The Phantom Menace - Spence Edit — Page 2

ben_danger said:

someone suggested ages ago that the neimodians wouldn't be "oh my god JEDI!" but more like "what the hell is a jedi?". knocking them out of the limelight, could make the galaxy seem larger, but also support han's later ignorance to the force.

I think that might have been one of mine. Here's the dialogue I'd offered at that time, somewhat revised:

Scene - Control room, Nute and Daultay talking to protocol droid.

Nute Gunray: What? Speak up, droid!

TC-14: The ambassadors for the Galactic Republic appear to be Jedi Knights.

Daultay Dofine: Jedi? Religious fanatics! We cannot trust their kind!

Nute Gunray: Indeed. You may deal with this nuisance however you like.

Daultay Dofine: However I like? That's unusually harsh of you ... (to TC-14) prepare the battle droids.

Scene - Later, Nute and Daultay talking to Palpatine's hologram.

Daultay Dofine: The ambassadors are Jedi, lord. But their ancient superstitions will surely be no match for our-

Palpatine: Viceroy, I don't want this slime in my sight again. This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops.

Nute Gunray: And what of the Jedi?

Palpatine: Kill them immediately.

Nute Gunray: With pleasure, my master.

Scene - As Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon battle the droids, Nute and the Old Neimodian (Rune Haako) pace away from the view-screen.

Rune Haako: You underestimate the Jedi, Viceroy!

Nute Gunray: Why? Because I don't believe those legends? Seal off the bridge!

Rune Haako: The legends are true, sir!

Nute Gunray: More droids! For your own sake, do not fail me!

Rune Haako: Surrender is still an option...

Scene - Control room as Qui-Gon penetrates the blast-door.

Rune Haako: You see?! The Force is with them!

Nute Gunray (Uncertain): No! It's a myth!

Rune Haako: Your lack of faith has doomed us all!

Scene - Control room, watching Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon flee the destroyer droids on the view-screen.

Rune Haako: Now do you believe the legends, sir?

Conveniently, Nute nods to what Rune Haako is saying at this point, indicating that he may have had a change of heart and now recognises the Jedi's power.

If Haako is given the voice of an older male, it could suggest that he has dealt with Jedi in the past and has been impressed by them, further establishing them as a powerful and mysterious though misunderstood and somewhat forgotten order. This also plays into the theme of spirituality vs. attempts at technological domination from the original trilogy - the Viceroy is young and arrogant and believes in domination, strength and machine-like efficiency, whereas the older Neimodian is wiser and knows that there truly is some mysterious power the Jedi wield, even if he is uncertain what that power is exactly.

Looking forward to your TPM edit, Spence. I'd love a cut without Jar Jar and the Gunguns, so it plays out like a more early 1990s film, less CGI and such... Your ROTJ was narratively sound so I'm sure you'll do wonders in editing this.

SpenceEdit said:

The final shot of Palpatine is removed as well. Less obvious that he is sidious. 

Great, you can replace that with an earlier shot of Qui-gon in the pyre. I don't get why no other edit has done it so far, it's a simple but significant edit, essential to those hoping to keep Sidiouse's indenitity a secret.

My suggestion would to remove Sidious completely, dubbing over the Feds so they are more proactive. Instead of Sidious ordering them to destroy the Jedi, it could go like this:

"The ambassadors are Jedi knights, I believe"

"I knew it, they're here to force a settlement!"

"Destroy them immediatly!"

"Are you braindead? The Senate will not tolerate it!"

"The Senate doesn't need to know".

With careful editing and comp you can have them contacting Darth Maul instead of Sidious, asking him to take over when their plan begins to fail.

Put Captain Solo in the Cargo Hold said:

"Are you braindead?"

Ugh.

Nobody will be braindead in my TPM. Except maybe Jake Lloyd, but that's unavoidable.

Oh I'm warm to it. I'm so warm to it, I went back to cold to it. Then warm again. But this time, warmer.

By the way, I just finished converting my 1080p blu ray edition into MPEG2. From there it's going to Lagarith AVI and then I can start really getting into this.

As far as Duel of the Fates is concerned, I'm not going to re-do what I have done so far with the better quality transfer, but I will use that transfer for Yoda scenes. I'm putting so much grain and craziness over that video that I don't think it'll make a huge difference.

here's an idea for the ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU2jga_fbnE


thinking back to your ROTJ edit, perhaps it would be an appropriate bittersweet finale. by the time we see anakin cremated in a similar way, its like he lived up to qui-gon's legend.

• music would need clearing up, but you get the idea
• yoda talking to mace is really unneccessary i think. plus the whole rule of the two is a bit silly in my opinion
• i had a go at making a matte for the pan up. that could be worked on a bit better
• you could lead the scene with the naboo mourning scene from ROTS perhaps
• also played around with reversing some shots for the motion differences with bits placed on top.

was thinking earlier aswell. in KING KONG. the film both starts and ends in New York. but there are big differences in the time of day and decor between the two visits.

could you perhaps consider our first outing in naboo to be at night, then the second to be in the day? or perhaps the other way around?

I thought your Ep. 2 and 3 edits were great.  Are you going to release those in HD also?  While we're on that subject what about your final cut of ROTJ?  Also, one more thing, approximately how long do you think TPM will take you to complete?

I'm not sure about the HD, but I'm definitely going to redo them. The HD stuff is a little tough on my system, and I think I'll get better results without adding anything I'm unfamiliar with to the mix.

TPM will probably take me 2 months to do, maybe less. Not that I'll be working on it all that time, but with the free time I have available that's probably what will happen. I'm leaving some wiggle room for the voiceovers, as I don't know how intense that will be.

tech question: anyone know how I can convert an .mkv file to an equally hi-definition file that Vegas can work with?

You may be able to convert it to an HD AVI with VirtualDubMod or AVIDemux. I've never tried doing this before though.

What version of Vegas?

11

i have 10 and I never had a problem with just about any HD file.

It just doesn't like MKV as it's a container format. I gotta get the x264 video out of it somehow.

I guess I've never tried an MKV.... I may tinker a bit and see if I can come up with something.

I just need a good program to extract the individual streams. Shouldn't be too hard

so the video stream from my mkv comes out as ".h264" format. I can't open that with anything. Anyone know what my next step should be? I figure it needs to be mp4/move, but it doesn't come out that way.

I've also decided that throughout the prequels I'm going to change some lightsaber colors. Mace's will be green, Grievous' will all be red.

Also Grievous will have a different voice. English accent, low, quiet... a bit like Maul's, actually...

I don't mean to bother you again with this type of questioning but, why would you only make TPM high-def and not the other two HD also?  You said it would be tough on your system but wouldn't TPM be tough on it too?  I'm sure many of us would appreciate/love your whole prequel trilogy in HD, I know I would.  : )

Edit:  My biggest reason for wanting this is because I quit watching the prequels except for the great edits on fanedit.org.  L8wrtr's, JasonN's, yours, and many others are great and make them more than watchable.  I want to see the prequels in HD but not Lucas's.  It appears that L8wrtr and JasonN backed out of there plans so that's why I was hoping you might do all three. 

Well i'm using the HD rip for TPM for editing reasons, and I'm unsure if I will use it for the entire edit. If I can figure out how to use the HD easily for the whole edit, I'll do an HD version.

Sorry to be a killjoy, but just to throw this out before you get too far...I don't believe an HD rip version would be allowed on FE.org, as it wouldn't be from a retail source.  Not saying you shouldn't do it anyway (especially for yourself and/or anyone else here that would want it), but just a heads up.

How would that fit in this edit?