Haha, I'm glad you're excited. I am, too!
Some really cool ideas are finally coming together for me as I refocus this edit. Hopefully, we'll see some major progress this summer.
Are you going to be incorpotating that cheeky stop motion effect?
I thought that was a very good idea...
Any updates on this one? Even though I thoroughly hate RotS, the edit looks absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to see it!
After browsing through the gallery and videos again, one minor general criticism. While I love what you did with the general picture, having desaturated the unrealistic colors, a more realistic color palette, etc. some scenes do look a bit... intense?
I'm not sure if it's due to greater contrast in the desaturated scene and/or darker scenes but sometimes it looks a bit like crushed black right next to a very bright highlight.
Two examples - the shot of the Star Destroyer hangar (before Utapau), and the background shots of the space battle in the hangar of the Invisible Hand (although I love that you've removed the blue tinted hangar shield screens).
Still, looks utterly amazing. Especially the backgrounds, with much of the uneeded flashy screens removed.
Ronster:
The stop-motion effect was for a little idea I had where I would make the prequels appear as though they had been created in the same era as the originals. However.... to consistently apply a 70's-80's style to the entire prequel trilogy would be nearly impossible. So I scrapped the idea.
Maybe I'll "restore" like... one scene in the future. Just as a tease as to what COULD have been. Or something like that
Burdokva:
I have been working on my edits a good deal in the past two or so months. I was actually planning on uploading a new clip pretty soon!
As for your criticism, it's well-noted. I'm actually still working on getting the colors just right. Especially for the opening battle. The problem is in how I removed the unrealistic colors. It affects other things in a negative way, leaving that strange, unbalanced feeling you're experiencing. The problem hasn't been entirely fixed yet, but I'm working with some talented Color Correction friends who will hopefully help me get that
perfect coloration.
Aalenfae: Are you changing Mace Windowpane's lightsaber color to blue?
That's a really good question. It's one I'm torn on, and I'm really not sure why.
I say to myself, "Of course I'll change his lightsaber to blue!" but then when I actually go to do it, I think "Why do I need to?"
It seems obvious, but my mind has this strange mental block on doing it. I don't think it's because I'm lazy, though, haha.
Wow so many changes. Hard to keep track of them all. A brief cut list perhaps?
Very clever combining of both Dooku force attacks on Kenobi and you nailed the implication that an external blast causes the platform to collapse. Colour work is great as usual but is the shot of Palpatine saying "We'll never make it" still supposed to be blue? The radical cutting of Dooku's death is a shock at first but after a few watches, it works beautifully.
VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.
Sure, let me see if I can remember them all xD
-Color correction throughout (Incomplete. Only the first 20 seconds here have color correction)
-Added classic ANH music for the duel
-Cut some silly-looking saber moves
-Removed Dooku and Anakin's cheesy dialogue
-Intercut battle shots during duel
-Recoloring blue blasts to green (incomplete)
-Shortened duel by consolidating Dooku's force moves on Obi-Wan
-Created the illusion that battle damage causes the platform to collapse
-Added extra lightsaber sounds akin to the OT (RotS sounds are too soft)
-Drastically recut Dooku's death
-Added new music after Anakin kills Dooku.
-Anakin no longer speaks after killing Dooku. His eyes tell the story.
-Palpatine's manipulations are almost entirely cut. It's too early for him to be so intense.
I'm glad you're liking it!
And you're right - the second half of the clip is not color corrected yet. I guess I just forgot to do that. But don't worry, I won't let any weird cyans infiltrate my final edit!
aalenfae said:
Now, to finally deliver... Here's a new clip from RotS! Enjoy! http://vimeo.com/68873911
Fantastic work! The one tiny complaint I would make is how weird and unnatural-looking the platform falls on Obi-Wan. At least to my eyes that bit never looked right. Although I doubt there's anything you could do about it.
Really impressive editing choices throughout - very different to how I would have approached the scene and much, much better.
