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Aalenfae's PREQUEL TRILOGY (Heavily delayed - computer exploded) — Page 31

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I myself am not totally sold on the cuts. 
I wanted to make an opening that had zero exposition. I'd save that for the opening crawl. In ANH, we didn't need a shot of an imperial officer saying "Princess Leia's ship is dead ahead!", because the action was explained ahead of time. 

However, I'm not totally sure about losing almost the entire action sequence in the beginning.

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The only thing that needs to be shown is dookus death this could happen on geonosis and grievous could escape while dooku dies....

While this blurs the line between the films... It would be the option i would take....

I don't have any taboos when it comes to the pt.... But i am not keen on it....if it could be made better than i Would feel different.

That is an honest opinion too.... But that does not mean i don't appreciate what you are doing

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Aalanfae, my suggestion:

 

Add more scenes that take place outside of Anakin/Obi's cockpits. Add the vulture droids attacking/clone pilots intercepting to help...but have no dialogue. No shots of Anakin or Obi-Wan in the cockpit. Edit it all together very fast.

 

That way, when Anakin and Obi-Wan exit their cockpits, it's an epic introduction to two bad-ass as hell Jedi Knights. No dialogue needed, the epic visuals speak for themselves. Just like the start of A New Hope.

 

I love this idea, and I'm totally going to steal it for my edit. 

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         Great stuff!  If there are any R2 shots without buzzdroids it might be added as a slight mirror of ANH.
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http://vimeo.com/70743656
Work continues on the Dooku duel! I leave you with the most recent version.
However, there is quite a bit of work yet to be done - especially in the music category.

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I hope that shot of Dooku flipping over the railing isn't going to be in your edit.

Great job otherwise!

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 (Edited)

Just watched the Palpatine office comparison video.

Billion times better! The eyes don't look nearly as digitaly messed around with. Also nice removal of the chicken neck.

Skin has got the right level of saturation now but if I can be picky I'd still like the skin a little more yellow. ROTJ Palpatine always looked mumified to me or like old yellowy-grey bones. Also it would be nice if ALL the pink was gone from the robe, more blueish.

Also nice if all the pink was gone from the whole office. Steel, black/dark blue and dark red like the death star throne room.

Anybody noticed that the ROTS makeup makes his mouth move like Wallace and Gromit? Mute it and say "Wensleydale" at 0.04.

btw I thought you'd removed the Dooku flip already?

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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Okay, yeah - gotta address the Dooku flip.

I fixed it by removing him from the balcony altogether, and just having him strolling down the floor.
But... when I rearranged the scene for a more dramatic buildup - with the dialogue and all - it felt really awkward for him not to have his epic walking in. And in order to have that, he needs to be on the balcony, and it's weird to have him teleport.

However - I could go with Bob Garcia's approach, and have Dooku enter through a door on the ground level.

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Please, no flipping Dooku. It's flipping ridiculous.

sorry ;)

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I'm gonna be totally honest, and say that I've never actually had an issue with flipping Dooku. Crazy, I know. And I've mentioned that before, and got lectured on why it should go. All the arguments make sense, and I still don't really mind it xD

That being said, I've been making an effort to remove it from my edit - for the sole reason that it's distracting to viewers. I've removed some other things for the same reason.

So I will continue to look for the best solution to the flip. The best may not be favorable to everybody, though, as I'm far more concerned with pacing and natural flow than removing nitpicky details. 
What does the "best" solution look like? Well, I'm not sure yet. I have to explore all the options. But you can be assured that I'll explore every option I can think of. 


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aalenfae said:

I'm gonna be totally honest, and say that I've never actually had an issue with flipping Dooku. Crazy, I know. And I've mentioned that before, and got lectured on why it should go. All the arguments make sense, and I still don't really mind it xD

That being said, I've been making an effort to remove it from my edit - for the sole reason that it's distracting to viewers. I've removed some other things for the same reason.

So I will continue to look for the best solution to the flip. The best may not be favorable to everybody, though, as I'm far more concerned with pacing and natural flow than removing nitpicky details. 
What does the "best" solution look like? Well, I'm not sure yet. I have to explore all the options. But you can be assured that I'll explore every option I can think of. 

