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STAR WARS: EP IV 2004 REVISITED ADYWAN *1080p HD VERSION NOW IN PRODUCTION — Page 131

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Wonderful work ady. Really, watching your edit was the most fun I've had it years. That said, I do have some (hopefully) constructive criticism.

I have to say, that I think I agree with Max_Rebo. I can't see how Ponda Baba's arm ended up on the floor at all. I think a major reason why my mind is led to this conclusion is because in the brief aftermath of the arm cutting (before the music returns), a human voice (that sounds very much like Evazan IMO) can be heard groaning in terrible pain. No such grunting alien voice can be heard. In earnest, I think the shot should be changed to be the good doctor's arm.

Now I mean this with no disrespect, but I think you may have overdone it a tad (just a tad) with the desaturating of things in general. Am I the only one who thinks this? All I'm saying is that I think the colors lacked definition at times.

I would also like to express how much I enjoyed the new sound mix, BRILLIANT! I think that your sound work is responsible for many of my goose-bump moments. I loved the use of the emperor's theme (perfect!), and I was just so flat out impressed with the new Obi/Vader duel.

Well done ady, well done!
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I don't want to jump on the bandwagon of nay sayers because first let me say how much I enjoyed the edit!

It truly is wonderfully crafted and brilliantly done.

I got tears in my eyes as the deathstar was literally shooting at Yavin IV and then exploded... I... wow...

As far as other things, I seem to agree with everyone about the arm. Perhaps it would be easier to remove the sleeve and make it look more like the other guys sleeve... than it would be to some how convince that it's ponda's? I mean, you'd have the hand and such already... so having it as his sleeve I don't know how hard that would be but I think that it might be a better alternative.


As far as the sound mix I do really really really really enjoy it.

I think the music lacked a bit in the middle registers, but It's nothing horribly bad.

I'd like to listen to it with my 5.1 speakers too before I give a full analysis on the sound as well.

Also, let me know about the soundtrack becuase I can start getting that ready if you're still interested in using what I did for the DVD.


Is it not sad that in this time, we are more surprised by acts of love than acts of hate?
-Me

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Originally posted by: Sevb32
But the point is Kurgan, you cannot please everyone, he cannot make a custom one for everyone. Everyone has their own style and opinions. He could do this forever and never do enough variations to please everyone.


Oh I agree sev, but you have to realize that no amount of suggestions, criticisms or even flames will stop Adywan or any other editor from doing what he wants. All that prevents him from doing this is his own investment of time and talent (and money) and some unforeseen disaster (catastrophic hard drive failure, cease and desist order, etc). Even if people demand he do X, Y, or Z, he doesn't have to do it. Nobody expects him to make every change and take every suggestion someone makes.

But as long as he is putting his work out there and asking for feedback, he'll be getting some, what he does with that is his choice.

So I don't think I'm being selfish for making suggestions of what *I* think needs fixing or what *I* think would be good. No more so than the folks who say "keep it the same, it's perfect, release it!" as many people are already doing. These same folks either don't care about the quality (they'll accept whatever they are given, much like the fans who said each special edition was perfect, and defended GL with the same rhetoric, though a bit stronger because "it's his film") and so won't be bothered either way if our suggestions get used or not... or else they are just of the opinion that they want it release as soon as possible.

Look, we ALL want it released instantly, but we all also want it to be the best it can be. There are dozens of edits of Star Wars out there, so we don't have to "settle" for something that is just one or two minor changes. We've already seen the Darth Editous/ADM edit and that's set the bar. One bad looking shot that stands out from an otherwise phenomenal edit hurts the overall presentation. Sure, you might say "it's only one shot" but then people said that to defend the Greedo scene in the SE's too (not that this is as bad as that by any means, but I hope you see my point).

So please, if anyone feels they need to silence me or anyone else from making a suggestion, for fear it will create further delays or turn ady off the project, please don't freak out. Chances are there won't be such an extensive edit of Star Wars in a long, long, long time, so we might as well get those issues out now. If we just clam up now, what are we hoping for, that two days after his DVD-9 release, somebody will create "Star Wars Revisited 1.01" with that one shot fixed? That'd be silly. We can risk "hurting his feelings" and make the suggestion now and perhaps he'll be able to improve it and then there will be no need for somebody to create such a superfulous edit right afterwards.

