logo Sign In

SW: SHADOWS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC (3-in-1 Prequel Film) ** V2 cut AVI Release Now Available

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Can Be Found Online At:
http://fanedit.org/8997/

Notes:
Originally based off a very rough cut of EP1 and EP2 by jra166, this fanedit was my first time working with the Star Wars Prequels and combined Episodes 1-3 into a single movie film which rewrote the story to have a major focus on Obi-Wan during his life in the Old Republic and a secondary focus on the young Jedi Anakin's fall to the Dark Side and rise as Darth Vader. Initially, I was not at all satisfied with how this edit turned out, which is what led me to work on the films individually and create my own fanedit trilogy of the Prequels instead. Much later on after learning new editing techniques and getting requests from several viewers, I decided to come back to the SOTOR edit and revise it for a V2 release, re-editing the fanedit into a movie about the past of the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi which I am much more satisfied with.

FanEdit Information
Type of Fanedit: True Fanedit
Intention With This Edit: This is a single film with a major focus on Obi-Wan before his life as a hermit on Tatooine and a secondary focus of his apprentice Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side and rise as Darth Vader.
Original Titles: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
New Title: Star Wars: Shadows of the Old Republic
Original Runtime: 418 minutes (6 hours, 58 minutes)
New Runtime: 147 minutes (2 hours, 27 minutes)
Time Cut: approx. 271 minutes
Software Used: Sony Vegas 7 (video editing), Adobe Photoshop CS2 (image editing), Bahaus Mirage (compositing), Adobe After Effects 6.5 (compositing), Sony Sound Forge 8 (audio editing), Sony DVD Architect 4.5 (DVD authoring)

AVI Release Information
- Resolution: 720x320
- Audio format: 5.1 Dolby Surround
- Language: English 

Major Edits/Changes
- Added a new "Star Wars" title crawl
- Cut and trimmed up the lightsaber duels throughout the film to reduce slow moments and increase tension/drama
- Cut and removed various redundant, excessive, childish, or otherwise "stupid" elements from the plot and characters

Episode 1 Cuts/Edits:
- Plot now focuses on Obi-Wan arriving on Naboo with his master Qui-Gon Jinn to aid in the Naboo Rebellion against the Trade Federation
- The Queen Amidala and Padme Amidala are now sisters (in other words, they are not the same character)
- NO YOUNG ANAKIN
- NO JAR JAR BINKS
- No visit to Tatooine or Pod Race
- While the Naboo Rebellion is taking place, the Queen has traveled to the Galactic Senate to remove the Trade Federation from her planet (being aided by Senator Palpatine)

Episode 2 Cuts/Edits:
- The Episode is now divided between 2 subplots:
1. The First story focusing on Obi-Wan investigating Queen Amidala's assassin and discovering the Clone army, Jango Fett, and the Separatist Rebellion
2. The second story focuses on Anakin, the beginning of his relationship with Padme, and the death of his mother
- Obi-Wan has no connection to Anakin Skywalker, nor is he Anakin's master until the beginning of Episode 3
- Anakin arrives on Tatooine only find his mother already dead and buried (no Sand People subplot)
- Owen is now Anakin's younger brother
- Boba Fett is NOT a clone of his father, Jango Fett
- Jango Fett's helmet now has a voice modulator

Episode 3 Cuts/Edits:
- Cut down the opening space battle
- Removed and edited nearly all of the Anakin/Padme reunion sequence (now they just embrace each other, followed by fading out to Anakin's nightmare)
- The subplots of "Jedis not being able to marry" and "Anakin keeping his marriage to Padme is a secret" are cut from the story - it is now known (and acceptable) that Padme is Anakin's wife and that Anakin is her child's father
- The "Jedi spying on Palpatine" subplot has been removed
- Added the deleted "Plot to Destroy the Jedi?" scene back into the film (which replaces a similar scene that occured between Mace and other Jedis)
- Trimmed the "Opera House" scenes to only be about Palpatine telling his story of Darth Plagious to Anakin
- Added the deleted "A Stirring in the Senate" scene back into the film
- Cut and re-edited the "Mace VS Palpatine" duel (along with the following "Anakin's choice" scenes) to remove redundant elements and increase the drama of the sequence
- Re-edited Anakin's encounter with the younglings into the rest of the "Order 66" scenes
- Added additional children screams to the audio during the hologram playback of the Anakin attacking the Jedis
- Completely removed the "Yoda VS Sidious" duel from the film - the final battle is now a single duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin
- Cut and re-edited the "Birth of the Twins/Darth Vader" sequence to remove overtly stupid plot elements
- Removed the scene of Padme naming the second twin Leia

Author
Time
PSYCHO_DAYV said:

OKAY, I REALLY WANT TO SEE THIS ONE.  ABOUT HOW LONG BEFORE IT'S AVAILABLE?

