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Aalenfae's PREQUEL TRILOGY (Heavily delayed - computer exploded) — Page 30

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 (Edited)

aalenfae said:

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.

Well if that is what your aiming for, I'd say you go this route.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86KjDBhDQoo

It makes Anakin look alot more cocky with the saber catch. He let's him gloat a bit, then does away with him. I think this helps cover alot of what you are looking to go for.

The line Anakin gives also becomes very Darth Vaderish all of a sudden. Double Bonus. lol

 My Episode 3 Edit Reign of the Dark Side

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Nice edit of Dooku's final moments, Aalenfae. Especially the re-use of Anakin's line is great.

Will you also be editing Mace's death? Because I think these these scenes are supposed to mirror each other, and basically illustrate Anakin's conflict: he already killed a beaten and unarmed man, and he doesn't want to let the same thing happen again. It's not the Jedi way. Though the Palpatine scene is bad, I do like the mirroring that's going on here. It also says a lot about Anakin's character.

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bobgarcia74:
Well, Bob - I  think this is probably the next best option. However... it still doesn't explain why Anakin seems troubled over his actions. If he's cocky and gloating when he kills Dooku - which you nail perfectly in your clip - it's a little strange that 1 second later, he looks like he regrets it. It's okay for him to regret it later, but he should at least have a little transition time.  The suddenly-feeling-remorse-in-the-next-shot feels too awkward. The sudden remorse only works in the original context, and in a heat-of-the-moment context, I think. 

If there was somehow a way to get a transition period like... "My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count," then he kills Dooku. As Dooku crumples to the floor, Anakin lets out a spiteful, nonvocal laugh and gives a "See how awesome I am?" look to Palpatine before realizing what he just did, and feeling some remorse. 

But other than that... it would seem strange. Unless there's a better way to make Anakin kill Dooku in the heat of the moment.



silverkey:
That youtube clip there is bobgarcia's.

Yeah, I think these scenes are supposed to mirror eachother. But thematically/dramatically speaking... I don't think they HAVE to. Especially since - at that point later in the film - Anakin shouldn't still be protesting about "the Jedi way" when he's just moments from selling his soul to Palpatine. It works in the original cut because most of Anakin's motivations simply come from the fact that he's being pressured. He's like a cornered mouse, and it makes him weak. In my edit, Anakin is never pressured into doing things. He either does things off-the-cuff, or entirely willfully. His killing of Mace will be a well-considered action. Think Darth Vader saving Luke in RotJ. I'm going for a more powerful mirror-scene between RotS and RotJ.

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aalenfae said:

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.

Unless you have Anakin just stare at Dooku after he catches the saber....have them lock eyes....and THEN Anakin cuts Dooku's head off. That would have Anakin being un-manipulated, but still show that he made the wrong decision. 

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I love all these changes, especially the music and the battleships causing the platform to collapse.

The Dooku DIalogue being introduced before he ignited his lightsabre did feel a bit awkward, mainly because of the closeness of his face, ie you'd only use a shot like that when the fight gets intense, so it might have to be placed later in the fight.

Bob's suggestion would be cool, might need tweaking, but I do like the idea of Anakin getting his last word in.

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I'm going to focus on a different part of RotS for now, and see if new Dooku duel ideas come to mind in the meantime xD


And shadowsabre66, I most certainly am still working on AotC and TPM. I was actually just about to feature some of my newest work on AotC! Expect that in the near future.

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No Yoda, yay! :)

Aside from some trimmed dialogue and removing Anakin's jump, I'm not exactly sure what else you did to that clip, but it sure seems to play through a lot better.

As for Dooku's death:

MrInsaneA said:

Unless you have Anakin just stare at Dooku after he catches the saber....have them lock eyes....and THEN Anakin cuts Dooku's head off. That would have Anakin being un-manipulated, but still show that he made the wrong decision. 

I would like to see this suggestion tried as well. I think seeing the lightsabres at Dooku's throat would visually clarify the scene.

