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Star Wars: Episode II - The Clone Wars Begin (Released)

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 (Edited)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/SweHanzon/TCWB_logoGIF.gif

My version of what really happened.

I’m fairly new here, so I’ll start with a small intro. I’m a Swedish motion picture student, with a big passion for the art of editing. I have made a couple of short films and documentaries, but they haven’t posed any real challenge in editing terms. I’m also a huge Star Wars fan since many years back and after reading a little on the Internet about the various fan edits and how they were appretiated by so many, I decided that this would be a great way to further evolve my skillz.

I am well aware that the market of Episode II edits is getting a bit crowded. Nevertheless, I’ve worked hard on this for a long time and am very happy with the way it turned out, and hopefully others will feel the same way after watching it. The overall feeling is a little more like that in the original trilogy. Possibly I’ll record a commentary track and explain my philosophy behind the changes made.

I made a very conscious decision to <span class=“Bold”>not</span> watch any of the other fan edits until I finish this project, hoping to bring some fresh alterations to this film that you haven’t seen in the other versions. Because in it’s core, stripped off of all the annoying stuff that just distracts from the story, I think AOTC had a lot of potential, and I’ve been working my butt off to try and bring that out.

The focus has been on giving a more serious and mature tone to this movie. There are <span class=“Italics”>a lot</span> of alterations (It’s very rare that an entire minute goes by without a change), and it’s not just cutting stuff out but adding some of the deleted scenes back in, reworking, changing around and tweaking scenes down to the precise frame required to get the most out of this. The music score has been changed in certain places in order to highten the emotinal themes, and also adding a bit of underlying meanings that’ll get picked up by the more hardcore fans. I found that RotJ was a great source for getting music that was just recognizable enough, without necessarily making you think of Ep.VI scenes instead of what’s going on in the film.

I’ve also worked a lot on getting a better flow of events, cutting unneccesary action out and helping us to really sympathize with the characters.

The editing process is millimeters away from completion. I’ll tweak a bit more and also add a new crawl, currently being created by the very helpful MBJ. I’ll be posting a (more or less) complete list of changes here, though it’ll take a while to scrabble it down. I will update when it’s done and ready to be watched.

In the meantime, I just posted a clip on YouTube showing my version of the “Morning after the Nightmare” scene, followed by “Obi-Wan vs Jango”. I felt this was a suitable clip to show the style in which the film is cut. The music playing behind Padme and Anakin is “Brother and Sister” from RotJ. The track title of course referring to Luke and Leia, and the scene having Padme deciding to follow Anakin out on his personal quest, in a way being the real birth of their romance and hence the birth of their future twins. See how it hangs together?

The Clone Wars Begin preview 1

edit: added The Clone Wars Begin preview 2

Will write more soon, if interest exists.

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Welcome to the forums!

There can never be too many good fan edits.
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SweHanzon,

I really love that scene with the "brother & sister" theme added to it. It's a beautiful setting for that piece and it seems to play well until the end of the scene, where the music sort of just fades out into the next scene. The second clip has the same problem, going from Dooku to the arena. I suggest a transition of some sort for the wipe. Either a raise in strings or a short drumroll. See what you can work out, even if it "announces" the next scene. Notice how in the OT, the music carries us from one scene right into the next. You can acheive that too. It'll give your entire project a much more polished feeling.

But aside from that, it looks really great. How are you planning to distribute it? PIF or torrent or both?

P.S. - Smart use of YouTube, by the way. I can't understand why people are still posting sample clips on yousendit and rapidshare when you can just post it on YouTube and everyone can watch it almost instantaneously.

--InfoDroid

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I really like your title. I had come up this same one a few years ago for a project that never saw the light of day; it has a nice parallel to The Empire Strikes Back. Hope the edit is as promising as the title.
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The music playing behind Padme and Anakin is "Brother and Sister" from RotJ. The track title of course referring to Luke and Leia, and the scene having Padme deciding to follow Anakin out on his personal quest, in a way being the real birth of their romance and hence the birth of their future twins

Good idea! Never ocurred to me...

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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It would be nice to have a list of all the changes you've made, SweHanzon. Sounds like a really creative project.
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Thank you all. Nice to get a warm welcoming, and I'm really glad you appretiate my ideas .