Unless you think the shot is already perfect and can't stand to "lose" how it is now... but again I'm thinking the main objectors will be happy with anything ady puts his stamp of approval on, am I right? I don't mean to sound condescending there. He's not mini-George Lucas!
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Ady, thanks for answering my post, I believe it is just the shock of how different it looked from what I am used to.

Is it possible to do anything about the tusken raider "looping" or is it too late?

I got tears in my eyes as the deathstar was literally shooting at Yavin IV and then exploded... I... wow...


I forgot to comment on this, that was pure genius!!

PS: Where the heck is the GL cameo??, it's driving me nuts, lol.
I wish I had a Kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away.
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Well, after re-watching the cantina scene a couple of times, I have to agree with what most people have already said. The shot of the severed arm just doesn't look right and kinda sticks out in an otherwise perfect edit. With all the work that has been done on this project so far I think it's probably for the best to take a little time to re-work that shot so it blends in better with the movie. Ady's last couple of posts sound like he might be considering some adjustment to the shot so I'm confident that it will be perfect on the DVD release.

By the way, as far as the desaturated color on board of the Death Star, I personally think that's a very welcome improvement. The Death Star is supposed to be very drab and gray in my opinion that's how it always should've looked.
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Grr! I'm currently downloading the torrent! First it drained 2gb of upload and got to 1gb of download then screwed up, re-started BitTorrent it's at an even rate of upload/download (66.3% complete) but now is slow as hell... gah! I just wanna see this! Oh well... it should be done in about a day.... hehe.
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ady

like everyone i'm in awe of the scope of this edit, i've had the same wow moments as everyone else.
i could type nearly endless congrats on almost every tweak.
instead i'm gonna point out the only bit of constructive i have that no one else has mentioned.
at 00:36:58 the tie on the right seems to have been skewed more than rotated.
even with every other constructive criticism that's a pretty short list of possible changes for the dvd versions.

looking forward to seeing the "official" cover
and i hope one day we'll hear what GL thinks of this

if he offered you the tools and money to re-do this in hi-def, would you?
i wouldn't blame you for not answering that one

cheers all
figrin d'an and the modal nodes - best band name ever!
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I noticed a slight discrepancy in the file sizes... the NFO file says 1.75 gb, but the torrent is 1.66 gigs. What's missing? Is the sample file really that big?


PS: Is somebody interested in posting the "sample" (I haven't seen it) on youtube?
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Could someone PM me the link to the Rapidshare file? I want to offer my opinion on Adywan's work.

"What am I gonna call this, a plasma sword? Except, that instead of a limited beam of pure plasma...it's SHODA!!" - Adam Savage

Welcome to the World of MOTHER 3

Überm Sternenzelt richtet Gott, wie wir gerichtet.

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Originally posted by: Owen-Lars-Kenobi
Wonderful work ady. Really, watching your edit was the most fun I've had it years. That said, I do have some (hopefully) constructive criticism.

I have to say, that I think I agree with Max_Rebo. I can't see how Ponda Baba's arm ended up on the floor at all. I think a major reason why my mind is led to this conclusion is because in the brief aftermath of the arm cutting (before the music returns), a human voice (that sounds very much like Evazan IMO) can be heard groaning in terrible pain. No such grunting alien voice can be heard. In earnest, I think the shot should be changed to be the good doctor's arm.

Now I mean this with no disrespect, but I think you may have overdone it a tad (just a tad) with the desaturating of things in general. Am I the only one who thinks this? All I'm saying is that I think the colors lacked definition at times.

I would also like to express how much I enjoyed the new sound mix, BRILLIANT! I think that your sound work is responsible for many of my goose-bump moments. I loved the use of the emperor's theme (perfect!), and I was just so flat out impressed with the new Obi/Vader duel.

Well done ady, well done!