 The DVD version will take a while longer to produce and put online (I'll have to send it to another individual to get it on Rapidshare), but I hope to have the XVid-encoded AVI version out by sometime next week.

Author
Time

Hey, you've done some great work on this, if the clips you posted are anything to go by. I'm really looking forward to seeing this once it's out. How long have you spent on this, just out of curiosity?

A few comments...

End of Episode I - Interesting. You're really shifting the chronology of Ep. I, from the looks of things. Can't wait to see how it all plays out in your edit.

Obi Wan/Jango chase - Wow. That was so much better than the original version. Amazing what a great difference a dialogue trim makes. Most of the dialogue spoken throughout the original sequence was unnecessary and a little cringe-inducing; especially baby Boba's snippets. Love what you've done with it.

End of Episode 2 - Very intriguing concept.  I like how you've quickened the pace of these events. The PT suffered from - among other things - too much needless exposition; looks like you've gone a long way toward rectifying this.

Order 66 - Nice. I kinda like seeing Anakin facing the younglings tied into this sequence. It feels like it belongs there. (Can't say I'm sorry to see the cockney kid's line cut either...)

Obi-Wan vs. Anakin - Again, the dialogue trimming makes the duel a lot more enjoyable IMO. Did you cut some of the more outlandish moves performed in that one indoor chamber? Seems like the weird saber-twirling-dance-move wasn't there in your clip; that always struck me as over-the-top. May I assume you're cutting the whole "chosen one prophecy" sub-plot since you cut Obi-Wan's "You were the chosen one" line? If so, good choice; I've always felt that was out of place in Star Wars.

All that to say...good work. Most of the "PT compiled into one movie" projects I've seen seem to've suffered from pretty elementary errors. Bad cuts, continuity issues, etc. Of course it's impossible to make a full evaluation just based on the clips you shared, but if the entire edit is as good as what I've seen, it looks very promising.

Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!

Author
Time

I like the thought process... but at the same time, I find a lot of the edits to be... skitsafrenic...

 

Its not that I have trouble following... but I'm having trouble understanding the edits.

 

From what you've shown, a lot of it would be most apropriately understood as a sort of... montoge. ..

 

Like how it cuts between things. The issue, of course, is that you don't have John Williams at your disposal to write you an apropriate musical montoge to fit the video...

 

Its interesting... I like a lot of the ideas...


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

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I finished up the Star Wars crawl this morning and the mpv and ac3 files is being rendered out of Vegas as we speak (which is what I'll use to create the Xvid version).
The Edit is now 150 minutes and 37 seconds (or just over 2 and a half hours).

Akwat Kbrana: I've been working on it since early June, so it's been about 4-5 weeks. On the "Obi-Wan vs. Anakin" scenes, yeah, a lot of the indoor lightsaber duel was removed - and yes, the "Chosen One" subplot was also removed completely from the story.

GoodMusician: If you're talking about the end of Episode 1 and 2 segments being "skitsafrenic", it might seem like that to you because a lot of the plot for Episode 1 and 2 have been re-edited/restructured, so it probably is confusing to watch without the rest of the film to provide context.

Author
Time

I haven't had a chance to check out all of your clips yet, but I did watch the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan clip. I think you did a GREAT job of cutting out all the bothersome parts.

I'm looking forward to checking out the whole thing.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

Author
Time

The release has been slightly delayed due to a rather odd problem with Vegas: every time I try to render out the ac3 file, the audio track for Jango's voice gets out of sync and is moved to 15 minutes later in the sountrack, making the resulting ac3 file unusable.
Hopefully I can figure out this problem in time to get the xvid version released by Wednesday.

Author
Time

The audio problems have been fixed, but it took longer than I thought it would - I'm re-rendering the ac3 file now and will re-render the Xvid avi version this afternoon.

If all goes well, the final avi version will be available for Rapidshare download by Saturday-Sunday. :)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

The AVI version is now available (check the first post of the thread or go to FE).
:)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Check the first post of the thread, but yes, I'm going to be making a better cut & DVD release for this fanedit.

Changes to the edit so far include:

- For the EP1 segment, I'll probably be cutting Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan meeting Jar Jar Binks in the swamp (so Jar Jar is now hardly seen and never heard in the edit). I'll also most likely be adding back Queen Amidala's discussion with Senator Palpatine over Chancellor Valorum and corruption in the Senate (because of that, some scene rearrangement may take place).

