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Prequel Trilogy - Sagafied (* unfinished project *)

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 (Edited)

Well let me start off by saying I’ve been watching a lot of different edits around here and I’ve been impressed. However I’ve found that most of the prequel fan-edits seemed to have one feature missing that a different had. Example, I love Attack of the Phantom, but its hard to place in the middle of my DVD shelf because the opening credits are a disclaimer as opposed to background info (something Episode II direly needs). Also, it still has R2D2 flying (though I realize this may end up being impossible to remove), something that doesn’t mix with the other five. My vision is to create a version of the prequel trilogy that would flow naturally into the classic trilogy both visually and conceptually.
 

Changes so far…
 

Episode I (95%)

Major Changes:
-Minimizing of Jar Jar Binks.
-Removal of Midichlorians.
-Removal of most of the droids voices.
-Completely restyled the pod race to remove announcers and keep the tension and realism up.
-Major Rearranging to the Final Battle

Minor Changes:
-Removed “The ambassadors wish to board at once” scene
-Reorganized the revealing of Ota Gunga so it takes a little longer for the Jedi to get there, hopefully making it more mysterious.
-Cut the dialog between Qui Gon and that governer guy re-telling us what we just saw.
-Trimming of some redundant dialog.
-Minor scene reorganization.
-Tightened up the escape from Naboo Sequence.
-Minor reworking of the opening crawl.
 

Episode II (60%)

Major Changes:

  • Complete re-edit of the Droid Factory sequence. Sequence is about 3 minutes shorter, and R2 no longer has jets!

Minor Changes:

  • Trimmed Obi-Wan and Anakin’s opening elevator scene.
  • Minor trimming of Anakin’s dialogue to make him less annoying.
  • Minor trimming of Anakin and Padme’s scenes together.
  • Major trimming of Jar Jar
  • Lengthened the Kamino fly-in sequence to slow down the pacing and create a better sense of awe surrounding the water planet.
     

Episode III (50%)

Major Changes:
-Trimmed and re-edited opening space battle to create a faster pace and higher tension. This includes:

  • Trimming the opening long shot and inter-cutting dialog.
  • Increasing Musical Presence.
  • Removing both the Missile Sequence and the Buzz Droids.
  • Obi-Wan now gets shot by enemy fighters.
  • Obi-Wan and R2 no longer leap out of their ships.
  • Overall Runtime changed from 7min to 3min30sec.
  • Removed R2 using his jets.
  • Inserted scene with them planning to attack Grievous and take over the ship.
  • Grievous’ voice has been replaced by the voice from the Clone Wars series. (I never like how he was such a talkative fool in ROTS)
  • No Midichlorians!
  • Removed little random goofy lines for the droids, aliens, etc. Droids no longer moan in pain after being cut in half.

Minor Changes:

  • Removed First elevator sequence by adding in new shots of the space battle before cutting to them exiting the elevator at the observation tower (think ROTJ Battle Cuts)
  • Added music to the first half of the Dooku fight, and tightened the editing slightly.
  • Removed Second Elevator scene.
  • Removed the Ray Shields.
  • You don’t see Grievous until they enter the Bridge
  • Tightened up the battle on the Bridge
  • Removed most of the dialog from the balcony scene. (Think Attack of the Phantom’s removal of the “I hate sand” lines)
  • Removed most of Boga’s Barks and replaced them with his heavy breathing so he’s not as annoying.
  • Tightened up the Grievous Battle a bit
  • Palpatine now talks more about the mystery of the force, and less about the Darkside, making his offers sound much more tempting both in his office and while at the opera.
  • Drastically Shortened Anakin’s discovery of Palpatine being a Sith Lord. Palpatine no longer constantly mentions Padme, and Anakin is no longer so bloody slow on the uptake.
  • Changed some of the music before and after Anakin chops of Windu’s hand in an attempt to increase the emotional impact and tie it into the classic trilogy better.
  • Reorganized Order 66 so all the Jedi die at once.
  • Removed Palpatine’s voice over during Anikan’s period of decision.
  • Trimmed Anikan’s scene with the “younglings” to make the cut more powerful.

 

So far thats about it. Future plans include killing some of the saturation. Hiding the fact Vader and Anakin are the same person, removing refrences to Leia. Hinting that Padme didn’t die until later, giving the whole scene in ROTJ where Leia claims to have known her real mother some credibility in the storyline. Whatever else I can think of. I’m hoping to be able to upload some footage from my first draft soon, but for now I’m just looking for ideas on how to improve my project, etc.

