New YouTube Series about recutting George's STAR WARS SAGA. — Page 5

jkimm said:

Sounds like you’ve had quite the career. Your videos definitely have a professional touch to them. I especially like the storyboard part of the youtube vids.

Thought I’d have some fun with the AOTC duel and do a little trimming. Not that there’s anything wrong with what you have of course. Here’s a list of the changes:

•Cut Dooku force lightning Ben’s lightsaber
•Removed a few frames when Anakin lunges towards Dooku
•Cut several closeup shots of Anaking and Dooku duel in the dark
•Cut Dooku saying “you have interfered with our affairs for the last time”
•Cut Dooku looking up toward the ceiling
•Trimmed the back and forth force lightning. Now Yoda just catches the one streak.
•Cut front facing shot of Padme shooting ship
•Cut Yoda force lifting his cane

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-YCr2AzmFeDxDsZrSrDn1IAH213xNfG/view?usp=sharing

Okay. . . cutting out Dooku’s force lighting of Obi-Wan’s saber is sick as heck! And it really lines up with the tone that I’m going for. Imma steal that one, lol!

I also love the way you match cut the OTS shot of Padme shooting with the laser bolts going past Dooku’s window. It really paces up the intensity of that sequence in a great way. Imma steal that one too!

A lot of the other changes work well, so I’m gonna play around with them a bit, and then reupload my own revised version to same link, so you can take a look.

Great work, bro! Love it!

What’s the difference between balanced and unbalanced pacing?

EddieDean said:

That’s really awesome. Definitely seemed like you were more than amateur! St. Andrews is a lovely town- great beaches if they’re not full of jellyfish! I’m an Edinburgher, currently on holiday at Loch Tay, so I know the area! 😉

It’s good to have you with us, I think the community would agree that we’re really enjoying the fresh eye you bring with your videos. Star Wars editing, especially of the prequels, has gone through a couple of phases, each growing on the last, over the last couple of decades. I’d argue we’re in the third phase of that right now with AI voice lines and so on being available, and a lot of your cuts are novel even in this fertile environment.

Your goals are interesting - also novel, they’re a bit more aligned to the mythological/poetical narrative language than we’re used to - but I think it’s likely we’ll see edits stealing many of your scenes in future. Something a little more aligned to canon, perhaps Hal’s detail + Spence’s pacing + your scenes + elements of restructuring from all three, with a dash of new CG and AI voicelines, could be very appealing here.

Whahey! An Edinburger, eh? I hope you’ve got Tay FM blasting away as you drive around the ol’ loch! Can’t say enough good things about your wee country, mate, except how Scotland performed in this last 6 Nations. What were our lads doing!?! In all seriousness, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to St. A’s for taking in a public school student from South Carolina and providing a world class education at a price I could barely afford. There was no chance I could have afforded a degree like that in the States.

Yeah I have to say, whenever someone on YouTube gets a bit cross about how I mess up the canon, I laugh a little bit, because the whole point of my cut is that the canon doesn’t exist yet. Since in filmmaking the “writing” process extends into the editing, I really wanted to practice that aspect of editing, which meant I couldn’t be precious with the canon. All that being said, if anyone wants to steal anything I’ve been doing, I’m more than happy to help out with other more “canon-aligned” cuts if the need arises. A lot of my best sequences don’t mess with the canon at all (I’m particularly proud of my version of the Arena Battle), and I recomposited several shots across the saga, so if anyone needs those just gimme a shout! There are also quite a few cheeky work arounds that I’ve come up with that I don’t think anyone else has (I found a novel and very effective way for Artoo to get captured on the Invisible Hand), so if you or anyone else has run into a dead end on their edit, feel free to PM me. I may or may not have a solution.

G&G-Fan said:

What’s the difference between balanced and unbalanced pacing?

Balanced pacing is “Balanced” to the needs of the specific sequence type. So for example a chase scene has different pacing needs compared with a conversation in a coffee shop. If you use the wrong pacing system (Coffee Shop pacing during a Chase Scene), the sequence looses balance.

