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The Prequel Trilogy 'as one movie' Edit - Released

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First off I don’t care for the PT at all but I just wanted to edit/cut a movie just for practice so I used TPM. It turned out I cut the movie down to under an hour (58mins or so). Since it was so short I got the idea to attempt to combine the other 2 movies and make one long movie out of all 3. After a fast cut I got all 3 movies to be a total of 3 Hours 20 mins. The edit is rather haphazard and is far from professional looking but I just wanted to get some feedback as to what people think of this edit. Or hopefully it could spark some ideas for others.

Just to give you an idea of how much content was taken out.
-There are no credits after TPM or ATOC they just fade out and the next movie fades in.
-The entire podrace
-The entire Zam situation including the chase scene and the bar scene
-Opening star fighter scene in ROTS (they just fly to the ship without any obstacles)
-Both elevator scenes in ROTS

There is a lot cut. Nearly 7 hours worth of film cut down to less than 3 1/2 hours, you could imagine how many there must be

The edit may very well be the worst edit in the history of Star Wars edits but I just wanted to here what everyone had to say.

If this idea has already been done or talked about I’m sorry to have created another thread about it.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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if that is your plan you could really just focus on the stuff you feel is important story wise - like a recap "Previously on STAR WARS"

you could even break it down to acts and scenes with fancy little title cards...and maybe an intermission? Maybe scour the 'musical journey' and see if there are enough suitable lines for Ian [palpy] to introduce each act?

You could focus on Anakin's downfall for example sans a George Lucas sized ego...

or a retrospective more in line with how characters like 'Ben' refer to past events. - you could do the whole thing in sepia but that might be hard on the eyes.
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Originally posted by: Johnny Ringo

if that is your plan you could really just focus on the stuff you feel is important story wise - like a recap "Previously on STAR WARS"


you could even break it down to acts and scenes with fancy little title cards...and maybe an intermission? .


Yeah it seems like it would best stand as a prelude to the OT.

I was thinking about having title cards like you suggested only after TMP saying "X years later..." and after ATOC " X years later..." Only think is that I am not that good with designing something like that and wouldn’t know where to begin on how to create those inserts between the movies.

An intermission may have to be in order since compiled together all there movies would be 6.5/7 GB and DL discs are too expensive. I could compress them but I think the quality would suffer too much then.

Thanks for the input

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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I'm happy to submit some ideas if i come up with anything...
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Originally posted by: GhostAlpha26
Originally posted by: Johnny Ringo


An intermission may have to be in order since compiled together all there movies would be 6.5/7 GB and DL discs are too expensive. I could compress them but I think the quality would suffer too much then.

Well, Verbatim Dual Layer printable8x discs are around US$2 - $3 each, so it isn't really that expensive to have a set.

Sure DL discs are pricey compared to single layer, but you could have 3 movies on a dual layer disc *each* for ten bucks total; hardly going to send anyone to the poorhouse.

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Originally posted by: Laserman

Well, Verbatim Dual Layer printable8x discs are around US$2 - $3 each, so it isn't really that expensive to have a set.

Sure DL discs are pricey compared to single layer, but you could have 3 movies on a dual layer disc *each* for ten bucks total; hardly going to send anyone to the poorhouse.


When someone barley has enough money week to week on essential stuff it makes it pretty hard to spend money on nonessential stuff when you dont have that money to spend.

Plus this point is totally mute as I forgot to mention my drive does not support burning DL discs

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Few things ought to be mentioned, first off, Recla1mer has already edited the pt to one movie and the ot to one movie (that's two seperate movies there folks, don't get confused by my wording) also, a movie that long should have an intermission, i remember wishing to god that they would bring intermissions back when I was watching king kong, anyways if you split it up onto 2 single layers then you do have more space to store data on and therefore better picture quality; another solution: cut more sh*t out!

In terms of the need for a pt, there isn't one, but if you like the whole anakin arc then fine w/e but the entire first movie is totally pointless except for the one scene where ani gives padme the necklace, the only reason that is signifcant is so that ppl can cry later on when padme dies and they zoom in on the necklace.