InfoDroid, you are right of course. I thought the fade between "Naboo" and "Obi vs Jango" worked pretty well. As a fade. Indeed there should be more there. I tweaked and played around a little more with both clips and after adding a drum roll to one of them and a little fanfare to the other it does sound, and feel, a lot better. Thanks for the inspiration. I'll post the new clips on YouTube soon.
I'm planning to upload this as a torrent once I'm done with it. I know MySpleen is a popular tracker around here, and that Rikter is the one who usually uploads the various projects there. Perhaps I'll talk to him later on.

And Rebel11_38, I thought I was being original with this title, but I've actually seen it here and there on the web since I started this project. Good thing we can agree that it's a good title

I'll get started on that list of changes now. Seeing all this positive feedback really made me want to finish this project quickly.


BTW, how do you think the subtitle in the Dooku scene looks? It's supposed to be similar to the ones from SW and RotJ. Font used is AlternateGotNo3D.
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I like it. It's actually the font I'm using in my project. It isn't REALLY the original font, though- it was first used in '93.

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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Originally posted by: SweHanzon
I tweaked and played around a little more with both clips and after adding a drum roll to one of them and a little fanfare to the other it does sound, and feel, a lot better. Thanks for the inspiration. I'll post the new clips on YouTube soon.


Awesome. Can't wait to see it!


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Well I finally got some time to scribble down a few of the changes I made. Below here are (almost) all alterations made to the first act of the film. The opening up until the scene with the Jedi Counsil. I'll write the rest of 'em later. If I gave you everything at once, that would be a lot to read, so this is probably for the best.

Hopefully I'll get around to doing a commentary, where I can explain everythin on a slightly deeper level.



New title and opening crawl

Vertically flipped the first shot of Coruscant, making the camera pan down instead of up.

Horizontally flipped the next shot in order to match the first, with the ship now continously moving from left to right. AotC looked weird here.

Removed the scene with the "awesome acting talents"-guy telling us what we've already seen ("We're making our final approach into Coruscant"). I remember the fact that the decoy lady sounded so much like Portman made things a bit confusing the first time I saw this.

Changed around a bit on the landing scene. It now goes Padme climbs down her ship - R2 intro shot - View of Senator decoy disembarking - Typho saying "We made it" - "Boom!". The surprise is a lot more effective.

Removed the decoy's line "I failed you, senator". She already called her 'mylady' and we see that it's Padme. I moved Padme's "I sholdn't have come back"-line to the last shot of Cordé the Dead Decoy, enabling me to cut Typho's lines that are just supposed to tell us that Padme is Padme. We already figured that out. The fact that we didn't hear the decoy sounding like Padme in the earlier scene also helps here.

I re-instated the cut scene of Padme addressing the Senate here. In case the viewer didn't pay any attention to the earlier scene and thinks Padme really is dead, he/she can catch up here. It does start the film a little slow but I think it's nice to be somewhere we can recognize. Also I like the more adult tone it sets. I'm all for more politics/emotions and less action/stupidity in this edit. I cut the scene with the badly animated Jar Jar and the thing with Mas Amedda's (blue guy next to Palpatine) silly snake tounge. This scene is also good because it shows, essentially, what this movie is about (partially): the collapse of the Republic.


Palpatines Office:
One thing that reoccurs throughout this film is that people often wait for each other to finish their lines before talking back. This feels too theatrical and not very realistic. I fastened the Palpatine's response to Mace, where he interrupts him, and also fastened Mace's response back, making it feel more like a real conversation/argument.

Changed the subs a little bit and switched places on Palpatines replies to his little secretary-on-a-desk. It goes something like "they arrived" - "send them in" - "right away, my lord" - "good". Like the previous edit, this is meant to make it feel more like a real conversation, in real life. This type of edit appears a lot more in this film.

When Padme enters, Yoda originally got off the chair and was walking towards the door. Problem was he never passed his chair (CG characters are not bound by physical laws). I cut that short.

Instead of Padme completely dissing Yoda's welcoming, we now get a shot of her face during Yoda's "warm feelings to my heart", then I cut directly to Mace stating what the Jedi intelligence has to say.

Cut Yoda's "grave danger" line.

Cut Bail Organa's line about stressful times. Padme now answer immediately, just like she knew Palpatine was gonna say just that...

Instead of Mace explaining Obi-Wans recent return from some place called Ansion, where he did something we don't care about at all, he doesn't.

"Thank you, master Windu" is now gone. Portman sounded like a bad actress reading straight out of the script on this one, and she deserves to be put in a brighter light.


