Bingowings said:
My domestic situation is making it difficult to watch this all in one go as I would prefer but I'm up to the point where Luke is back at Ben's place so I can report up until then.
First of all the picture isn't looking so good (possibly because it's an NTSC image).
It's very contrasty and the resolution has dropped out a great deal.
The selective application of a sepia tint to the PT footage is more jarring than artistic and the transitions between the the past and the present are not stylistically consistent with the transitions already present within the footage which creates a jarring effect.
Sound is also an issue.
The new music completely washes over dialogue and sounds which seem important and creates uncomfortable discord when it clashes with existent music.
Some scenes which are practically sacred in the original cut of ANH (like some of the droid exchanges) don't seem at this point to be so vital in this take of the story Having music playing over them but still faintly hearing the dialogue makes it seem important enough for me to want to hear but the music which changes the tone of the scene in an interesting way is not blocking the dialogue enough.
A decision has to be made about how much do we need to hear in this edit and which part of the equation is more important, the new music or the original dialogue.
The template for this sort of edit is The Godfather Part II which included very early moments in Vito's life.
There are points where I could see moments from TPM working better than moments from AOTC.
For example you have Anakin and Obi-Wan talking about Shmi in the cringe inducing elevator scene, when showing Anakin leaving his mother instead would set up the later scenes of his discussing his dreams.
The cut away from entering the bar in AOTC to the binary sunset in ANH doesn't work it lets the air out of the balloon of the action scene and blasts it into the quiet meditative scene.
What you need is to compare like with like.
The assassination by millipede scene for example would might up better with the Tusken attack as they are physical attacks with binocular observations playing a key role.
The OT music on the speeder chase doesn't quite work either.
It's too heroic, it doesn't match the sense of jeopardy and danger that the action is showing.
One juxtaposition that really does work however is Luke wanting to know more about his father and being frustrated by Owen and Anakin worrying about his mother while being frustrated by Obi-Wan.
I found myself caring for Anakin for the first time since seeing the original material thanks to that combination.
I shall keep trying to watch more and let you know if anything else comes up.
What kind of a DVD player are you using? :S The video footage is exactly as it was in the source (unless you're using the digital copy - in which case it's about 80%) - Also, the edit is made for 5.1 surround sound, I didn't make a stereo version with adjusted audio levels for the speech track, so when you listen to it on a 2.1 setup, the speech track ends up buried; but as I mentioned before, it's a 5.1 edit.
In terms of the colour adjustment, that was a decision made with the consensus of posters at the time of the rough cut - they asked for it, I dug it and I tried it and received positive feedback; and in terms of "sacred moments" I saw nothing as sacred while cutting (aside from the MF's defense on the Ties as it escaped the Death Star - and I WILL be cutting that in the 1080p version).
The OT music on the AOTC chase was a decision made by Info and TJ which I very much agreed with - you don't NEED to see that part of the film as jeopardy; as Anakin and Obi-Wan both mention, it isn't something they can't handle... until the council goes "Hang on a second..."
Regarding the decision to get the Cantina and Club scenes mirrored, I KNEW I'd get crap for that - haha. I'm a HUGE fan of Nolan's "The Following" and I wanted a stab at something like that (thesis being that time - even in film - is relative) and I tried to address the splicing in the realm of time within the film according to the themes of the surrounding scenes (try viewing it as a first time viewer - it should come across as a little more engaging). The mirrors in these two scenes were too great to let pass and I'm happy I did this.
I'm cutting back on TPM scenes as I am telling a THIRD story throughout the trilogy (There's the story of the OT, the story of the Clone Wars and the story of Anakin's Origin). Again, things are being shown in a slightly chopped up order (a la "Following") intentionally, and when I say "this style of edit was initially inspired by the Godfather II, that's in reference to "Reborn". "Renascent" was inspired by "Reborn" so it can be said that "Renascent" was inspired by "the Godfather Part II".
I actually tried REALLY hard to get the Assassination scene to line up with the Tusken Raiders scene but there was an incredible clash in tone and pacing and I couldn't get it to work without screwing up the pace of the film (just a side note, the reason I'll be removing the Tie Vs Falcon fight is the same - pacing).
I'm glad you're being very critical about the edit as opposed to just blindly accepting everything :P, but I'd just like people to keep in mind that no editing change was done arbitrarily - it was all done for very specific reasons and with much consideration.
Wexter said:
Well, this one pits my favourite movie of the saga against the one I genuienly despise. Sorry, I had to stop halfway in, I really hate "episode 2" so much. I didn't notice any major technical issues, but while this is an interesting concept, it doesn't really work for me. Why? Because the two movies are simply nothing alike. While one throws you right into one brainless action sequence after another, the other one starts slowly, to carefully introduce its characters at first. As a result, I was annoyed when episode 2 showed up, and Star Wars then almost bored me, which is just sad.
Regarding your musical additions, I mostly liked those. You managed to pick the right music for its respective scenes and it felt quite refreshing. The title text-screens i didn't like that much, but that may be because I am simply not able to accept an alternative to good ol' SW crawly :)
I did however watch the prologue feature on the second disc and I liked it. There were some nice choices there, I especially liked the use of Ian McDiarmid's naration. The narative of the prologue felt alright, maybe slightly all over the place at times, it could benefit from some more trimming, but overall, I liked it much more then the main feature.
Sorry for the criticism, I really hope you continue to make fanedits, as I said, this was an interesting experiment, the bad thing with experiments is, however, that you just can't please everyone :)
Just the clarify before moving on, the Prologue was done by Info and TJ, not me.
Ok, so yes I can't agree more that this edit was difficult to pull off because SW and AOTC are so completely different and I was wrestling with myself so much over the three years, but truth be told, what I have planned for ESB and ROTJ will work MUCH better. Once I get the teaser up, you'll see what I mean - but just, wait for it and I hope you wont be disappointed.
However, as you said, you can't please everyone and I wasn't counting on it. :P