I hate the platform. Everything about it. And I still cringe when I see it. To be honest, I wish I could just cut that out entirely. But unfortunately, there's really no way to cut the scene without including it SOMEhow. It's a necessary evil, haha. xD
But thanks! I hope to get a whole lot of work done on this edit in the coming months.
-Drastically recut Dooku's death
At first I thought no and then I rewound it and then I watched it again and I thought yes
Ronster said:
-Drastically recut Dooku's death
At first I thought no and then I rewound it and then I watched it again and I thought yes
^ Exactly my reaction... No... yes?... Yes!
Thanks for the changelist.
VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.
aalenfae said:
-Anakin no longer speaks after killing Dooku. His eyes tell the story.
^ Yes. Hayden's performance is very underated in AOTC and ROTS. I found with my edits that when I chopped out the bad lines you're left with something rather good. When Hayden isn't saying George's terrible dialogue he's fantastic... remove the worst of the dialogue and bingo!
In my edit I've left most of the evil Palpatine stuff in this scene because I wanted the audience (Those that haven't already worked it out during AOTC) to realise that Palpatine is evil. This makes Anakin more sympathetic, as I've cut it so we watch Palpatine dragging Anakin inch by inch to the dark side.
Just realised watching it again that you've cut...
"I've been looking forward to this"
... and the rest of that dialogue. I always thought that the duels in the PT didn't have enough "We meet again at last" style dialogue. I'd go so far as to say that dialogue was the most OT exchange in the whole PT. I'd be interested to know your thoughts behind why you wanted to cut these lines?
VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.
I totally agree about Hayden. He's one of the most expressive actors in Star Wars, but he just has horrible, horrible dialogue. There are some scenes in RotS that - after I've cut the awful dialogue - give me goosebumps with how much better they are.
I understand why you'd want to leave in the Palpy lines here. And originally, I did too. But then I thought, there's just so much dialogue here to express a pretty simple concept: Palpatine is reinforcing Anakin's outburst of anger and the fact that AGAIN, his anger has driven him to kill.
In my edit, Anakin tells us with his eyes that he is NOT okay with what he just did. But Palpatine reassures him, "You did well, Anakin." Anakin looks at Palpatine like, "I'm not really sure that's how you should say it..." but he doesn't protest. We get the same feeling that Palpatine is slowly roping Anakin in, but it's much, much more subtle.
But it only needs to be subtle the first time, to ease the audience into Palpy's role of being a bad influence. He comes on a little too hard right in the beginning.
Concerning the dialogue during the duel, I once thought as you do. But then I thought - the exchanges in the OT had meaning and substance. The dialogue during the duel here feels weak and contrived. But that's minor, realy. The main reason was that it kind of messed up the flow of the duel, the way I wanted to cut it. Though now that I've gone and taken a drink of orange juice, I just had an idea that might work for keeping the dialogue.
aalenfae said:
I once thought as you do.
VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.
Haha, yes - that was intentional xD
Glad you noticed!
I'm currently exporting out a test cut where I include the Dooku/Anakin dialogue in a new way. I'll have to see if this grows on me.
As always, marvelous work on the new clip. That's a fun way to portray the whole battle. I really like it :)
Glad you like it!
http://vimeo.com/68921452
Here's the idea that was being discussed eariler. A concept to reinstate the Dooku/Anakin dialogue, but keep the general pacing of my cut.
aalenfae said:
Glad you like it!
http://vimeo.com/68921452
Here's the idea that was being discussed eariler. A concept to reinstate the Dooku/Anakin dialogue, but keep the general pacing of my cut.
Nice!
VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.
aalenfae said:
Now, to finally deliver... Here's a new clip from RotS! Enjoy! http://vimeo.com/68873911
Nice clip as always.
A couple of thoughts.... I like that it seems that Anakin is halfway down his fall with making his own decision to kill Dooku. I'd leave that.
