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.

In my edit, Obi-Wan never falls down the energy core shaft, and doesn’t lose his Lightsaber. Therefore, he no longer needs to use Qui-Gon’s weapon.
To accommodate this change, I’ve altered the colour of the Lightsaber blade, plus made the core a more bright white colour.

honestabe said:

I think test clips of those changes regarding the fall and lightsaber would be interesting to see if everything flows smoothly.

Also, taking away Maul’s blood is a nice touch.

So far I’m happy with how it flows; I’m hoping to finish up the rest of the VFX changes for that scene today (including adding in Qui-Gon’s Lightsaber hilt on the floor), and can send you a test clip if you like?

Phase3 said:

honestabe said:

I think test clips of those changes regarding the fall and lightsaber would be interesting to see if everything flows smoothly.

Also, taking away Maul’s blood is a nice touch.

So far I’m happy with how it flows; I’m hoping to finish up the rest of the VFX changes for that scene today (including adding in Qui-Gon’s Lightsaber hilt on the floor), and can send you a test clip if you like?

I’d personally love to see one, as well. Link me up, if you please, brother.

This edit gives me the impression that it’ll be up there with The Phantom Edit and Cloak of Deception, which are my two favorite TPM edits. I’m especially intrigued by the entry into Theed – I’ve always loved that shot.

Have you finalized the title crawl?

arosa1091 said:

I’d personally love to see one, as well. Link me up, if you please, brother.

Yes mate I’ll send it your way too!

This edit gives me the impression that it’ll be up there with The Phantom Edit and Cloak of Deception, which are my two favorite TPM edits. I’m especially intrigued by the entry into Theed – I’ve always loved that shot.

Thanks for your kind words! I hope that I’ve made an enjoyable edit.

Have you finalized the title crawl?

Yes! That was the one of the very first sections completed.

I’ve finished changing the Lightsaber blade colour from green to blue for Obi-Wan, plus I’ve also added in Lightsaber hilts for both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan:

Another shot completed: Jar Jar no longer jumps down with the Jedi to rescue the Queen.
Thanks to @JoyOfEditing for letting me use his VFX where he removed Jar Jar from this scene!

I’ve also removed the Battle Droid saying “D’oh!”; unfortunately the SFX-only track retained this dialogue, which meant that a full audio rebuild was required, in order to add in the correct SFX…for only a seconds of footage haha!

Rors said:

Nice stuff, my friend!Excited to see your reedit!

Thanks for your kind words!

Seriously how the hell does someone do that. It’s amazing.

It feels like magic to me. What do you do? Photoshop it frame by frame?

G&G-Fan said:

Seriously how the hell does someone do that. It’s amazing.

It feels like magic to me. What do you do? Photoshop it frame by frame?

I’m glad that you like it!
I mainly use After Effects for these shots. Each scene has different requirements, however they usually have a few things in common: rotoscoping, creating clean background plates, then replacing / adding / changing footage. The new footage has to be tracked to the original footage, so that it all flows smoothly.

Here are some shots where I have removed Threepio:

For this shot, I removed both Threepio and Jar Jar; this was done by using portions of photography done by an ILM artist – no AI image generation!

Note: this is not the final colour grade.

I have removed the scene of the children talking to Anakin whilst he is building his podracer. I didn’t want to have Kitster magically appear in a few shots, so I have added him into a few of the earlier scenes.