I look forward to working with everybody!
Cheers,

TheTome

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Cool. Always nice to meet another fan-editor.

Welcome to the boards!
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Welcome, Tome! Sounds like we have a similar goal for Episode 3, namely making it less silly and a more worthy precursor to the Original Trilogy. I'm hoping that I can give my edit a more OT aesthetic, too.

Hope you can post something soon!
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Darkhelmet, I've been taking a look through your boards and I have to say it looks like you've got some pretty impressive stuff done. Unfortunately I haven't had any luck downloading your clips to view them as your limit as always been hit. I'll take that to mean they're pretty good. Looking forward to tossing around ideas with you. Out of curiosity, did you do any major changes to the scene where Palpatine reveals himself? I personally feel like to much dialog goes on between him and Anakin, especially involving Padme, but I haven't found a way to fix that yet. Thoughts?
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How the hell do you hide that Anakin and Vader are the same person? Isn't that the crux of the prequel trilogy? If you hide this from the audience in your editting, you're hiding it from Obi-Wan and Yoda as well....so when you get to the OT, it won't make sense that they know all about the skywalker secret.
  • Todd

STAR WARS: Symphony for a Saga

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Well, I'm thinking of making it look like Obi-Wan is scared off by the Emperor's arrival to Mustafar by moving footage of the Emperor's shuttle up to match when Obi-Wan leaves. This will give the impression that Obi-Wan had no choice to leave Anakin at the end of the movie and is aware he's probably still alive. (The Emperor will hopefully appear to be arriving to meet up with Anikan, thus negating the need to explain how he got from Coruscant to the "most-a-far" system in the outer rim in under 10 minutes). That way Obi-Wan and Yoda will both realize what has happened, and will of course eventually learn what has become of Anakin and his new name, however this would then happen between episodes III and IV keeping the critical details out of the audiences grasp. It will be hinted at in Episode IV when Obi-Wan mentions that Vader was a pupil of his, till he turned to evil, but the line "Your father was killed by a young Jedi named Darth Vader" will hint there may be more to the story than we know, or that Obi-Wan is telling. This of course is revealed in V when Vader admits to being Luke's father.
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Cool, I never really liked how obi wan just stood there and watched him burn.
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Yea, you think Obi-Wan would have the heart to put his best friend out of his misery, if only for the fact they were friends, and not because Anikan is now a big evil Sith Lord capable of mass murder who must die for the good of the galaxy.
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Hello there Tome. It's nice to see someone praising Attack of the Phantom. Not that nobody else apreciates it, just that it doesn't seem to get as much coverage as the Phantom Edit (or maybe I just missed the whole phantom edits thing when they were new around here, I havn't been around here very long). Attack of the Phantom is one of my favourite edts because most of the cuts seemed so natural, what I particularly liked was the way the Anakin/Obi-Wan in the elevator scene was handled. It was just so natural, unlike edits where it seems people just cut out the bits they didn't like without much regard for paceing or phrasing.

But anyway, I have one question. Why does everyone hate Midichlorians so much, could someone maybe explain this? It seems to be very common for people to dislike them.

This all seems very intruiging. I hope you're able to upload some footage from your first draft soon, I can't wait to see it. I only wish I had the programs and the time to do an edit like this. Good luck.
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Originally posted by: TheTome
Darkhelmet, I've been taking a look through your boards and I have to say it looks like you've got some pretty impressive stuff done. Unfortunately I haven't had any luck downloading your clips to view them as your limit as always been hit.
Yeah, YouSendIt isn't exactly the best tool for the job, but I have posted them on either MegaUpload.com or RapidShare.com. Here's the links to those clips:

Obi-wan/Anakin/Dooku duel
seeds_of_rebellion
chancellor_as_sith
anakin_tells_mace
anakin_departs
padmes_evil_husband
Looking forward to tossing around ideas with you.

Cool.
Out of curiosity, did you do any major changes to the scene where Palpatine reveals himself? I personally feel like to much dialog goes on between him and Anakin, especially involving Padme, but I haven't found a way to fix that yet. Thoughts?

Yeah, that whole business. I don't know yet if excluding it all like I had hoped I could will work. Over at my thread, cbaka posted his edit (Sidious Fights) of fight portion before the Chancellor's transformation which really got me excited about meeting that challenge.