For example Obi-Wan fight with Grievous’ ideal pacing is a duel moving into a chase and then moving back into a duel. However in the middle of the Vanilla Version, the pacing switches to “standard battle scene pacing” when the clones arrive, which throws the whole sequence off balance. That “standard battle scene pacing” is absolutely fine a few scenes down the road when we’re watching the end of the Utapau battle after the death of Grievous.

The other aspect of Balance vs. Unbalanced Pacing is when you are pacing out a sequence with multiple intercuts, like the End Battle of the Phantom Menace. To balance a sequence like that you have to also think about Internal vs External rhythm. Internal Rhythm is the pacing within one section of the sequence, and external rhythm is the pacing between different sections. You balance the Internal Rhythm like the Utapau example I gave above, and the External Rhythm is balanced by when you decide to “Take Breaths” to give the audience time to digest the action. I generally find that the most balanced place to “Take Breaths” in an intercut action sequence is in the front third or the back third of an individual scene. For example, in my cut of the end of the Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon telling Anakin to find a place to hide is the “Breath” in the first third of the Assault on the Hanger, and the N-1 slowly crashing into the plane is the “Breath” in the back third. Those two “Breaths” allow me to cut from and to intense action in the Gungan battle without it feeling jarring or disorienting.

Make Sense?

O00ll00O said:

Hey Joy, how’d you go about editing/editing around the Obi-Wan Vader duel in ANH? I’ve seen some people increase the playback speed, make quicker cuts, etc. You do anything like that? Or do you somehow remove the fight all together? I’d enjoy watching your take on that

I’m still fine tuning that sequence, but the short answer is cut it out entirely.

There’s several reasons why for me that’s the right answer, if like me you’re trying to do a recut of all six of George’s films.

1. The scene is unsalvageable. I don’t know if you saw my recut of the Empire Duel that I posted a while ago, but both that duel and the RotJ Duel can be brought into pretty close alignment with the Prequel Duels if you use the same editing techniques that Ben Burtt and his team used in the Prequels. There is no way to fix SC38 like that.

2. The scene is unnecessary. There is no essential dialogue or information delivered in that scene. Furthermore, the dialogue seems odd considering how the Battle of the Heroes ended. That duel is a fight between brothers, whereas the dialogue in SC38 feels more like a detached teacher/student relationship. This misalignment is another reason I would argue to cut it. Ironically Vader’s conversations to himself and Tarkin about Obi-Wan’s presence, and the look on Obi-Wan’s face when he draws his lightsaber while he’s sneaking around tell a much better story on their own without SC38.

3. I reworked the whole action around SC38, so that we don’t know that Vader and Ben are dueling until Luke does. If the whole sequence is restructured as a surprise reveal for the duel, the result feels shockingly natural and intentional from a filmmaking standpoint.

4. The new sequence actually makes MORE sense and to my mind is WAY MORE interesting without SC38. Vader tells Tarkin that “Escape is not Obi-Wan’s plan.” . . . Then what is Ben’s plan? I think Ben’s plan is to draw Vader into a duel to stop him from stopping Luke and his friends from escaping. Ben knows this will work because Vader wants revenge for what happened on Mustafar. I think Vader knows that this is Ben’s plan and doesn’t care because he hates Obi-Wan that much. That’s why he tells Tarkin that he must face Ben alone. He is determined to kill Obi-Wan himself. The smile on Ben’s face as he sacrifices himself, could now be read as Ben realizing his plan to use Vader’s hatred against him has worked, and he might also be basking in the irony that Vader’s son is slipping away right under his nose.

Does that all make sense?

O00ll00O said:

JoyOfEditing said:

O00ll00O said:

Hey Joy, how’d you go about editing/editing around the Obi-Wan Vader duel in ANH? I’ve seen some people increase the playback speed, make quicker cuts, etc. You do anything like that? Or do you somehow remove the fight all together? I’d enjoy watching your take on that

I’m still fine tuning that sequence, but the short answer is cut it out entirely.