In the elevator scene, I cut Anakins recollection of what happened with the Gundarks. Instead he just laughs sort of nervously after Obi-Wans little joke.

Now, when Jar Jar greets the Jedi, his loud shout "OBI" is what makes Padme and Typho turn around and start walking towards them. Because of this I could cut a lot of useless Jar Jar lines.

"Ani, you'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine" is a line, not present in my cut. This was just another way of saying "Hey kids! Remember what happened in Episode I?"

Typhos line about Queen Jamilla is gone. All it says is that Naboo has a new Queen, which we already guessed since Padme is Senator. It's unlogical as well since Obi and Ani probably don't know who this Jamilla is.

In the sofa conversation, I changed the first lines around a bit. It goes "Don't need more security I need answers" - "We're here to protect you not start investigation" - "I wanna know who's trying to kill me" - "We will find out who's trying to kill you, Padme. I promise". This felt more logical and real.

Changed a bit more in that scene to make it feel more real. As Anakin is making an argument for his case, Obi-Wan now interrupts him, with the line about doing what the counsel said. It becomes more of a slap in the face to Anakin.

Cut Jar Jar's "Busting with happiness". It works better without it.


I changed a lot of things with the assasination attempt scene. First of all, I felt that this was just a cheap way of giving R2-D2 some screen time. I like R2 a lot and seeing him fail so miserably in his assignment didn't make me happy. Also, we know that he has built in scanners and all kinds of hi-tech gadgets, and yet he searches the room in which Padme is an open victim to an assasination attempt with a funking flash light!?. Not in my edit he doesn't. It's now all about Anakin being a little too cocky, thinking that he alone can protect Padme. I also switched things around a bit and added a little music from RotJ. You'll see. =)

When Anakin burst into Padme's room and slashes away the poisenous worms, I cut the short clip of them hitting the wall and splitting into two parts. This was just in the way of the clip of Padme awaking with a jerk. It flows better now.

Cut away Padme's servants asking her if she's OK. Also because of the flow.


The Coruscant Chase scene is a LOT shorter now.

It is now Anakin's overconfidence in his abilities that make them lose Zam. As they are descending and that big ship gets in the way causing Anakin to swiftly do an evasive move, this is were I cut to the scene right before Anakin jumps down towards Zam's speeder. Since they we're chasing Zam downwards, it all works out neatly.

Cut the action shots we're Anakin just tries to stay on top of Zam's speeder. Now, he lands, whips out his saber and stabs it through the roof of the speeder, which starts the fire in the cockpit, making the ship wobble and causing Anakin to lose the grip on his lightsaber (which Obi-Wan picks up just like he always did).

I cut some of the running around scenes once they crash-landed.

Removed Obi-Wans line "This weapon is your life". It sounded weird.

I didn't really like the shot where Ani & Obi are looking around the pub, or whatever it is. Now they just walk in and Obi immediately asks "Can you see him?", just like a real Jedi cop on duty would do.

Removed the talk about Death Sticks. It was a bit silly and ruined the tension completely. We now see the guy starting to speak with Obi-Wan, and that's when we cut to Zam, seeing her chance to attack the Jedi now as Obi is distracted.

"Jedi business, go back to your drinks". What are they, the Coruscant maffia? You shouldn't talk like that if you're the protector of peace and harmony in the galaxy (which Anakin is still trying to be). He now just says "Easy". To who? Obi-Wan perhaps. That's harmonic.

As they are trying to get Zam to speak, Anakin, in AotC, shouted out "Tell us now!!". I never liked that. He's supposed to be a powerful Jedi. Now he just leans over Zam and says more quit and controlled "Who hired you, tell us". He's probably trying his very best to mind trick Zam into telling the truth.

Zam's last words are in a foreign alien language, and thanks to this, I gave her the subtitle saying "South of Rishi Maze... Kamino.". Luckily, if you listen closely it acutally sounds a little like Rishi in the start and they could have their own word for Kamino just like we on Earth have different names for cities of countries depending on wich language you speak. Also, since Anakin was mind tricking all he could, they can be fairly certain that Zam's telling the truth here. What a pleasant shortcut in the storytelling :-D.

This of course means that I could delete the toxic dart subplot all together and even wipe away to the Jedi Counsel scene before Obi-Wan even says the words "Toxic dart". Oh joy.



