fights again!
• Padme lives! Which also makes Leia’s story in ROTJ more consistent.
• I will probably apply some light compression to the audio to make the audio a bit louder overall. This will be pretty subtle.

TPM:

• Using Spence’s edits as a base and applying anti-cheese like changes.
• Jar Jar and the Neimoidians will have subtitles.
• I’m using the anti-cheese edit audio for Jar Jar and the Neimoidians. I couldn’t match the voice so the scenes that were not in anti-cheese I’m chopping up other lines to make it work.
• That said will try to edit down the Boss Nass scene a bit as I don’t have a lot of audio material for him.
• Way toned down Jar Jar antics or Anakin cheesy lines
• No C3-P0 in TPM (Spence edits)
• Anakin’s voice is lowered a bit. He still sounds like a kid but I think it makes him more in line with his Episode II character. A cheesy line like “I’m a person and my name is Anakin!” has a little darker flavor to it. You can feel Episode II Anakin’s anger more.
• No two headed announcer in the pod race
• Per requests in Spence’s thread I’ll remove Jabba too.

AOTC Plans:

• Using Spence’s edits as a base and applying anti-cheese like changes.
• Less whiny / creepy Anakin
• More believable Anakin / Padme love story as well as more believable fall of Anakin.
• Of course I’m keeping Spence’s Anakin / Obi-Wan training session!
• Yoda Unleashed: For Dooku vs Yoda I’m using a slightly toned down version of the lightsaber duel. They are still dueling but Yoda’s not flipping around everywhere.

ROTS Plans:

• Using Spence’s edits as a base and applying anti-cheese like changes.
• More believable Anakin / Padme love story as well as more believable fall of Anakin.
• Of course I’m using Spence’s Order 66 sequence! Will maybe expand it if I can (depending on the music).
• I like Hal and Spence’s ideas of having Anakin vs Obi-Wan uninterrupted. I also like that they removed bad CGI or moves that don’t make sense (spinning sabers over and over behind their back). I also like the less dialogue approach. I’ll watch both of their scenes a few times and pick one.
• Yoda Unleashed: Yoda vs Sidious will return. But that duel will take place shortly BEFORE Anakin vs Obi-Wan. The reason is when they decide to fight Sidious and Vader Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Sidious are all on Coruscant. So Yoda’s trip to the senate chamber is much shorter than Obi-Wan’s trip to Mustafar. In the theatrical release these duels happen near the same time but Obi-Wan has to travel much further so that part doesn’t make a lot of sense.
• There is kind of a forced cut in the Yoda vs Palpatine duel as they change locations between scenes. I was thinking I would probably cut this with Anakin taking out the separatists or Anakin with a tear in his eye after murdering the separatists.
• Will borrow from Hal’s ending - Padme lives!

Let me know if you have any feedback / ideas on the above.

Also let me know if anyone wants to be a tester / reviewer. Ie…help me work out the kinks after I finish TPM for example.

Definitely an interesting project. A good set of proposed changes and edits to combine the source materials.

I would say that, for me, keeping Otah Gunga city in would be my preference if at all possible. The cinematography of the approach is beautiful and I also feel like its missing in edits that cut that section; it’s one of the reasons Spence’s edit is one of my favourites for TPM.

I do like the intent to include some Yoda’s battle elements in AoTC and RoTS. This is one area I felt Spence maybe trimmed too much for my tastes, but I fully understand why that was done for the vision of that project.

I look forward to seeing further updates as this progresses!

Daiyus said:
I would say that, for me, keeping Otah Gunga city in would be my preference if at all possible. The cinematography of the approach is beautiful and I also feel like its missing in edits that cut that section; it’s one of the reasons Spence’s edit is one of my favourites for TPM.

I agree with you. I think in order to do this I would need to match Jar Jar’s voice from the Anti-Cheese edits or re-dub Jar Jar altogether. I will try to do this.

Sounds exciting, haven’t seen an “integrated” version of a PT edit with Jar Jar subtitles yet.

Bobber said:

Sounds exciting, haven’t seen an “integrated” version of a PT edit with Jar Jar subtitles yet.

It’s going well so far. The trickiest part was right before the pod race where Anti-Cheese had removed some Jar Jar scenes and Spence had removed some C3-P0 stuff. It was a little tricky to make that work but I got it.

This sounds like an awesome project. Visually, Hal’s and Spence’s edits look quite a bit different with Spence’s having added film grain and some color alterations. How will you handle that?