There’s several reasons why for me that’s the right answer, if like me you’re trying to do a recut of all six of George’s films.

1. The scene is unsalvageable. I don’t know if you saw my recut of the Empire Duel that I posted a while ago, but both that duel and the RotJ Duel can be brought into pretty close alignment with the Prequel Duels if you use the same editing techniques that Ben Burtt and his team used in the Prequels. There is no way to fix SC38 like that.

2. The scene is unnecessary. There is no essential dialogue or information delivered in that scene. Furthermore, the dialogue seems odd considering how the Battle of the Heroes ended. That duel is a fight between brothers, whereas the dialogue in SC38 feels more like a detached teacher/student relationship. This misalignment is another reason I would argue to cut it. Ironically Vader’s conversations to himself and Tarkin about Obi-Wan’s presence, and the look on Obi-Wan’s face when he draws his lightsaber while he’s sneaking around tell a much better story on their own without SC38.

3. I reworked the whole action around SC38, so that we don’t know that Vader and Ben are dueling until Luke does. If the whole sequence is restructured as a surprise reveal for the duel, the result feels shockingly natural and intentional from a filmmaking standpoint.

4. The new sequence actually makes MORE sense and to my mind is WAY MORE interesting without SC38. Vader tells Tarkin that “Escape is not Obi-Wan’s plan.” . . . Then what is Ben’s plan? I think Ben’s plan is to draw Vader into a duel to stop him from stopping Luke and his friends from escaping. Ben knows this will work because Vader wants revenge for what happened on Mustafar. I think Vader knows that this is Ben’s plan and doesn’t care because he hates Obi-Wan that much. That’s why he tells Tarkin that he must face Ben alone. He is determined to kill Obi-Wan himself. The smile on Ben’s face as he sacrifices himself, could now be read as Ben realizing his plan to use Vader’s hatred against him has worked, and he might also be basking in the irony that Vader’s son is slipping away right under his nose.

Does that all make sense?

2. Makes total sense. I agree, if you’re watching the movies in order, than most of that dialogue is redundant and a bit disconnected from what we just saw at the end of the prequels. I think that’s a really smart way to approach it with how you cut it. I imagine you’d trim Luke’s reaction to Obi-Wans death to be a little tighter too?

Yeah, I’m gonna try to cut it tighter.

1. Yeah I thought your Empire duel was fantastic! I liked a lot of your changes and mentioned I liked how much more intense Vader came out on the bridge among other things. Couldn’t ever find that one re-composited shot in the sequence for the bonus points though 😕 I actually just watched that cut again and thought the part where Luke falls in the carbon freezing chamber was done so much better. The original looks way more clumsy.

Cheers! There are like a million micro edits throughout that sequence to tighten it up. My theory is the main reason that the Prequels have tighter fight editing is they were edited on computers which allowed Ben Burtt and his team to try tons of cuts quickly until they landed on the perfect frame. One cut can often take me 15 guesses before I find the exact frame I’m looking for, and I can’t imagine I could be that precise on a KEM or a Moviola. . .

Watch the shot where Vader tosses the widget that kicks Luke out the window very carefully 😉

G&G-Fan said:

Phase3 said:

As I mentioned to you via PM, I especially love what you did with the Probe Droid scene on Hoth; I will definitely use that for my own edit! 😃

I take it you’re doing edits for the entire saga?

Yes mate, my plan is to to ‘Streamlined’ edits of the original 6 Episodes. Episode 2 is done, Episode 1 is being rebuilt, and the updated VFX for Episode 3 is around 95% finished.

JoyOfEditing said:

Today, I’ll be working away at that thingy we’re PMing about, so hopefully I’ll have a file for you soon.

I’m looking forward to it!

jkimm said:

•Cut Dooku force lightning Ben’s lightsaber
•Removed a few frames when Anakin lunges towards Dooku

Those are some excellent cuts! Removing Dooku’s Force lightning really improves the pacing!