“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers

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 (Edited)

Think the Anakin jump removal is almost frame-for-frame what I did in my cut... great minds think alike old chap :-D

You're on the right track with how to remove Yoda but I think in order for it to fully work you need to:

A: Give Dooku a reason to leave and not to just kill them (The original reason is he can't defeat Yoda)

B: Change Dooku's emotional reaction at the end (The original has him giving a blank stare, which is fine for a mid-sequence shot... not for the climax)

If you could show Dooku leaving as a result of Padme and the Troopers arrival that would give Dooku a natural reason to flee (You partially implied it I know) and as an added bonus it would mean Padme saved the day. You could have Padme arrive, then cut to her running inside (You'd have to erase Yoda from that shot) and add the troopers firing and shouting etc, then cut to the shot of Dooku running up the ramp, then we see his ship blasting out of there.

Could you change the Dooku's reaction from the sigh to a more gloating feel, a smile would do.

Or recut it so Dooku could start to pull the ceiling down onto Ani and Obi and Padme gets there in the nick of time and he has to flee.

Or recut it so he stats to pull the ceiling down onto Anikin and Obi, when suddenly Yoda appears saying "Dooku!" and they have the force battle of strength before Dooku brings that column down and runs why Yoda is busy.

This could work nicely as it would mean Yoda was arriving at the last possible second to save our heroes from Dooku killing them.

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.

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It's interesting, I never actually thought that I needed to justify Dooku simply leaving after besting Anakin and Obi-Wan. My reasoning? 

1. Dooku from the very beginning of the sequence only wants to leave. And if Anakin and Obi-Wan never arrived in time, Dooku would have simply taken off. He doesn't escape because he's in a pinch. He just intends to leave, regardless of who confronts him. The only reason he brings the pillar down on Obi-Wan is because he knows that he can't escape so long as Yoda isn't distracted. If Yoda never shows up, Dooku should logically just jump in his ship and get out of there.

2. Dooku doesn't show much interest in actually killing Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sure, he goes to chop Obi-Wan when he's down, but after maiming Anakin, Dooku looks like he's had enough, and actually turns off his saber - something he wouldn't do if he intended to still kill with it. 

The fact of the matter is that within the context of the film, Dooku needs no reason to "escape". When Anakin and Obi-Wan find him, Dooku already intends to leave. He easily beats them, and he's not such a 2D villain that he needs to kill them afterwards, either. Dooku's face afterward is a "Phew, that was annoying. Time to get on with things" kind of expression.

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aalenfae said:

http://vimeo.com/69128493

Here's my newest clip from AotC!
Hope you guys enjoy it!

I like it very much! 

Couple things (that you're probably already working on):

- I'm assuming you're going to do some color correction?

- Not sure if I like how the music works when Anakin gets his arm chopped off. It's just that act of violence is so sudden and that music just pops in like "yes this is dramatic!" I think I'd probably go with a different cue (something more subtle) or drop the music from that part entirely. 

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DominicCobb said:

aalenfae said:

http://vimeo.com/69128493

Here's my newest clip from AotC!
Hope you guys enjoy it!

I like it very much!

Couple things (that you're probably already working on):

- I'm assuming you're going to do some color correction?

- Not sure if I like how the music works when Anakin gets his arm chopped off. It's just that act of violence is so sudden and that music just pops in like "yes this is dramatic!" I think I'd probably go with a different cue (something more subtle) or drop the music from that part entirely.

-I plan on color-correcting AotC like crazy! However, the correction needed in AotC is far more difficult than the color correction in RotS, so color correction is going to be the last thing I do to this film.

-And yes, that cue is really sudden (and it ends really quickly, too!). I hadn't really given it too much thought, but especially now that you mention it, I might look into using a different cue there. Like you said, dropping it altogether might work, too. Wouldn't be hard to replace the sounds there.

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I really like the way you removed the stupid jump that anakin does...

But I was not sure on those strange sounds that you added, I know it was in the original but you seemed to add more of them? I think it made it feel more cartooney.

If somehow you can improve anakins arm getting lobbed off it would be better... As it was not clear at all what happened.