I think I'm all done with this, but I often find myself going back and tweaking a little. I may have left some of the smaller changes out. Basic idea in this edit is to get a feeling of reality. To remove all the little disturbances and in the end have a deeper and more philosphical film.
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I think it's a definite improvement. Good job!

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Cut the action shots we're Anakin just tries to stay on top of Zam's speeder.

Good call. That's a change I made as well.

Looking very neat....

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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What track is music for the Dooku meeting scene from?
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It's actually from the same track I used in the Naboo Morning scene. It's from the '97 RotJ soundtrack, full name being "Brother and Sister - Father and Son - The Fleet Enters Hyperspace". The music I used for the Dooku Meeting scene starts about 3 mins into the track. There was no real deep thought behind using it though, as it was with "Brother and Sister". I just thought it worked really good with that scene. Though I did manage to time the various parts pretty good with what goes on. For example the Imperial theme playing as Padme talks about how much she and the Republic knows about Dooku's plans.

I did the same thing in the scene on Kamino where we first get to see the Clone Troopers marching and grouping. I changed the Droid Invasion theme (why was that even there?) to the Imperial march, making the March sort of a theme for the republic. This is to tie it in better with the OT, so that when people watch the films in 'correct' order I-VI and hear the march again in Ep V they are reminded of who these guys were and where they came from.
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That's the thing I hate about Vader's Theme being synonymous with the Empire. Is it Vader's theme? Or is it the Empire's? When it's used, which one is being referred to? Its unfortunate title "The Imperial March" suggests it represents the Empire. But almost everyone refers to it as "Darth Vader's Theme". And you think of Vader when you hear it.

In ESB, the marriage worked because the story revolved totally around Vader, and the Imperial Fleet being an extension of Vader's power. But when you come to the Prequels, and you're trying to make seperate representations using the same piece of music, it doesn't work near as well. That's why at the end of AOTC, during Palpatine's "balcony" scene, the utilization of this music just doesn't ring as true to me, especially after the theme was already associated with Anakin during the confession scene.

When I watched your clip, I first thought you were using the theme to represent Dooku, so I was a little confused.

IMO, I think the theme to represent the Empire should be the Death Star motif from ANH, and the Imperial March should be reserved exclusively for Vader.

--ID

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Boiled down to the very core, I think the Imperial March represent Darth Vader's leadership of the Empire, so I actually sometimes say "Vader's theme" and other times "Imperial March", because for me it's like calling our own planet Earth or Tellus, doesn't really matter which because it's the same.

This is what made me decide to use the Imperial March together with the Republic. Because it is the same organization which Anakin Skywalker also plays a big part in. One can't deny the connection between the Republic and the Empire, and since I think the March represents the Empire as well as Vader, I try the best I can to musically link the Republic and the Empire together. I try to tell the story through the music as well as pictures, like the OT so spectacularly did.

I'm glad to hear different opinions though. Makes me contemplate my own ideas more thoroughly.
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So I finished doing the opening crawl, here's a sort-of preview of how that'll look:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/SweHanzon/SweH_TCWB-crawlGIF.gif


One thing that bugs me though is that I couldn't find the correct font for the title text, a font called "Univers LT 49 LightUltraCondensed". Instead I used one called "SWCrawlTitle" and I guess it works but I would rather have had the "real" one. If anyone out there has this font and would be willing to send it over, please write me a pm.

What's up next is just the final touches and the creation of a neat DVD with menus and stuff, and then it'll be all done
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I have the Univers LT font family. I couldn't find my font DVDs so I just went into my "Fonts" directory and zipped up all of the UniversLT ones I had. Here you go: Univers LT fonts

Please let me know once you've got 'em and I'll delete this link.

To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com

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Hey SweHanzon...are there any updates on your edit? ide love to get my hands on it when its complete....

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Well thank you for digging this up stossmo I really should get this over and done with now.

What happened was I ran into problems when trying to make a good DVD-compliant mpeg-2 file. I've previously never bothered to teach myself about video coding, and so I sorta ran into a wall diving into encoding and muxing and whatnot, so I decided to take a christmas break. Also I got an internship on a TV production company with working hours just killing my enthusiasm about other stuff than sleeping and relaxing, so that’s part of the reason as well.

Anyways, I'm gonna sort this video coding mess out now, and then I'll get a torrent running. As a matter of fact, I’m gonna start right this minute and try to complete this. I’ll post more when there’s more to post.
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This is really old. It says it was released but I don’t see where. Anyway, it sounds awesome. Does anyone have this?