Hey y’all! In response to a question posed on Adywan’s RotJ Thread about how easy/hard it is for Luke to start on Dagobah, and then go to Tatooine, I posted a link to my version of the opening of RotJ. It seems like some of y’all wanna talk about it, so I’m reposting it here so we don’t derail Ady’s Thread.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EleIyLvBBrk-D8zN9zy23NJhEeg6FMcs?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

-JoE

O00ll00O said:

I like the structure of your opening. The sequencing is vastly different in comparison to the original, but it makes a lot of sense.

I actually attempted to make an edit inside your edit. This is the first cut I’ve ever done, so let me know your thoughts. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y5ZUOb6-XaXDjLtnVwtdiNBEZeFayocU/view?usp=sharing

-Start the music a beat after 3P0 says “he agrees!”. I think that feels closer to the atmosphere of the cantina when everyone abruptly moves on after a conflict is settled. It’s also a little more chaotic with Chewy trying to yell over the music.
-Remove Landos helmet bonk on the ceiling
-Remove how long the shot of Lando pulling down his mask is. It’s way to in your face.

Yo! I really like your recut! Great job! It just goes to show you there are 100s of good ways to skin a cat.

I quite like the way you cut around the Chewie sequence. It’s very effective at getting rid of the helmet bonk, and the music cut is pretty smooth.

For my cut I would stick with what I have on all of those points, for sequence balancing reasons (if you pop up to #1633920 on this thread, I explain how that kind of editing works in detail). The back half of that Jabba sequence, I’m trying to throttle down the pace in order to move into a more contemplative Dagobah scene, so the helmet bonk (while a bit goofy), gives me the meta-pace I’m looking for. As a side note. . . I’m almost convinced George worked in a helmet bonk into all six of his films. . . I don’t know where they all are, but there are so many of them, I’m starting to think it turned into an intentional running gag by the time we get to the Prequels (See the Jango Fett bonk on Kamino).

Last thing: (Brace yourself this is gonna be super pedantic) The reason I personally wouldn’t tighten up the music cue the way you did, is because a Jazz (Jizz?) song of that type starts with a silent count, because the opening notes begin before the first “1”. So instead of “1-2-3-4-Bummmm-budum-budum-bum-bum” (Jedi Rocks from the Special Edition), it’s “1-2-3-(4)budum-(1)BumBum”. If you watch Max Rebo’s hand, he’s doing the silent count so the band can start on “4”. The silent beat that you cut is the beginning of the silent count. Basically, there’s no way a real musician could start that song as quickly as you cut it and have everybody come in on time.

PS Thank you mom for all of those stupid Clarinet lessons in High School. . .

JoyOfEditing said:

Hey y’all! In response to a question posed on Adywan’s RotJ Thread about how easy/hard it is for Luke to start on Dagobah, and then go to Tatooine, I posted a link to my version of the opening of RotJ. It seems like some of y’all wanna talk about it, so I’m reposting it here so we don’t derail Ady’s Thread.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EleIyLvBBrk-D8zN9zy23NJhEeg6FMcs?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

-JoE

Your restructuring flows very smoothly - it’s great! At first I thought how would you get around not explaining why Threepio is already in Jabba’s palace, but then again Lando is already there haha!
I would love to borrow some of your ideas for my own ROTJ edit! 😃

Phase3 said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Hey y’all! In response to a question posed on Adywan’s RotJ Thread about how easy/hard it is for Luke to start on Dagobah, and then go to Tatooine, I posted a link to my version of the opening of RotJ. It seems like some of y’all wanna talk about it, so I’m reposting it here so we don’t derail Ady’s Thread.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EleIyLvBBrk-D8zN9zy23NJhEeg6FMcs?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

-JoE

Your restructuring flows very smoothly - it’s great! At first I thought how would you get around not explaining why Threepio is already in Jabba’s palace, but then again Lando is already there haha!
I would love to borrow some of your ideas for my own ROTJ edit! 😃

Cheers matey! Take whatever you like! Yeah, one of my main tweaks to Jedi as a whole is to make Threepio a bit more heroic. One of my favorite parts of the recut is when Leia and Threepio look over to at something. In the original it was Boba Fett nodding, but I changed it to a wide shot of Han Solo from the one of cut droid scenes, so that look now reads like: “There he is. We’re almost to the finish line.”

jkimm said:

Sounds like you’ve had quite the career. Your videos definitely have a professional touch to them. I especially like the storyboard part of the youtube vids.