Anyway, sounds interesting, these are the types of edits I like to see, IMO there is only one movies worth of good stuff to watch in the entire pt anyway (if there even is an entire movies worth) and so I like to see these kinds of edits where the editor doesn't screw around and they really get down to the core, the stuff that makes it worth watching, the stuff thats actually remotely related to that other trilogy we all know and love, and so I'd like to see yer edit when it's finished, oh and btw don't worry about the professionality of the look, if you get serious about this edit and actually shoot for a release then I'm sure you'll learn all you need to in order to make it look really good.

P.S. In reference to Johnny Ringo's suggestion about breaking it down into acts and scenes, I thought the point was to get away from that and just make it into one movie, but newayz, I have previously suggested, somewhere else on the site, that someone make black and white grainy serial versions of the saga, since that's what G.L. said inspired him to make the movies in the first place, but then again, he is pretty full of B.S.!
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RE the scenes // acts idea. I meant it as a way to focus on the important things and trim [a lot of] fat from the trilogy.

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Originally posted by: DarthBalls1138Few things ought to be mentioned, first off, Recla1mer has already edited the pt to one movie and the ot to one movie (that's two seperate movies there folks, don't get confused by my wording) also, a movie that long should have an intermission, i remember wishing to god that they would bring intermissions back when I was watching king kong, anyways if you split it up onto 2 single layers then you do have more space to store data on and therefore better picture quality; another solution: cut more sh*t out!

Is there a link to Recla1mer's thread(s)?

In terms of the need for a pt, there isn't one, but if you like the whole anakin arc then fine w/e but the entire first movie is totally pointless except for the one scene where ani gives padme the necklace, the only reason that is signifcant is so that ppl can cry later on when padme dies and they zoom in on the necklace.


Like I said this project came out of nothing since I really have no care for the PT at all and don’t watch it since it just messes up the OT. After editing the movies I came to the same conclusion about TPM, it could be literally cut out of the PT and you could still follow Anakin’s fall It is the biggest waste of 2+ plus hours ever (As it stands right now TPM is 48 mins long in my cut). The entire existence of the necklace is cut out of the PT in the edit I’ve done. It serves no purpose and no one should ever cry at such a corny movie.

Anyway, sounds interesting, these are the types of edits I like to see, IMO there is only one movies worth of good stuff to watch in the entire pt anyway (if there even is an entire movies worth) and so I like to see these kinds of edits where the editor doesn't screw around and they really get down to the core, the stuff that makes it worth watching, the stuff thats actually remotely related to that other trilogy we all know and love, and so I'd like to see yer edit when it's finished, oh and btw don't worry about the professionality of the look, if you get serious about this edit and actually shoot for a release then I'm sure you'll learn all you need to in order to make it look really good.


Thanks for the support

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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hey man i would mind checking out ur experiment
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Cool

Im going to burn a copy today and watch it with a pencil and paper and just see how it flows and what else could be cut. Ill post later today how it was.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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So I watched TPM part so far and need some feedback. The one part that’s left in that I am unsure about is the scenes dealing with amidala and palpatine on coruscant (Talking in the queens chambers and in the political arena). They seem relevant to the story but it still doesn’t change the fact how dull and awful they are. However if you cut them completely out it makes no sense for them to leave naboo in the first place which would have never lead them to find Anakin. I could leave them as is, trim them (which I’ve already done) or cut them out. The movie fly’s by as it is but I’m still on the fence about those scenes what does everyone think?

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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So I had to start over from scratch. I didnt follow ADM's directions before so I wanted to use them step by step this time.

I had to ask him a question about a video problem that he helped me fix but I cant send a reply PM to him for some reason

The video is fine but the audio will not sync up with the video and is acutally a couple mins shorter than the video. Im working in womble and I dont know what Im doing wrong.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Originally posted by: GhostAlpha26
So I had to start over from scratch. I didnt follow ADM's directions before so I wanted to use them step by step this time.