TPM - Spence’s edit is my goto version. I agree with others for keeping Otah Gunga pretty much the way Spence did it. I’ve seen other edits where it’s cut completely and I feel it totally screws up the pacing. Personally, I don’t mind some of the two headed announcer stuff. The theatrical version is too much but trimmed the right way it works well. The pod race in Spence’s edit is extremely well done.

ATOC - Spence’s edit is darn near perfect imo except for cutting the entire Yoda/Dooku duel. I think at least some of it needs to stay. I will say that the scene at the beginning where Padme is reunited with Anakin and Obi-Wan is so well done in Spence’s edit. It’s such an awkward conversation in the theatrical version but Spence fixed it wonderfully. Use that for inspiration.

ROTS - I really like the Rebalanced edit. Not sure if you’ve seen that but I thought it struck a good balance of dialog. For my personal copy I reinserted the theatrical version of everything between when Obi-Wan jumps up to the high ground and him returning to the ship to leave Mustafar. I know a lot of edits cut out “I have the high ground” and other dialog around it but I love it. A good edit for me should also have Yoda vs Palpatine so I’m glad you’re keeping this.

I’d love to be a tester for these. Thanks for the care being put into the audio. I have a 7.2.4 setup and can’t stand it when an edit is finished in stereo.

potty meister said:

This sounds like an awesome project. Visually, Hal’s and Spence’s edits look quite a bit different with Spence’s having added film grain and some color alterations. How will you handle that?

I noticed some color differences but didn’t notice the film grain thing. I am trying to avoid switching edits during a scene but in some cases it is unavoidable. But those scenes seem to blend pretty well. For example the colors on Spence’s jedi council part in TPM looks way different than the other edits. So I’m staying on Spence’s edit throughout that scene.

TPM - Spence’s edit is my goto version. I agree with others for keeping Otah Gunga pretty much the way Spence did it. I’ve seen other edits where it’s cut completely and I feel it totally screws up the pacing. Personally, I don’t mind some of the two headed announcer stuff. The theatrical version is too much but trimmed the right way it works well. The pod race in Spence’s edit is

I’m working on putting Otah Gunga back in. I couldn’t replicate the Anti-Cheese Jar Jar voice so I’m taking his existing lines and cutting them up. Ie…recycling them for Jar Jar’s Otah Gunga scenes. Same with Boss Nass. The two headed announcer is already gone from this edit and you actually really don’t miss him. All he does is state the obvious during the race and you can tell that yourself. I even have Jar Jar (in alien language adding a little bit of commentary.

ATOC - Spence’s edit is darn near perfect imo except for cutting the entire Yoda/Dooku duel. I think at least some of it needs to stay. I will say that the scene at the beginning where Padme is reunited with Anakin and Obi-Wan is so well done in Spence’s edit. It’s such an awkward conversation in the theatrical version but Spence fixed it wonderfully. Use that for inspiration.

I plan to rely heavily on Spence’s edit for this one. I know what I’m going to do for Yoda vs Dooku. I plan on having the force battle, cutting Dooku’s line about “now let’s use a lightsaber, etc…” and using a slightly trimmed down duel. This one - at 1:35:

https://youtu.be/wHv_CCvBeSM?si=fBz6npGWveiSVMeb&t=95

Yoda goes off but not as much in the movie. He will go off more in ROTS against a more formidable opponent.

ROTS - I really like the Rebalanced edit. Not sure if you’ve seen that but I thought it struck a good balance of dialog. For my personal copy I reinserted the theatrical version of everything between when Obi-Wan jumps up to the high ground and him returning to the ship to leave Mustafar. I know a lot of edits cut out “I have the high ground” and other dialog around it but I love it. A good edit for me should also have Yoda vs Palpatine so I’m glad you’re keeping this.

Who made the Rebalanced edit? I can take a look at that.

I’d love to be a tester for these. Thanks for the care being put into the audio. I have a 7.2.4 setup and can’t stand it when an edit is finished in stereo.

Great! I’ll let you know when I have a first draft of TPM. Also I’m not really changing much with the audio. Just some light compression.

Hal 9000 said:

I’d highly recommend stitching together new video stream using one single primary source and not sourcing from other edits directly. No problems, fresh video, good feelings.

Ya you’re probably right. Gonna be a lot of work to fix that 😮

I’m going to have to figure out how to handle this. Options are:

• Source from Spence’s edit only. But the problem is adding the film grain back into newly added scenes (Yoda unleashed). I’ll ask Spence directly about this.
• Source from some extended cut (Bobson Dugnutt version?) and start hacking away. This would be a ton of work as I’ve already done a lot of work using the Anti-Cheese and Spence cuts mainly. Plus there has already been a lot of the heavy lifting already done by the mentioned edits.
• Use a different edit as a primary source. Octorox’s looks like a nice option but he sources mostly from Hal’s edits so again matching up the look would be difficult if I want to add any scenes back in.