Thought I’d have some fun with the AOTC duel and do a little trimming. Not that there’s anything wrong with what you have of course. Here’s a list of the changes:

•Cut Dooku force lightning Ben’s lightsaber
•Removed a few frames when Anakin lunges towards Dooku
•Cut several closeup shots of Anaking and Dooku duel in the dark
•Cut Dooku saying “you have interfered with our affairs for the last time”
•Cut Dooku looking up toward the ceiling
•Trimmed the back and forth force lightning. Now Yoda just catches the one streak.
•Cut front facing shot of Padme shooting ship
•Cut Yoda force lifting his cane

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-YCr2AzmFeDxDsZrSrDn1IAH213xNfG/view?usp=sharing

All righty. I’m so glad you sent me those changes, because for some reason it made me able to see the correct rhythm for the full sequence for the first time. Technically Dooku is trying to escape, so I re-engineered the sequence to feel that way, and tried to use the cutting style of Empire’s Duel with a bit of Duel of the Fates, and for the first time this baby really sings. I ended up using many of your ideas, and then adjusted them to work in the new sequence flow. All in all, I made a couple dozen changes from the last version. Here’s the new final (Hopefully) version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iNnjVlAVJiM4OBWglNimLfbBLX7ngmBv/view?usp=drive_link

Great work buddy! Thanks for the help!

jkimm said:

JoyOfEditing said:

jkimm said:

Sounds like you’ve had quite the career. Your videos definitely have a professional touch to them. I especially like the storyboard part of the youtube vids.

Thought I’d have some fun with the AOTC duel and do a little trimming. Not that there’s anything wrong with what you have of course. Here’s a list of the changes:

•Cut Dooku force lightning Ben’s lightsaber
•Removed a few frames when Anakin lunges towards Dooku
•Cut several closeup shots of Anaking and Dooku duel in the dark
•Cut Dooku saying “you have interfered with our affairs for the last time”
•Cut Dooku looking up toward the ceiling
•Trimmed the back and forth force lightning. Now Yoda just catches the one streak.
•Cut front facing shot of Padme shooting ship
•Cut Yoda force lifting his cane

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-YCr2AzmFeDxDsZrSrDn1IAH213xNfG/view?usp=sharing

Okay. . . cutting out Dooku’s force lighting of Obi-Wan’s saber is sick as heck! And it really lines up with the tone that I’m going for. Imma steal that one, lol!

I also love the way you match cut the OTS shot of Padme shooting with the laser bolts going past Dooku’s window. It really paces up the intensity of that sequence in a great way. Imma steal that one too!

A lot of the other changes work well, so I’m gonna play around with them a bit, and then reupload my own revised version to same link, so you can take a look.

Great work, bro! Love it!

Thanks!

There are so many bits in the prequels that are unnecessary or just awkward. Even something as simple as removing the battle droid voices makes a huge difference. I’m curious to see how you edited the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel at the end of ROTS. I took a stab at it a while ago but was never quite satisfied. Might make another attempt after being inspired by your work.

It’s funny. The Battle of the Heroes is surprisingly hard to cut. It took me a ton of passes, but I finally landed on a version that I’m completely satisfied with. When I have some spare time, I’ll render it out so you can take a look. It’s closest in overall shape to Hal’s version if you’ve seen that one (He does the whole sequence in a single run), but I did a ton of fine tuning, especially to the transitions, so that it actually feels like it was designed as a single sequence.

jkimm said:

JoyOfEditing said:

jkimm said:

Sounds like you’ve had quite the career. Your videos definitely have a professional touch to them. I especially like the storyboard part of the youtube vids.