May or may not help you, but he cut out the part where Anakin lamely stumbles backward and drops his lightsaber. Maybe you could cut from "What have I done?" to the Chancellor walking to his desk with the line "You are fulfilling your destiny" as he walks (I don't have the video in front of me right now, so I'm not sure if that's even feasible. I'll definitely be interested in seeing what you come up with!
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Originally posted by: Owen-Lars-Kenobi

But anyway, I have one question. Why does everyone hate Midichlorians so much, could someone maybe explain this? It seems to be very common for people to dislike them.


The main reason that I hate the Midichlorians is they destroy a myth by adding in too much science. Before they came around the force was more of a religion, something that existed, but know one really knew why. Then all of a sudden its a genetic thing? That was a bit annoying, but to top it off, they are irrelevant to the story. I literally just cut out three words from ROTS and they were gone, with zero change to the actual story. They might have been forgivable had they been given something really important to do, like genetic force soldiers or something, but as it stands I prefer the force is what binds and unites us to the force is these little green things in your blood.

Also, glad to hear you like Attack of the Phantom. That was definitely a quality edit. If you haven't watched the commentary that comes with it I highly recommend it. Very insightful.

Darkhelmet, I'm hopefully going to take a look at some of your footage tonight. And whilst I sleep I hope to be able to render the opening segment of the movie so I can upload it. The catch will be to try and keep the opening right till when the invisible hand crashes at a small enough file size that everyone can download it.
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Alright, I've uploaded the opening 13minutes of my edit onto Rapidsare. This is a rough edit at this point, so I still have a few audio and pacing issues to work out, however it also features my most drastic editing so I'm looking forward to trying to improve it.

EpIII Opening

Enjoy.
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Originally posted by: TheTomeAlso, glad to hear you like Attack of the Phantom. That was definitely a quality edit. If you haven't watched the commentary that comes with it I highly recommend it. Very insightful.


Yeah, it was definitely very well done. And the commentary was insightful. I didn't care for his sexualization of some elements, though--although, if you didn't listen to the commentary, it would probably slip past anyway. But that ship definitely does not look just like a penis.

I do very much look forward to seeing the clips from both you and darkhelmet, as I haven't been able to yet. Sounds very promising.


Two-Face - A Batman:The Animated Series Movie
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Also, glad to hear you like Attack of the Phantom. That was definitely a quality edit. If you haven't watched the commentary that comes with it I highly recommend it. Very insightful.


I have indeed listened to the comentary, and I too feel that it is quite insightful. However, I sort of know how musicaman means. Though I can see how someone might think the ship looks like a penis I.... just.. wha... No, just no.

Anyway, Tome, great stuff! I don't even miss the buzz droids, they were neat but totaly slowed down the sequence. The removal of many elements were close to seamless, well done.
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Very cool so far, Tome! You seem to have a good feel for resequencing shots. I like the story you're telling so much better than the original!

Just a couple of thoughts: 1) Since you cut footage of the space battle in to allow Anakin and Obi time to get to the observation deck, how about cutting to the wide shot of the Chancellor watching the battle and then to A and O coming out of the elevator. It might create a better narrative tie between the almost random battle footage and the next scene.

2) Is there any way you can include any more dialogue for Grievous? I really like how you made it A's and O's initiative to face Grievous, but, for the introduction of a new prominent character, we don't get a big enough dose of him to really size him up. Personally, I'm going to borrow Kerr's idea and try to cut Grievous out of my edit completely.

I have to say that your idea for the opening space battle made it feel much more like a Star Wars movie to me.
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Thanks for the feedback Darkhelmet, you had a couple of good points here.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet
1) Since you cut footage of the space battle in to allow Anakin and Obi time to get to the observation deck, how about cutting to the wide shot of the Chancellor watching the battle and then to A and O coming out of the elevator. It might create a better narrative tie between the almost random battle footage and the next scene.

Thats actually a really good idea. I was originally trying for the editing style seen in ROTJ where it jumps back from battle to battle to battle, but I never really noticed what made that work. There was a story happening in all three battles which made the switches make sense, whereas in ROTS there is no story in the space battle once our heroes are inside making the edit random. Your idea seems to fix that. I'll give that a try and see how it works.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet
2) Is there any way you can include any more dialogue for Grievous? I really like how you made it A's and O's initiative to face Grievous, but, for the introduction of a new prominent character, we don't get a big enough dose of him to really size him up. Personally, I'm going to borrow Kerr's idea and try to cut Grievous out of my edit completely.