You do have a point. One time I really noticed it was the discontinuity between the Death Star floors. In the 2004 edit, most (all?) of the Death Star hangar shots were changed to more closely match the shots of the DS II hangars in ROTJ. The floor has stripes on it, walls have little hubs and lights, etc. The floor of the DS when Luke, Leia, etc are looking out that "view portal" and see the ship below before they escape for instance has a very dark floor, but in the earlier shots when the Falcon is first being brought in and so forth, the floor is light gray, bringing out the "black and white" look much more strongly. I agree that the blue tint had to go, but I see your point.

Actually I was part way through the movie and thought that the sound sucked... the dialog was too quiet, often being drowned out by the music, and so scenes like the "Imperial boardroom" were bad. But then when I switched from PowerDVD 5 to Media Player Classic, the sound problems disappeared. The overall volume was louder and the music and dialog were separated just enough.
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You're gonna have to turn your PMs on.

FE<3OT

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Ok, I've watched the first half (I'm waiting until I have friends over to watch it all) and here's my two cents.

First of all, I should preface this by telling everyone I work in Hollywood as a professional visual effects artist, so my comments are biased towards the effects work.

I'll start by saying Ady has done an outstanding job; the highest compliment anyone in this business can get is when people don't even realize you've done anything, and I know many, many changes went by without me even noticing them! And the ones I did know about were, for the most part, seamless and undetectable.

The only scene I felt stood out as being less than perfect is the big establishing shot of the Death Star over the planet with TIEs and Star Destroyers flying left and right. I assume Ady has created this shot by pulling elements from the three movies and recompositing them; from this, the visual quality of the elements look great, but the scene feels a bit like it was cut and pasted, since the lighting and perspective of the elements do not all match, mostly because they were never meant to go together!

But in an hour of watching, this is the ONLY shot that stood out to me (the same goes for a colleague of mine who has seen the previously released clips). All the work of the extra ships in the Mos Eisley escape sequence was fantastic - watching the movie, I felt a much greater sense of jeapordy for our heroes since you can SEE the huge ships coming after them! And that is what effects work should do - contribute to the story. Ady's work in this scene actually creates heightened emotion! THAT is the best any effects artist can hope to do.

I wasn't a big fan of changing ALL the laser bolts to red/yellow; I like them for the ship blasts, but for the hand guns, it looks a ittle overdone - I like them being the simple red bolt they used to be (save the more complex, powerfull looking blasts for the big ships).

The Cantina scene is flawless; I was confused by the arm on the ground simply because there isn't really enough time to see that the "hand" is a flipper. The flipper may be more accurate, but seeing an actual hand helped make the emotional connection to seeing an arm on the ground and therefore more horrifying; the inital reaction to the new arm is "what was that?" but the human arm makes you go "eeewww, he got his arm cut off!"

But the animated creatures look amazing - this is something that should have been done years ago and they all look perfect. Seeing Greedo blink and have facial expression makes him feel more like a real person and therefore the scene feels just a touch more threatening - perfect!

Ady, I hope you plan to either have an audio commentary track or at least a text commentary pointing out every change you made; I really believe this is ESSENTIAL, because everyone is going to want to know everything that was changed!

Also, I think this edition is going to allow you to get a job at any effects studio in Hollywood, so a commentary track explaining what you did for each shot will serve as your resume, too :-) I'm serious about that!

I can't wait to watch the rest with my pals!
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It's been awhile since I posted on this forum, but I've been lurking around for some time now, awaiting Adywan's work to be released. Having just finished watching the xvid, I can say that I am blown away by how professional this version looks compared to all other edits I've watched. I had my doubts a few times that I would buy into the FX work being done for it, but everything looks clean and fits well into the original. This project was clearly a monumental effort done with no small amount of love and respect towards the source material and the die-hard fans, and it shows in the quality. Congrats to Adywan and all others who contributed.

There were a few small issues that distracted me, but this is nit-picking. First, I'm not certain about the aspect ratio of the xvid, but I had to do some resizing with XBMC to get it looking right. Second, the sound occasionally went out of sync, so I had to delay the audio by 0.3 milliseconds.