Thought I’d have some fun with the AOTC duel and do a little trimming. Not that there’s anything wrong with what you have of course. Here’s a list of the changes:

•Cut Dooku force lightning Ben’s lightsaber
•Removed a few frames when Anakin lunges towards Dooku
•Cut several closeup shots of Anaking and Dooku duel in the dark
•Cut Dooku saying “you have interfered with our affairs for the last time”
•Cut Dooku looking up toward the ceiling
•Trimmed the back and forth force lightning. Now Yoda just catches the one streak.
•Cut front facing shot of Padme shooting ship
•Cut Yoda force lifting his cane

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-YCr2AzmFeDxDsZrSrDn1IAH213xNfG/view?usp=sharing

All righty. I’m so glad you sent me those changes, because for some reason it made me able to see the correct rhythm for the full sequence for the first time. Technically Dooku is trying to escape, so I re-engineered the sequence to feel that way, and tried to use the cutting style of Empire’s Duel with a bit of Duel of the Fates, and for the first time this baby really sings. I ended up using many of your ideas, and then adjusted them to work in the new sequence flow. All in I made a couple dozen changes from the last version. Here’s the new final (Hopefully): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iNnjVlAVJiM4OBWglNimLfbBLX7ngmBv/view?usp=drive_link

Great work buddy! Thanks for the help!

Whoa! Dooku actually looks like a badass now. Excellent work!

Hope you don’t mind if I nitpick one tiny thing. At 0:23, it looks like Dooku starts to raise his arms and is about to say something. I trimmed off a second to see what it looks like. What do you think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_H6xBfWlpRX22zi5fLDa8Kguje8i9NvJ/view?usp=sharing

I almost did that too, haha! But I’m too fond off that fencing flourish Dooku does. Since his whole fighting style is based on European fencing, especially his take down of Obi-Wan, I wanted to keep that little detail in. The mouth movement you’re referring to was never a line, that’s just the face Sir Christopher was making, lol!

JoyOfEditing said:

Hey y’all! In response to a question posed on Adywan’s RotJ Thread about how easy/hard it is for Luke to start on Dagobah, and then go to Tatooine, I posted a link to my version of the opening of RotJ. It seems like some of y’all wanna talk about it, so I’m reposting it here so we don’t derail Ady’s Thread.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EleIyLvBBrk-D8zN9zy23NJhEeg6FMcs?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

-JoE

Why delete Vader’s line, “Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them”? It’s a great way of showing his ruthlessness towards his own men.

And the replacement of low-angle shot of Vader walking down the shuttle is really odd to me. That is one of the most badass shots of Vader, powerful and menacing. It’s one of the reasons his entrance in ROTJ is my favorite. Why replace it with the boring long shot from the ESB SE?

G&G-Fan said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Hey y’all! In response to a question posed on Adywan’s RotJ Thread about how easy/hard it is for Luke to start on Dagobah, and then go to Tatooine, I posted a link to my version of the opening of RotJ. It seems like some of y’all wanna talk about it, so I’m reposting it here so we don’t derail Ady’s Thread.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EleIyLvBBrk-D8zN9zy23NJhEeg6FMcs?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

-JoE

Why delete Vader’s line, “Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them”? It’s a great way of showing his ruthlessness towards his own men.

And the replacement of low-angle shot of Vader walking down the shuttle is really odd to me. That is one of the most badass shots of Vader, powerful and menacing. It’s one of the reasons his entrance in ROTJ is my favorite. Why replace it with the boring long shot from the ESB SE?