Honestly, if it can't be edited away without ruining the flow of the scene (which from what I can tell, it can't) just keep it. I don't see what the big deal is either. Old guy does a flip. Okay. Kind of unbelievable, but not that bad, or even that visually stupid.  

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I won't assert that the flow cannot be maintained without the flip, but I will say that there is very little material in the Dooku scene to begin with. It's already cut very closely, so to say, so there's a very limited number of things that can be done with the shots.

Dooku flipping down is a crucial moment in the pacing of the scene, but it doesn't have to be the flip. It just needs to be SOMEthing of Dooku, but it simply doesn't exist.
(I recently had the idea to film a guy in a Dooku costume stepping down the stairs from the knees-down, which would accomplish the same thing in a more down-to-earth way, but would be way more work than it's worth.)

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 (Edited)

MrInsaneA said:

Kind of unbelievable, but not that bad, or even that visually stupid.  

It's not 'Kind of unbelievable', it's literally impossible. Impossible for an old actor, impossible for a young stunt guy. Which is why they used a digital ragdoll and is why it looks ridiculous.

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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The end of the clip worked really well, Palpatine just saying "You did well", the close-up shot of Anakin and cut to the battle. IMO the tension worked particularly well at that level, and with much more simplicity and subtlety than in the original version.

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See the only real problem with Dooku's flip is that you would never see anything like that at all in an OT film.

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My 2 cents on the latest duel clip is that it would help to see Anakin catch Dooku's falling lightsaber. As it stands, that moment is cut so fast that it's not entirely clear what's happening.

I also think Dooku entering similar to how Bob Garcia did it would work much better than the flip.

I thought everything else was great. Looking forward to your next preview clip.

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

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OH. I thought we were talking about the Dooku flip where Anakin kicks him off the balcony.

No, Dooku's entrance flip was always stupid to me lol. Get rid of that 

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Well - that kicking off the balcony has another problem - and that's the like... 3 jerky frames of Anakin teleporting down. My least favorite 3 jerky frames of the entire movie. 

But the problem with removing the flip - and even in Bob's edit (which is really clever!) - there's no drama to Dooku appearing, because we lose the shot of him strolling in like he owns the place.

But again, I'm looking for solutions. I'll figure this out.

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I don't understand what the issue is with the entrance. 

Why can't you have him enter on the balcony....cut to Obi-Wan and Anakin talking about "doing it together"...and then cut to him walking over to them saying "Your swords please."

There's enough time in-between shots to believably assume Dooku just walked down the steps towards them.  

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 (Edited)

Yeah, I suppose I could make the time in-between seeing Dooku on the balcony and seeing him on the floor longer, and that'd fix everything.

Edit:
Alright, I've cut the scene up slightly differently, and I timed it and acted it out, and if Dooku's taking the stairs at a reasonably brisk pace, he'd reach the bottom in time.

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Haha, I mean, seriously guys. Sometimes, we really overthink things on this site.

I think at times like this, it's important to remember the genius of the OT, and of most films that aren't the prequels: if it's implied enough, the audience will get it. 

 

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Surely - there's a great deal of power in implication.
But sometimes it seems like fanedits rely way too much on implication, and things just get confusing. 

In this case, it's not an issue. But it can get to be that way with certain things.

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Very true. And you know, with all this talk of flips, and stairs, and Dookus, I thought this would be a good time to show MY edit of the Dooku duel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Tu9hZScEY&feature=youtu.be

A few things to note:

1. The falling balcony thing is caused by the Invisible Hand getting hit. I haven't added camera shake yet.

2. Dooku's theme in my edits is Xizor's Theme from Shadows of the Empire. Just in case you were scratching your head over that last cue.

Anyways, yeah. I was watching the cave scene from Empire, where Luke confronts Ghost-Vader-Who's-Actually-Him-Kinda, and the surrealness of it inspired me. I tried to edit Dooku's death to match that creepy surrealness. I think atmospheric things like that are lost on the PT a lot, so I felt like it needed a little weird injected into it.