The ONLY thing that I 'missed' in terms of editing was, following Artoo being blasted by Vader during the trench run, we are no longer treated to Threepio's 'distressed' reaction following Luke saying, "I lost Artoo!" It's a moment that helps us connect to the droids as characters, so I'm not sure why it was removed.

Overall, a brilliant vision of Star Wars that I don't see being eclipsed anytime soon.

Thanks again, Adywan.
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On the subject of the arm again (I really don't want anyone to think I'm bitching about this, it's just got me thinking that's all) I've had another think about this and I'm now quite undecided, there's just a really odd sequence of events that lead up to this sequence being the way it is:

1. the script heavily implies and the novel outright states that it is the human's arm that is cut off with ponda baba and the little rat like thing both getting cut in half.

2. when shooting the scene it was decided that it would be ponda baba's arm that gets cut, and when you look at the footage from the lost cut which is framed differently and you can see more of what is going on, it is clear that the human's arm doesn't get cut (you can see it as he falls back) and ponda's arm is seen on the floor having been chopped off when obi-wan swung at both of them.

3. for some reason it was decided not to use the footage of ponda's arm and to use the hairy hand instead the only reasons I can see for this are either it didn't look right because the flipper couldn't hold a gun or they wanted it to appear to be the man's arm and just modified the existing prop and shot it when they were shooting the extra cantina footage.

But regardless of what the intention was at the time I think the final edit of the film makes more sense it it is the human's arm, perhaps they didn't make it look entirely human as they were worried about getting a PG rating, but I've also read somewhere (maybe T-bone's site) the hairy arm was meant to belong to the rat like creature who was originally scripted to get killed in that fight.

now I've thought about it some more I can see it from both angles but I think the real problem with the flipper is the question "how would he be able to pull the trigger?"

I think for me I'm still just on the side of going with the human arm, but this is Adywan's edit so it's his choice.


Also Adywan it's really cool to be in the credits of star wars, thanks for that.
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For me, the flipper shot is fine. I never really understood the wolfman arm, mainly because neither character their would really have one (unless you read into the EU, which states Ponda Baba is cobbled together like Frankenstein's creature). I don't really see the problem with it. It's a quick bar scuffle, it's hard to tell whats going on during, but as we pull back, we see someone has lost a piece of himself and is screaming. We don't need to really see that it's a hand, just that there is a bit of one of them on the floor, and they aren't fighting anymore.
As for where GL is, I'm pretty sure that Lucas is circa 1977 (am I wrong Adywan?), and he is definitely not wearing his usual garb (plaid shirt and jeans). It's also not easy to see the glasses (if he is in fact wearing them). I figured there were only a few places adywan could have put him, and I found him pretty quick.
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ok, just watched the complete film. Very well executed. I liked the color correction, crisper, more grain, desaturated but for the better. Good sound mix. Good music choices, using the imperial march has grown on me, the music choice for the "board room" scene was great. I thought using music for the duel was bold but good. Music only overpowers the a sound a few times and not in a way that I had a problem with. Everything looks great except I urge you to check out the texture of the Death Star during the Tie fighter fly-by, it looks like a blurry render of the moon, it doesn't look like the Death Star.

My only other comment is that in my opinion, you should use a human hand for the bar scene, if only and simply because a hacked off human arm will look more dramatic.

I want to state again that these comments are made with appreciation of what you've done. It just looks plain brilliant.

Blade Runner: The Complete Collection

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Someone may have already caught it and mentioned it, but I saw in the credits a "2nd until Camera" which should be "Unit". It may not have been camera, but it was one of the first listings of a "2nd Unit" anything....

Otherwise.... wonderful! I squeezed in a complete viewing this morning before the fist NFl game started. Now I'm waiting for the DVD-9.

Steven

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Originally posted by: phraseturner
Someone may have already caught it and mentioned it, but I saw in the credits a "2nd until Camera" which should be "Unit". It may not have been camera, but it was one of the first listings of a "2nd Unit" anything....


It's dead-center screen at 2:01:39.... "2nd until Photography"

Ron Moses

Avoid infestation. Rotate.

