Star Wars Prequels: The NJM Edits (* part finished project *) — Page 2

I'm toning down the blue in the Kamino exteriors.  It seems to make the planet appear more grim and foreboding.  This started with the Jango / Obi-Wan fight on Kamino because it is the longest exterior sequence.  I did attempt something more radical as in Brash's Cut where he was making it where Jango leaves Kamino at dawn as a mirror of Boba leaving Bespin at dusk in ESB.  However, I would've had to re-rotoscope Obi-Wan's lightsaber, and all the blue trim on Jango's armor would've mysteriously disappeared.

I added a real fix to the sequence, though.  When Obi-Wan does the tuck and roll after Jango goes to the air firing the blasters, I've added in the sound of Kenobi's saber turning off and back on.

-NJM

The lightsaber looks like it's from a 90's video game.  Early 90's.

fishmanlee, I wish mine looked that good.  Give me a little while, and I'll post a comparison screenshot.  While I have the tools for rotoscoping a lightsaber, I just don't have the time for it.  Knowing me, it'd take about three times as long as it should due to nit-picking the quality and consistency of it all.

-NJM

I meant from a general draining of the color standpoint, not the saber effect.

-NJM

As you can see, it's just a subtle change.  I'm gonna try to bring out Ewan's flesh tones more, but there's not much color information to work with.

-NJM

And those overly orange daylight glow stills on page one - forget 'em!  I've gone the opposite direction, and begun the more muted tones idea.  I've also taken some out a little green from the image in an effort to retain better skin tones.

-NJM

fishmanlee said:

...then MAYBE take the contrast slider and slide it all the way to the right

You don't remember, or you can't tell us?

It does baffle me that Lucas created THX to set a high standard for movie theatres, and later the home theatre only to put out so many of the Star Wars films with such embarrassing transfer problems in both audio and video.  The mix for TPM is MUCH lower than AOTC or ROTS.  I have to max out the volume on my computer just to hear the dialogue tracks for EPISODE I while editing it.

Seriously, THX exists to create an optimum clarity of sound and vision for the presentation of motion pictures.  They created special branded speakers for movie theatres to be on-par with those at Skywalker Sound where the tracks are mixed, and creating the THX Optimizer for DVD to get the most out of every viewing experience.  Yet, the first Star Wars DVD released, THE PHANTOM MENACE is really not of that standard.  The audio mix should be higher, the video itself isn't as clean or rich as it should be, and as Adywan has shown us, the coloring is plauged by this pink hue.  I also don't get the obvious flm grain.  Is it just the film stock they used?  Because it shouldn't look this way.  The original trilogy films on DVD don't have so much grain or appear so flat, and they're 20 years older.  It's just a bad transfer that THX should be ashamed to have their name attached to.  I so wish I could have new, clean HD transfers of these films to work with here.

Whenever TPM is released on Blu Ray, there's a lot of clean up they should do with it, including much of the CGI.  It's all very dated in quality and lack of detail.  Several shots are so bad they look like ILM never finished rendering them.

-NJM

I still prefer SSWR's take of the droid factory.

In the original version Anakin does not sense the Geonosians all around him (these are living things and connected to all other living things by the Force)

In SSWR's version he triggers a mechanical device instead (because he is reckless). 

It feels like Padme is implausibly avoiding less obstacles (she isn't a Jedi) and he loses his saber (why would Anakin charge into a fight with Geonosians but surrender to Fett and some droids if he still has a weapon to hand?).

I prefer your choice of musical adjustments though.

What are you guys using to do these color corrections, avisynth, Vegas, After Effects, what? it seems real time consuming.

Well, if Anakin were to start fighting against Fett & the Destroyer Droids, what about Padmé?  She doesn't have a weapon to defend herself, and Anakin just saved her from imminent doom.  Does he put her back into imminent danger by attacking instead of surrendering?  He's not going to do that because they're likely to just kill her (which is what the Geonosians end up wanting, anyway).  Their mission here is to rescue Obi-Wan, and prevent an all-out interstellar war.  Continuing to fight through every obstacle in their way isn't what Padmé wanted.

And dark_jedi, I use Final Cut Pro 5.1 on a Mac G4 running OS 10.4.11.

-NJM

I see your point but then you might as well lose the weapon because he's never going to see it again anyway.

If possible I'd paint out dodgy Digi-Fett.

I could never figure out why Lucas had Fett linked to both armies in the first place it makes the Jedi look really stupid but having Dooku using him as a general dog's body further diminishes an already inappropriately used character and the CGI is awful (it's less noticeable with the droids).

I don't have the knowledge or skill to do computer effects work, let alone the time to learn.  So, anything requiring painting something or someone out, or re-rotoscoping is out of the question.

-NJM

I think it's just a case of finding someone who can use photoshop to create a background plate for the area the character is standing (in a still shot) and place that over the scene.

Anyway, looking forward to following these edits! :)

This project is not dead.  It's just on hiatus.  I'm very busy, and backed up with more pressing obligations right now.  I need to finish shooting a movie from 2009.

-NJM

....why did this die

MrInsaneA said:

....why did this die

Simply a matter of tme and interest.  I've been dedicating myself to my independent filmmaking endeavors on and off since this.  Also, when I realized how utterly irreconcilable the plots of these movies were, and how many plot holes existed, it kind of took the ambition out of the project for me.  That's what I get for writing a nine page long review of "The Phantom Menace."  I can tighten things up, add/delete scenes, and restructure the story, but the problems with the stories are beyond mere editing fixes.  They are at the conceptual stage, and I think it wil require an Adywan style extensive task to revamp these films from the ground up to resolve those problems I have with them now.

All of the files are still on my hard drive, sucking up dozens of gigabytes of space, and so, it's not gone nor impossible that it won't see further progress.  I just don't see it happening anytime soon.  Plus, my YouTube account got hit with copyright strikes from the clips I posted up from my edit.  So, I would have to be more careful where I upload previews of this stuff.

-NJM