What i would personally remove his palpy's obviously evil thought process of leaving obi-wan. Just way too obvious. I would consider cutting that line and cutting straight to a shot of Anakin carrying Obi-wan. I don't even think you have to show him going to Obi-Wan to remove him from underneath the fallen platform. Maybe that helps you lose the falling platform all together?
Ahhh, good idea. I'll have to experiment with that!
And true... it gives me a lot of freedom to just remove the platform.
Interesting! Because I agree with you - I don't like Palpatine's "Leave him or we'll never make it!"
Anakin should be like "What's WRONG with you?" Not even an evil SOB would leave a friend behind if he was still alive.
Not gonna lie....the Dooku battle is kind of a mess.Like, it seems that you cut out wayyyy too much DURING the fight for it to make sense when I watch it. Like, why would you cut out Anakin catching Dooku's saber? Or placing the saber's around Dooku's neck? That, and the Obi-Wan stuff REALLY stood out to me. It's just visually confusing, imho.
But you know, everything else...added effects, music, dialogue removal....is fantastic. As always.
MrInsaneA said:
Not gonna lie....the Dooku battle is kind of a mess.Like, it seems that you cut out wayyyy too much DURING the fight for it to make sense when I watch it. Like, why would you cut out Anakin catching Dooku's saber? Or placing the saber's around Dooku's neck? That, and the Obi-Wan stuff REALLY stood out to me. It's just visually confusing, imho.
All noted. But it's honestly a very complex issue.
The primary issue with Anakin catching Dooku's saber, and putting the sabers up to Dooku's neck is that it's all set up for Anakin to intend to capture Dooku, but be manipulated into killing him - something he really didn't want to do.
I feel that the exchange between Anakin and Palpatine there weakens the plot, and especially the character of Anakin.
If Anakin really deep-down wanted to kill Dooku, I think he would have just... killed Dooku. He's no stranger to killing people. But instead, he reveals that he's really just a pushover. He's pressured to kill Dooku, so he does. And that sets off the chain reaction, where Anakin is simply pressured into doing things he doesn't want to do, and BAM, he's a power-hungry Sith lord. I think it's evident why this is a problem for both story and character.
What's the solution? The solution is to have Anakin simply kill Dooku. He's mad. Dooku really wiped the floor with Anakin in their last fight, so Anakin's hurt ego comes in here. He's not going to lose this time. And he still has a score to settle. "You're going to pay for all the Jedi that you killed today, Dooku!" That's never been resolve either. Anakin has a lot of reasons to want to kill Dooku. And in real-life combat, swordfights don't typically have happy endings.
So that brings us to Anakin actually KILLING Dooku. Now, as I mentioned before, the scene is filmed in such a way that it sets up Anakin forcing Dooku to surrender. Seeing as the film is originally cut, Anakin obviously WANTS to take Dooku alive. So he's rather calm and collected as he plucks Dooku's saber out of the air and puts it to Dooku's neck. This is all fine if Anakin plans to take Dooku alive. But that gives us the problem... that he still needs to kill Dooku, and he has to be manipulated to do so. That's a big no-no, as I established earlier. Having Anakin force Dooku to surrender, Palpatine say nothing, Anakin say nothing, THEN just randomly chop his head off feels really forced and random (and I've seen several edits that do just that).
There's really only one option if we're going to have Anakin kill Dooku un-manipulated. And that's to do it heat-of-the-moment style. Anakin's just fighting Dooku, and he kills him rather brutally. But the current Anakin-plucks-saber-from-air shots do NOT fit with this mood or flow of events. The solution is to not show it happen.
I readily acknowledge that it's kind of awkward to see that Dooku is suddenly headless, and that Anakin suddenly has Dooku's saber, but it actually fixes a whole bunch of problems at the same time. Our brains can easily fill in the details as to what happened. But we can't so easily justify the original cut, or any other arrangement of the shots.
All that being said, I do agree that the duel is somewhat hacked up and random. But the original duel is full of atrocities that really have to go. The entire first few scenes are some of the messiest in the film (apart from the end), and I'm sure that I'll go through several more iterations of these scenes before I'm happy with it.