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A few more credits observations:

2:01:12, there's a period after Gene Corso.

2:01:30, this may not be a typo at all, but there are spaces in Alan Roderick-Jones's name, so it appears Alan Roderick - Jones. I figure it's better to point these out and let you decide, right Ady?

2:02:14, the name is spelled "P.S.Ellenshaw" with no spaces. Unless this person does spell their name that way, there ought to be a space after each period.

2:02:41, the M in Camera and mechanical Design is not capitalized.

2:06:33, the N in Tikal national Park is not capitalized.

2:06:40, Samuel is misspelled as Smuel.

2:06:42, "thank" is misspelled as "thannk"

2:06:51, "copyright" is misspelled as "copyrite" (I'm not aware of this being an accepted alternate spelling, nor is it listed in my dictionary, so forgive me if it's a British thing)

That's all I found on my first pass. I haven't gone through it again, but I think I may have seen some inconsistency on the hyphenization of "re-recording". I could be wrong about that.

Ron Moses

Avoid infestation. Rotate.

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Hi! I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself here as the "3D CG guy" who did the very few 3D created-from-scratch elements that were made for this edit, those being the red Death Star schematics mesh/anims and that one big "incoming TIEs swarm" shot.

I started working with Ady in February of last year and finished, oh, about three days ago. Modeling the red Death Star mesh alone took me probably pushing a hundred hours; definitely wasn't just a LightWave primitive sphere with an eye poked onto it. I'm kind of a detail fiend, so I poured over the very few references I had, did my best to recreate everything I could make out from those (the three fuzzy rotating DS holograph shots from AOTC). Pretty rough! But I'm glad people seem to approve to the end result. (Note that I did only the "from-scratch 3D" portions of those shots for Revisited -- Ady of course did all the frame graphics, Aurebesh text, arrow-lines, compositing, etc.)

I'll chat more later as right now I have to run off to work. Just wanted to pop here in here real quick to say hi and give some info for those curious, if anyone is even curious.

LightWave = fun times with gfx for me 😃

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well, ady, I decided to do the hand anyway! It's still work in progress. What do you guys think? What should be improved?

EDIT: just fixed a bit the lighting.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1659/newhandcomparisoncz4.jpg
View my 3D Portfolio
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Nice job on the CG, it looks great! I thought at first I'd hate the "red" DS graphics (too much pandering to the so-so AOTC), but they've already grown on me. I suppose it's a good high contrast color for vector graphics (rather than making it say, blue or something).

The TIEs look fantastic. It's so awesome that the amateur 3d models of today look as good as the professional 3d models of 1997!



Norman: It's looking better. I think you're on the right track with making the shape more defined (rather than an amorphous blob). I'd say if you can, contour the "top" of it more, so perhaps we get the hint of the "thumb" portion so it appears like it could be a type of hand. That would be more believable. The costume glove would be just rubber, but if it were a real creature you'd expect some more contouring and that it wouldn't completely retain it's shape after it'd been sliced off and tumble to the ground. More subtle texturing also helps.

Perhaps something can be done about the "burnt off stump" to make it appear a little crisper? It appears a little too blurry right now. And the smoke perhaps could be done a little more convincingly?

Finally, it still looks a little too "clean." I know you guys all want the blood completely gone, but perhaps some ash chunks that have broken off from the stump as it hit the floor? After all, if this weapon creates a cut with 3rd degree burns along the edge, it'd be like charcoal, and that stuff crumbles off when struck.

What else? I half thought it would be cool to have the thing twitch or something (that'd show us it was truly a hand!). But maybe that's too hard to do.
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Ponda has facial hair. it's not improbable that his flipper does too. Some pours perhaps in the flipper would be helpful along with maybe some veins and wrinkles to bring further life to it.
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Finally, it still looks a little too "clean." I know you guys all want the blood completely gone, but perhaps some ash chunks that have broken off from the stump as it hit the floor? After all, if this weapon creates a cut with 3rd degree burns along the edge, it'd be like charcoal, and that stuff crumbles off when struck.


Good point.