Well, I honestly felt that this was a problem with Greivous to begin with. He was never really given much of a part to play so he made little sense (unless you've seen the clone wars, which one should always assume the average viewer hasn't). I like the idea of deleting him, but I enjoyed the Clone Wars enough that I'd like to be able to keep him in for the sake of continuity. I'm hoping to give his character a bit more to do later on by filling in details, but unfortunately I don't have a lot to work with. First, I will eventually change the opening scrawl to try and explain Greivous a bit better so he's not such a suprise. Second, I've changed his dialog with the Emperor so that it seems he was in cahoots with the whole kill Dooku plan, and even to a degree the end of the separatist leaders (will post clip soon). This makes his fleeing plausible, seeing as he had at least 4 lightsabers on him from his collection yet never decides to use them, thus abandoning Palpatine without a fight. In fact, if you watch the original sequence you'll notice Greivous seems to disappear for about 2 minutes before he gets cornered. Thanks George.

Thanks again man, I've started watching your clips and so far I like what I see. I'll respond in more detail once I've seen them all.

One question for everyone, what did you think of the part where Obi-Wan's fighter gets shot? I had a couple friends who were confused by the next few seconds of footage. Thoughts?

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Originally posted by: TheTome
Second, I've changed [Grievous'] dialog with the Emperor so that it seems he was in cahoots with the whole kill Dooku plan, and even to a degree the end of the separatist leaders (will post clip soon).
It's been a while. Will you post soon? I'd love to see how you do this.

One question for everyone, what did you think of the part where Obi-Wan's fighter gets shot? I had a couple friends who were confused by the next few seconds of footage. Thoughts?

I don't have it right in front of me, but that set of shots really stood out to me in a good way. At first, I was caught off-guard, because it hit me like unreleased footage since it worked so well. It did a lot to bring Anakin and Obi-wan really into the space battle so they didn't seem so insular. That being said, your whole edit of the opening space battle was awe-inspiring in its approach!

Hope you can post soon.

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Hey, sorry for disappearing there guys. Despite my lack of action on the forums I've been quite busy editing lately and am currently putting the final touches on the order 66 sequence. Also, thanks for the feedback Darkhelmet, its good to hear you like what I've put out so far.

Now for the goods. As promised I've got the remaining footage of Grievous for everyone to see. The first scene where Grievous talks to Palpatine on Utapau works perfectly on a purely technical level, however I'm worried that too little information is passed to give Grievous much of a presence. The second scene suffers even more from this, as there is very little usable dialog. Let me know if what he says A) Makes sense B) Isn't too close to his original dialog in the Clone Wars series.

Grievous 1
Grievous 2

Enjoy
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Glad to see you post, Tome! I haven't been able to download clip 2 yet due to Rapidshare's download limits, but clip 1 is very encouraging. I think the first greeting from Grievous to Sidious could be cut since Grievous pretty much repeats himself after Sidious acknowledges him; it also makes it seem like Sidious didn't hear him the first time.

I like the voice change. Since we don't get the info on Dooku's sacrifice here and lose the strong connection between this scene and the bridge scene, maybe a stronger connection with your bridge fight edit could be made by having Grievous use a line like "At last" when Anakin and Obi-wan first enter the bridge (if such a line exists)? Make it seem like there is a larger plan that Grievous is involved with from his very first appearance.
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Hmmm, I like the idea of giving Grievous more dialog during the bridge sequence. I definitely think your on to something there. I'll play around with that over the next week and let you know what I'm able to come up with.
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I think you're on to something there! Can't wait to see what you do with that.

I'm downloading the 2nd clip now, and I'll check it out soon.

Edit: I was replying when I had some kind of power surge that made things flicker. Thought evrything was okay, and, then my computer shut down. I'm typing on my roommate's computer right now, because I couldn't get my wireless conection to come back up. I blame mynocks.

So, I watched the second clip, and I continue to love how much better of a character the dialogue replacement makes Grievous! Your cut of the duel is better, too. I especially like how you don't allow for the same kind of shot for both of G's hands getting cut off. That always hit me as bad filmmaking. I have some critiques if you will indulge me (if you won't, then just skip the rest ):

1) Though the insert shot cuts in beautifully (aside from the absence of Obi-wan's cloak), Obi-wan's ignition of his lightsaber for his ride up the cliff and the subsequent shut-off doesn't really seem to have any motivation behind it. He knows where Grievous is, but he hasn't decided on his tactic yet as evidenced by his thoughtfulness before he decides to jump down to face him.

2) Is there more dialogue for the Separatists which could be used? It seems odd that their voices are unintelligible while Grievous' is not. Maybe some subtitles? Not sure how that would play against Grievous's response in English, err, Basic, though.