. . . Is this the part where I tell you Vader never kills any of his own men in my cut. . . 😉

I KNEW SOMEONE WOULD CATCH THAT SHOT SWITCHEROO!!! The basic logic is this. I want that scene to focus on the Empire’s unpreparedness to face the Rebel Fleet, and the coming showdown with the Emperor, which means that Vader’s inherent awesomeness needs to take a back seat for that specific scene. In other scenes like the scene where the shuttle Tyderium “sneaks” past the Imperial Fleet, I recut that sequence entirely from Vader’s perspective, to focus on how perceptive he is in the Force, and in all of the fights scenes I made Vader infinitely more lethal, because the original fight choreography was. . . well. . . lacking in that department.

So the basic answer to your question is that in all my scene cuts I try to realign the “focus” to the primary point of that scene, which sometimes means cutting one of the greatest Vader shots of all time, and switching it with a lamer shot of him rushing down the gangway to emphasis the Empire’s growing weakness. (Essentially it’s visually showing the dramatic power shift that’s happened since Vader blasted his way onto the Blockade Runner in IV. The Rebels are no longer a couple X-Wings and a lucky torpedo, that Fleet massing near Sullust is now a force to be reckoned with.) It’s okay I know the sin I committed is unforgivable. 😃

On a completely different note, is your YouTube name “Lord Vader Tyrannus”? If so, I stumbled on your “Ornithocheirus ASMR” video and laughed sooooo hard! I miss Walking with Dinosaurs sooooo much!!! The newer series just didn’t hit the same way.

JoyOfEditing said:

. . . Is this the part where I tell you Vader never kills any of his own men in my cut. . . 😉

Well that’s certainly an… interesting choice. I disagree with it (a lot) but I’m not gonna be rude about it, since I have respect for you as an editor, you know what you’re talking about and you have an admirable goal.

JoyOfEditing said:

I KNEW SOMEONE WOULD CATCH THAT SHOT SWITCHEROO!!! The basic logic is this. I want that scene to focus on the Empire’s unpreparedness to face the Rebel Fleet, and the coming showdown with the Emperor, which means that Vader’s inherent awesomeness needs to take a back seat for that specific scene. In other scenes like the scene where the shuttle Tyderium “sneaks” past the Imperial Fleet, I recut that sequence entirely from Vader’s perspective, to focus on how perceptive he is in the Force, and in all of the fights scenes I made Vader infinitely more lethal, because the original fight choreography was. . . well. . . lacking in that department.

So the basic answer to your question is that in all my scene cuts I try to realign the “focus” to the primary point of that scene, which sometimes means cutting one of the greatest Vader shots of all time, and switching it with a lamer shot of him rushing down the gangway to emphasis the Empire’s growing weakness. (Essentially it’s visually showing the dramatic power shift that’s happened since Vader blasted his way onto the Blockade Runner in IV. The Rebels are no longer a couple X-Wings and a lucky torpedo, that Fleet massing near Sullust is now a force to be reckoned with.) It’s okay I know the sin I committed is unforgivable. 😃

Personally, I think that ROTJ is still supposed to make you feel very threatened by the Empire, so I never felt any sort of incongruity. The idea is that, because the DSII lacks the weaknesses of the first one, if it’s completed, the Rebellion is doomed. The Battle of Endor will decide their fate, and they’re still the underdogs. Throughout the battle it’s very clear that they’re outmatched, and it’s only due to the courageousness and tenacity of our heroes that they make it out alive. At the same time, I understand the perspective of wanting to emphasize the growth of the Rebels.

I’m interested in seeing your reedit of the ROTJ duel.

JoyOfEditing said:

On a completely different note, is your YouTube name “Lord Vader Tyrannus”? If so, I stumbled on your “Ornithocheirus ASMR” video and laughed sooooo hard! I miss Walking with Dinosaurs sooooo much!!! The newer series just didn’t hit the same way.

It is. I like to have my username consistent on every site, but unfortunately I can’t change my username here.

I’m glad you enjoyed that, it’s a funny little video I made, I love chaotic absurdism. I love Walking with Dinosaurs so much, it’s my favorite piece of media after the Original Star Wars Trilogy.
I made a two part video essay about WWD. And a video essay about ROTJ (also had to be split in two). If you’re interested.