- Still haven't decided on whether or not I'll be giving Dooku and Yoda purple lightsabers (like in my main Prequel edits).

- I'll still be keeping Leia and her birth with Luke in this edit's ending.

Author
Time

i have a question will you leave episode 1 hanging like in the original? cause thats what i didnt like about your edit the other things were fine i just didnt like how you never found out what happened to amidala and the rest of the crew after they are captured by the droids

John Williams score to Return of the Jedi Remastered/Remixed:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/JOHN-WILLIAMS-Star-Wars-Episode-VI-Return-of-the-Jedi-Remastered-Edition/topic/14606/page/1/

Author
Time

This sounds interesting.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do.

Author
Time

Currently on vacation for the holidays, so I'm away from my workstation and unable to physically work on any edits. However, here's more of my thoughts for the V2 cut of SOTOR:

EP1 Chapter
I'll be using the color-corrected video files from my recent V2 of AOTF edit (I just wish the film of EP1 wasn't so damn grainy....)


EP2 Chapter - new changes
1. I'm definitely looking into using the "Droid Analysis" deleted scene - from the work on my more recent edits, I've learned a lot about rebuilding and remaking sountracks, so I'd love to replace the droid's voice and dialogue so that I can change the "toxic dart" into a part of the device that blew up Queen Corde Amidala's ship.
(and if I can include that scene, I'll also be including the "Jedi Library" scene from my EP2 fanedit)

2. Looking into using the delete scene of Obi-Wan and Mace - it does add more charactization to both Obi-Wan and Mace, plus it gives a bit more information on Anakin and how Obi-Wan sees that maybe training him too young has led to his young apprentice becoming a bit arrogant.

3. Not sure if I also want to include the scene of Anakin talking to Padme in her apartment before they leave to Naboo, but if I do, I'll probably keep it the same as I edited it in my EP2 Twilight of the Republic fanedit.


EP3 Chapter - new changes
1. I DO want to give Yoda a purple lightsaber, which would again serve (as it did in my Prequel trilogy) as a visual symbol that both he and Mace are on the highest level of the Jedi Order (plus then Mace wouldn't be the only one to have a purple lightsaber in the story)

As for Dooku.... I'm still not sure fully sure about it, but I'm probably gonna keep the character a Sith for this fanedit - unlike my EP2 and Ep3 fanedits, we never really learn much about Dooku in the story of SOTOR and turning him into a rouge Jedi like he was in my Twilight of the Republic edit only complicates the story more than it needs to be.

Author
Time

A few minor updates:

- tried looking into giving the Trade Federation a possible "alien language" (since they're not in many scenes in this edit, unlike my Prequel edit trilogy), but it's looking like a "No-Go".... I'm pretty limited as to what 5.1 audiotracks I have for SW DVDs (only the English track on the R1 DVD is 5.1) and I don't want to use alternative audio tracks from other fanedits like the MagnoliaFan edit because the alien language audio mixes that they used/created are so damn bad and choppy to me that I feel there's no way that I could make a proper 5.1 surround mix from them.

- I'm back on the fence on using the deleted "Obi-Wan/Mace" scene from EP2 and I'm probably not going to use it in SOTOR - one of the things that I originally liked about this edit was the idea that Obi-Wan and Anakin really didn't know each other until the Clone Wars and that Anakin only became his pupil when it began (most of this deleted is spent on Obi-Wan and Mace talking about Anakin, which doesn't really make much sense if he's not Obi-Wan's student at that point of the story)

- as I said before, I am keeping Leia's birth at the ending of this edit as Luke's twin (unlike my Prequel trilogy) - however, unlike Luke, I will not include her being named by Padme.

- in the deleted scene of Bail Organa and Mon Mothma discussing the Loyalists with Padme and other senators, I've given a slight pitch shift to Mon Mothma's voice to make her sound a bit younger (I never understood why Lucas didn't make her seem younger in these scenes than what she was in ROTJ...)

Author
Time

The EP2 and EP3 chapters have been finalized with all the cuts/edits in place and runs close to 2 hours long, but I'll be giving it another editing pass sometime in the next few days (the only major edit that needs to be done for EP2 is to finish up the analyst droid's new voice for the deleted "Dart Analysis" scene, so that the 'dart' is now a type of detenator used to kill Queen Corde Amidala and the droid tells Obi-Wan that it originates from the planet Kamino). I've also been able to refine additional scenes which I wasn't able to previously using new audio skills that I've obtained, including having Anakin finally refer to Owen as his brother (using audio taken from Anakin's "Huttese" greeting to Watto, who's never seen or heard from in this edit, and new subtitles for Anakin) and Yoda stating to Mace that Dooku has joined the Dark Side when Obi-Wan reports the Separatists Army to Palpatine and other senators.