3) Grievous's line "Mine" sounds a bit off, I think due to the difference in background tone. If you layered in some silence from your new Grievous source, it would probably play the difference down.

4) The shot where G's hand and a lightsaber is seen falling to the deck below him seemed to be trimmed too short.

5) Oh, yeah! ALmost forgot the lizard (I wish I could). Nice job with the new noises instead of the yelps. Can I put in a request for even less yelps?
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TheTome,
In regards to the first clip you posted: (opening of the movie til the landind of the ship)
Some great ideas in this edit! Some very brave ideas too. Some questionable ones as well...
I'll be brief (simply because I'm too lazy to type right now).

The opening space battle is alot of fun. I'm surprised how well it works. The rearranging of the dialogue alone is excellent.
I DO kind of miss the "well have you noticed the shield is still up?!" line. But that's just me...

I feel that the music ends too abruptly after the Jedi cut down the droids.

I believe the Dooku flip has got to go. If you can, I'd remove it.
The music during the duel is very nice.
I'm undicided about the editing of the duel itself...there's so many that I've seen so recently

Very clever editing out the Anakin/Obi/Palp sliding around the ship scene!

The "new" scene with "new" dialogue has the most issues. It is alot of fun. The dialogue between Ani and Obi you've put together works well, and is quite humorous, but, without lipsync, I just think people will be sucked out of the moment. IMHO. Again, it's still alot of fun.

I know, that's a short reply to all the hard work you've put into this edit...hopefully I can get around to rewatching it and commenting some more!

SSWR’s YouTube channel

Attack of the Clones: Alternate Timeline Edit Thread:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/SSWRs-Attack-of-the-Clones-Alternate-Timeline-Edit/id/66888

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Your wireless is down? That sucks man. Have you tried isolating the reverse power coupling? That usually works for me.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

1) Though the insert shot cuts in beautifully (aside from the absence of Obi-wan's cloak), Obi-wan's ignition of his lightsaber for his ride up the cliff and the subsequent shut-off doesn't really seem to have any motivation behind it. He knows where Grievous is, but he hasn't decided on his tactic yet as evidenced by his thoughtfulness before he decides to jump down to face him.

Agreed, I basically put the shot in there so I didn't have to use the same shot of the exterior of that command building twice in a row. The light saber sounds were for continuity, though I'd like to play with after effects and see if I can't remove the saber. The other problem I've run into is I still use that shot in its original location (order 66) and cutting it out isn't' really an option, so I may simply revert it to the original shot.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

2) Is there more dialogue for the Separatists which could be used? It seems odd that their voices are unintelligible while Grievous' is not. Maybe some subtitles? Not sure how that would play against Grievous's response in English, err, Basic, though.

Yea, I'm looking into that. Unfortunately what they say doesn't really match what G has to say (they mostly talk about Dooku). So far I've been trying to avoid subs, especially for vocals heard in the background. I may try and muffle G's voice a bit though so it only slowly become audible. Otherwise I may look at stealing dialog from later in the movie right before Vader kills em, or simply making them audible, but not understandable (think R2, and much of the other alien dialog in the classic trilogy).

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

3) Grievous's line "Mine" sounds a bit off, I think due to the difference in background tone. If you layered in some silence from your new Grievous source, it would probably play the difference down.


Hmm, will try that.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

4) The shot where G's hand and a lightsaber is seen falling to the deck below him seemed to be trimmed too short.


Yea, i wasn't sure about that. I'll play around with it, but I have to be careful with the music sync.

Originally posted by: darkhelmet

5) Oh, yeah! ALmost forgot the lizard (I wish I could). Nice job with the new noises instead of the yelps. Can I put in a request for even less yelps?


Definitely. The only reason he has as many as he does is that I'm still trying to figure out what to do about the roller car. I've come to the conclusion I can't remove it, but I'm not going to go to all the trouble of redoing all the sounds till I know what footage is going to stay.

Also, two questions,
1) What did you think of the new musical workings of the scene (especially when G talks)?

2) What did you think of the re-arranging of the Jedi chamber sequence (placing it during Obiwan's infiltration instead of after the battle starts)?



P.S. Thanks for your comments SomethingStarWarsRelated. I'm currently re streamlining the entire opening sequence as my understanding of editing has improved since my first run. I'll post a clip of it once its ready. Until then I'll simply say, "Have you noticed the shields are still up?" is back in.