I had to ask him a question about a video problem that he helped me fix but I cant send a reply PM to him for some reason

The video is fine but the audio will not sync up with the video and is acutally a couple mins shorter than the video. Im working in womble and I dont know what Im doing wrong.


was the video file split in to 1GB chunks when you ripped it? if so when you put them together in womble it will be missing frames at each join, you'll need to re rip the video as one file, there is an option for file splitting in the dvd decrypter menu.

if it's already as one file then I have no idea.
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I did not split the file I changed that in the settings.

Hmm this is a bummer

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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In your edit, is it neccessary to edit the audio independantly from the video, if not then rip the movie as one file with something like dvdshrink and edit it in womble that way, you won't have any synch problems. Also, as is being attempted in multiple edits for ep1, they are trying to cut out the entire beginning and explain it all in a new scroll so that when it fades away you are right in the action with amidala fleeing naboo (just like her daughter fleeing vader and the empire in ep 4!)
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That’s the first way I tried it. The video did not have to be re-encoded but the audio did for some reason and it messed up the sync when I exported it as a DVD. I corrected the sync issues by changing the video encoding aspects but then the quality really suffered so I wanted to try ADM's process to see if that worked. Womble shows you what will need to be re-encoded and what will be a "stream copy" before you export and although the audio is not syncing up with the video correctly they would both (Video&Audio) be "stream copy's" using ADM's method with DVD Decrypter and that’s what I wanted, so that’s a start.

If you know other methods on how I could get around these problems I’m all ears.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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OK so I went back and used shrink again and I made sure I used the 2ch audio track because I think I used the 5.1ch the first time around and that caused the audio to be re-encoded but now its all "steam copy." Were back on track fellas

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Spoke too soon, I didnt realize as soon as I add a prerendered effect from womble in my case a 2D wipe it causes the audio to be re-encoded. So Im back to square one, anybody have any ideas?

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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ahh you are using wipes or fades, thats why its not all stream copy, with the audio and video together or seperate, there wouldnt be any reencoding without wipes but with wipes there are both ways, it's just that when they are combined its doubtfull that the audio will go out of synch, either way if you are going for using those oh-so-pro wipes instead of jump cuts then you ought to use a diff program, maybe vegas.
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OK, I know this is not that important of an edit but I just thought Id let everyone know who might be interested I finally finished this and will burn a copy tomorrow to watch and see how it came out.

Some Info

Running Time: 3 Hours
Movie Break Down
TPM ~35mins
ATOC ~ 1 Hour
ROTS ~ 1 1/2 Hours

Whats Gone:
All opening crawls (No new ones added)
Jar Jar has no spoken lines
No credits after TPM and ATOC
TPM
Pod Race
Gungan/Droid Battle
Naboo/Droid Control Ship Battle
ATOC
Attempts on Padme's life
Coruscant speeder chase
Love Scenes ( Naboo fields + Fire place)
Boba as a clone
Sifo-Dyas
Astroid Space battle
Geonosis Arena battle with Alien monsters
C3P0/R2 throughout Jedi battle
ROTS
Buzz Droids
Elevator scenes
Anakin/Padme Scenes (Balcony+Coruscant Room)
Obi-Wan/Grievous Battle (Utapau battle overall)
Darth Plagueis
Several Palpatine lines during Windu battle
Padme's death
Vaders Frankenstein freak out + NOO

Those were the major cuts but theres a ton of other parts cut out, I cant remember them all right now.

Ive previewed it on the computer and it is no way a "professionally" done edit (not horrible IMO), there are some jarring jump cuts at times (mainly due to the music). There are no added wipes, too much of a pain to deal with. Some could say a lot of it doesn't make sense how one thing leads to another but I tired my best and I had fun doing this.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Originally posted by: GhostAlpha26
but I tired my best and I had fun doing this.


And that is what it is all about.


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I have a question for the experts..

I wanted to add a deleted scene from the TPM into my edit. Its a short scene of Maul fighting against Qui Gon and Obi Wan, the problem is that the sound is not just music and effects it has Ben Burt talking throughout the scene and I wanted to know if there was a way to remove the vocals from the scene and keep the only the music and sound effects?

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-