The EP1 chapter is about 1/3 done and is taking longer to finish as it's the main part of the original fanedit that I felt needed to be improved the most in terms of pacing and editing: new edits to the first chapter include NO Jar Jar Binks whatsoever (he's been 100% removed from the story), additional dialogue between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at the beginning, reinserting the scene between Queen Amidala and Senator Palpatine before they visit the Senate, and more scenes of the Naboo space ships fighting against the Trade Federation control ship.

For those that have never seen my previous SOTOR cut, here's a preview of the end of EP2 and the story transition into EP3:
http://www.vimeo.com/8626559

Author
Time
 (Edited)

New preview from the beginning of the EP2 chapter which includes my new redub of the analysis droid from the deleted "Dart Analysis" scene, which rewrites the toxic dart in a type of explosive device called a "dredlink detenator" (which was used to asassinate Queen Corde Amidala) and had the droid tell Obi-Wan that it originates from the specialists on Kamino:
http://www.vimeo.com/8643554

EDIT: I just realized after I finished uploading the video to Vimeo that the final line of the droid ("Thank you for your time, Master Kenobi") sounded a little odd - I'll change the end dialogue to something different tomorrow like "I hope I was of service to you, Master Kenobi" or something like that.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

About 95% of the EP1 segment is finished, just some additional edits and tweaks are left (as well as rendering a new title crawl).

I'm very much satisfied with how the V2 cut is turning out over the original V1, especially with the first chapter and new scenes and audio edits which gets the story much closer to what I originally wanted the fanedit to be. The EP1 part of the edit now features:

- NO GUNGAN BATTLE SCENES: the audience only sees them line up and form their shields while the droid tanks fire away; after that scene, we never see the Gungans again (which is appropriate, considering that they're only a "diversion force" for Padme's group and space fighters

- many more scenes of the Naboo space fighters battling (and winning) against the TF Droid control ship

- Padme and her group outwitting and capturing the TF Viceroy

Author
Time

All the edits/cuts are in place and the only thing left to do on the V2 cut is a little bit of compositing work. I've also tweaked some of the dialogue of the Analysist droid from the previous video as a few sentences didn't really sound right (I'll probably upload an updated video preview of the scene sometime tomorrow).

Hopefully, I'll be able to start rendering the DVD files tomorrow and upload the AVI version of the V2 cut either on Friday or Saturday.

To break the new Episode/Chapter runtime down:

Total Runtime
146 minutes (was originally 150 minutes)

EP1
23 minutes (was originally 24 minutes)

EP2
31 minutes (was originally 30 minutes)

EP3
92 minutes (was originally 96 minutes)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Jason, I'm incredibly late on this, but I thought I'd let you know about it. I noticed you were irritated about the grain in episode one. There is in fact a remedy for that. I have an incredible plug in called Neat Video. Google and see if there is a version you can use. I know they have it for After Effects. But it is easily the greatest grain remover I've ever seen. I can't boast enough about it. It would be worth it to you take a look at it. Look forward to this edit. Also thought that since you're doing another epic edit of the prequels that maybe it might be a good idea to do an epic of the classic trilogy. Just an idea.

Author
Time

mrbenja0618 said:

Jason, I'm incredibly late on this, but I thought I'd let you know about it. I noticed you were irritated about the grain in episode one. There is in fact a remedy for that. I have an incredible plug in called Neat Video. Google and see if there is a version you can use. I know they have it for After Effects. But it is easily the greatest grain remover I've ever seen. I can't boast enough about it. It would be worth it to you take a look at it. Look forward to this edit. Also thought that since you're doing another epic edit of the prequels that maybe it might be a good idea to do an epic of the classic trilogy. Just an idea.

I'll check into Neat Video - I see that they also offer plugins for Sony Vegas and VirtualDub, which would be great since those are the 2 programs that I use the most in fanediting. 

As for the OT, well.... if I do any edits of the OT films, it will only be to finally develop and finish my RotJ edit, Last of the Jedi.
(since I'm prefectly happy with Adywan's SW Revisited and I'm sure that I'll be very pleased with his ESB Revisited edit)

Author
Time

So will you prefer to watch your epic prequel edit to your prequel trilogy? Just curious.

Author
Time

mrbenja0618 said:

So will you prefer to watch your epic prequel edit to your prequel trilogy? Just curious.

Honestly, I'm still undecided on this subject.... I'll let you know when the V2 of SOTOR is fully finished and released.