OK I will use Spence’s edits as the primary source. I will add some scenes in AOTC and ROTS when I get there but will add Spence’s film grain to those scenes (he told me how).

MiDKnighT said:

Who made the Rebalanced edit? I can take a look at that.

Siliconmaster482 did it. That thread is here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Revenge-of-the-Sith-Rebalanced-Version-1-5-Released-Now-with-Subtitles-and-More/id/63587

Still looking for some testers / reviewers. Part 1 “Negotiations” is ready for review. Currently working on Part 2 “Naboo”. Most of the changes in “Negotiations” are swapping out voices for the Neimoidians and adding subtitles. Like the Anti-Cheese edit the Neimoidians speak English when they are trying to be diplomatic but their own language otherwise. I’ll edit the first post to clarify what I’m doing (using Spence’s edit as a base).

potty meister said:
TPM - Spence’s edit is my goto version. I agree with others for keeping Otah Gunga pretty much the way Spence did it. I’ve seen other edits where it’s cut completely and I feel it totally screws up the pacing. Personally, I don’t mind some of the two headed announcer stuff. The theatrical version is too much but trimmed the right way it works well. The pod race in Spence’s edit is extremely well done.

I’m getting near the Pod Race so just wanted to dump my plans for it. The plan is… I’ll basically start with Spence’s edit then…

• Remove any Jar Jar silly antics.
• Remove the two headed announcer (sorry to those that like him). You will hear him faintly in the background at times as I can’t completely cut out his sound or I’d lose important chunks of the race.
• In Spence’s TPM thread a lot of people requested to remove Jabba. I can do that. However I will keep his “gong” sound to signify the start of each lap. I’ll also throw in a subtitle “Lap 1”, “Lap 2” etc… as there is no announcer telling us.
• For the rest we’ll see as I dig into it more.

I am also dropping Anakin’s voice slightly (Pitch -2). It still works. Just makes him sound just a little darker / more mature. Very slight though.

I have two rough drafts of the first 2 sections ready to go if anyone wants to review and provide feedback. I’m not really wanting to change creative decisions as that will be hard to go back and redo. I just need to make sure audio, transitions, sync, etc… is good. If there’s anything I’m missing.

Part 1 - Negotiations - ready for review
Part 2 - Escape from Naboo - ready for review
Part 3 will be Tatooine before the pod race.
Part 4 will be the pod race
Part 5 might be a post pod race Tatooine section or I might throw that in with part 4.
Part 6 will be Coruscant
Part 7 will be back to Naboo (might split into two parts).

Splitting into parts is just for review purposes.

I’d be willing to check out the rough drafts

NotTheDri0ds said:

I’d be willing to check out the rough drafts

Thanks! Part 3 (Tatooine) is ready for review now as well.

1. A perfect edit for the prequels (at least for me) would include changing out the alien audio to something that needed subtitles. This way you can control the dialogue and remove some of the terrible accents. Maybe using one of the foreign languages, ran through some effects?
2. The Anakin vs Obiwan fight has a few shots that just go too long or feel far too far fetched, would be great to trim those so the flow matches the series better and the pace.

revel911 said:

1. A perfect edit for the prequels (at least for me) would include changing out the alien audio to something that needed subtitles. This way you can control the dialogue and remove some of the terrible accents. Maybe using one of the foreign languages, ran through some effects?

Yes the Gungans and the Neimoidians all have alien voice and subtitles in the TPM edit I’m working on. Haven’t looked at the other two prequels yet for that.

2. The Anakin vs Obiwan fight has a few shots that just go too long or feel far too far fetched, would be great to trim those so the flow matches the series better and the pace.

Have you seen Spence’s edit of this? I like it a lot. Probably just going to keep that one as a base.

I had a reviewer give feedback on parts of the TPM edit so far. He didn’t really like Jar Jar’s voice from the “anti-cheese” edits. You can hear what the anti-cheese Jar Jar sounds like here:
https://youtu.be/IXPUCh6M_pg?si=lHI5EnLfCPq21U1I&t=131

If I switch it - do any of these potential Jar Jar voices work?

https://jumpshare.com/s/HM9w06RDKsAGdJZeApAw

Which Jar Jar voice works the best? If any? Or I could build off / change one of those. Or if anybody knows of a good text-to-speech A.I. voice that would work let me know.