Good removal of Yoda Duel with the editing....

 

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I added two sound effects:
-Harsher sound when Anakin's arm is cut off
-Force push sound effect from TPM

Any other sounds are present in the original cut. Though two of the strange echo-like sounds shouldn't be there, because I accidentally left in a repeat shot from when I rearranged some of the shots.

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Ok well if you can cut them weird sound effects it would be interesting to see how that changes things.... just a suggestion anyhow... I think it is one of the next logical steps

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 (Edited)

I know you said you would be colour correcting AOTC last, but I'm sure we'd all love a sneak peek of the kind of thing you're planning aalenfae. Colour wise this is the worst frame from AOTC that I can think of...

^ Maybe you can post the same single frame corrected the way you envision it.

I doubt it's possible to digitaly correct Ewan's pickup stick-on beard and mullet wig lol

 

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.

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 (Edited)

I'd love to oblige, but you underestimate my powers of getting out of doing things!

Because as it stands, this frame doesn't exist in my edit. There were just too many issues with this part of the scene, so I hacked it out.

 

 

Also... Ryan, thanks for your holiday special acid-trip edit! It let me see some footage that I desperately needed for RotS.
http://vimeo.com/69182244

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aalenfae said:

Also... Ryan, thanks for your holiday special acid-trip edit! It let me see some footage that I desperately needed for RotS.
http://vimeo.com/69182244

Awesome! lol

It looks really good^. There is more footage of that imperial guy apart from the 3 sentences I used.

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.

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Yeah, I just had a chance to skim through the Holiday Special and found the imperial guy footage. This is a lifesaver! I thought I'd have to get a guy in costume and film some new stuff to put an Imperial officer in the screen.

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aalenfae said:

bobgarcia74:
Well, Bob - I  think this is probably the next best option. However... it still doesn't explain why Anakin seems troubled over his actions. If he's cocky and gloating when he kills Dooku - which you nail perfectly in your clip - it's a little strange that 1 second later, he looks like he regrets it. It's okay for him to regret it later, but he should at least have a little transition time.  The suddenly-feeling-remorse-in-the-next-shot feels too awkward. The sudden remorse only works in the original context, and in a heat-of-the-moment context, I think. 

If there was somehow a way to get a transition period like... "My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count," then he kills Dooku. As Dooku crumples to the floor, Anakin lets out a spiteful, nonvocal laugh and gives a "See how awesome I am?" look to Palpatine before realizing what he just did, and feeling some remorse. 

But other than that... it would seem strange. Unless there's a better way to make Anakin kill Dooku in the heat of the moment.

Have you tried speeding up the shot of Dooku's saber landing on Anakin's hand? Maybe the next shot too where Dooku falls on his knees. Then they lock eyes and cut Dooku's scared stare little shorter than in original cut. Anakin cuts his head of and after that use Palpatine's line "You did well" but cut it before "...Anakin" so we don't see Anakin starting to turn too much towards Palpy. Then you show the remorse shot and cut to the space battle. That might work.

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 (Edited)

Hey everybody! It's been a while, but I recently had some crazy inspiration, I suppose. What if the opening scene of RotS was REALLY short? Well, as I was listening to ESB music today, I had the thought to match up the scene with some Battle of Hoth music. 

http://vimeo.com/70160554

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aalenfae said:

Hey everybody! It's been a while, but I recently had some crazy inspiration, I suppose. What if the opening scene of RotS was REALLY short? Well, as I was listening to ESB music today, I had the thought to match up the scene with some Battle of Hoth music. 

http://vimeo.com/70160554

^ Very nice!

I used the hero sting from 'Luke catching his sabre over the Sarlacc pit' for when they leap out of their fighters and start attacking the droids. Think it would work wonderfully at the end of your clip too.

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.

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This is the kind of severe chopping ROTS needs to be watchable. Bravo!

I would suggest maybe just have the bit of dialog where they state General Grievous' ship is dead ahead.

I'm not sold on the music, but it's not bad.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?