The Phantom Menace - Streamlined (v2 work-in-progress) — Page 3

One section I wanted to alter was the blood spray when Darth Maul gets cut in half. I’ve seen some edits where the editor cut footage around the blood spray, which to me is a low-quality way of revising this shot.

I’ve removed the blood spray from the entire shot, so that all of the available footage of his demise can be retained.
To note: this is a work-in-progress, and the final colour correction has yet to be done.

I have replaced the background with a section of the power core panels from a different side of the room - this was done as it was faster and easier to replace the background rather than use the original shot, which would have required a lot of time and work in order to create a clean version.

Thanks to JoyOfEditing for the suggestion to use the 35mm scan of TPM to bring back the colours in the sky for scenes on Tatooine. I was able to adjust the colours, which means there is no need to do a full background or sky replacement.

There is a lot of dust, dirt and scratches in the 4K99 v2.1 video, however in this scene the damage is fairly minimal and will be easy to remove, so it won’t take long to do a complete restoration on this scene.

Here are work-in-progress photos on bringing back the blue sky:

Dazman said:

Well, seems for your version 2 you are really combing the desert of errors this movie has, spaceballs style. 😄

Hahaha hopefully in addressing a few errors, the edit will still be as much fun to watch as Spaceballs!

Nice work! I always interpreted the spray as the hot blade’s cauterizing effect turning blood into a momentary dust of blood. And since the blade is cutting through the whole torso instead of a hand, it hadn’t been seen earlier in other movies… Sometimes there seems to be a small puff of smoke when the limbs are cut but pretty inconsistent. So it’s everyone’s preference to remove or add those in their edits.

I agree that a fine mist of blood would look realistic for that kind of cut, however I was aiming for consistency between films, plus the speed at which Obi-Wan cuts him, along with how incredibly hot the blade is, lead me to the conclusion that the entire torso section would have been instantly cauterised, and not leave any time for a fine mist or blood spray to occur.
You’re absolutely right though - it’s down to each person’s preferences! 😃

I’m digging your colour grade tests! Helps with Tatooine especially that seems to have reddish dust in the air at all times in the original footage. Now the sky looks clean and pure again.

Thanks very much! I found that in that particular scene, there was a much stronger magenta tint than anywhere else in the film. Removing that helped to bring back the lovely blue sky.