Collaborative Fanediting: An ROTJ Proposition (BACK ON TRACK WITH EMANSWFAN AT THE HELM--SEE POST 1488 OR OP FOR A LINK!) — Page 60

Good post ender. I too loved this project, and hope that it will help inspire... something. Anyways, I think it will. And it's great to see you're finishing that script. 

darth_ender said:

You know, when you die in the next year or two, your jokes will cease.  That's the biggest draw to this site after all.  Please check yourself into a nursing home so you can keep me here as long as possible.

Way ahead of you.

Ender, Master Frink cannot die.

Thanks for the kind words and the anticipation over the script. There's really not even going to be a whole lot of changes, but I'm fine-tuning a couple of ideas.  As I've said before, it takes longer than you might think to make adjustments and think it out.  But I'm nearly done, so I'll put it up in the next few hours.  I'm in class right now, so I can't really work on it at the moment, but I'll get it up soon.  Then I'll put all the links in my sig.  Just reviewing this makes me wish that it would all work out someday.

Okay, here is the final script. It does not exactly reflect the final vote, but respects it in many cases. It's honestly just how I'd like the movie to be. All comments in blue text are the most recent comments, if you just wanted to skim to note the changes since the last.

http://www.4shared.com/office/HENqQbQa/Editing_guide_newest.html?

I will no longer take any leadership in this project, should anyone ever wish to resurrect it. I'll never have the skills to make it a reality, nor the money, nor the time to coordinate, nor the ability to motivate others to do it for me. If anything should ever spin off from this discussion, I'm sure I'd love to give opinions, but that is all. Again, I've enjoyed it, but I can't do it. All I can do is dream. You guys are a great bunch.

EDIT: I forgot to fix one part of the script, but it's not terribly important.  I included an earlier scene from "Coruscant/Had Abbadon," but I included a picture and description from Ronster's edit.  He took a shot from Priest, added an Imperial symbol so it looks like Imperial Palace, and called it Coruscant.  One of his most brilliant visuals, and I decided to include the rough scene he gave us.  But later during the celebrations, Coruscant looks a lot lighter.  We could just say it's part of everything looking better, new day, happier times, ponies and rainbows, and really other than the lighting, it's not terribly inconsistent.  But I probably would suggest darkening the scene a tad to make it a better match, as if Coruscant has fallen into disrepair since the Empire superceded the Republic.

MESA BACK!  Just popping in to make a surprise announcement.  I have here the links to Return of the Jedi: The Collaborative Edit!

Alright, so before all fans of this thread get so excited and expect an amazing product, let me offer several disclaimers.  First, I don't have particularly great editing skills, software, or time.  I don't have any abilities with special effects.  This is very rough.  Second, this does not follow the script all that perfectly.  I had to make do with what was available to me.  Third, not all the source material is even of great quality, resulting in scenes with very nice special effects to rather poor material.  I did try to use at least somewhat acceptable, but eh, what can you do?  Fourth, it's not even a truly completed project.  I still have ideas for expanding it (i.e. I think I can come up with an expanded Boba Fett subplot with the available fanfilms out there!).  I will likely expand my ideas as time allows (which it really doesn't these days), and even now I realize I forgot a couple of things, like the Eclipse leaving after dropping off the Emperor at the Death Star.

Let me list the various sources of additional footage, as best as I can recollect:

The basic movie is not the original ROTJ, but rather daneditor's most recent experimental edit, and therefore you will see many changes that were his choices, most of which I approve of.

Official Star Wars sources include a few of the ROTJ deleted scenes from the blu rays, an Episode III deleted scene from the DVD, footage from The Clone Wars, and reused footage from The Empire Strikes Back (some from the SE, assuming that it would be removed from my ideal ESB edit), Star Tours, and Star Tours: The Adventure Continues.

Additional work from folks on this forum include Ronster's Last of the Jedi edit, Johannus's Collaborative Edit trailer, SSWR's ideas, the slightly improved Falcon targeting computer from Adywan's Star Wars: Revisited, and Aalenfae's funeral pyre scene.

Game footage comes from Rebellion, X-wing vs. Tie Fighter, X-wing Alliance, Homeworld 2 with the Warlords mod, and Empire at War/Forces of Corruption, The Force Unleashed II

Fan films include, but are not limited to Mackazie One, The Secret in the Sand, the Tydirium trailers, Star Wars: THX trailer, I.M.P.S.: The Relentless, Broken Allegiance, and various minor projects by individuals toying around with computer animation.  Some material was included by daneditor, and I'm not sure of the source, and I'm probably forgetting some that I should name, but am too lazy to go figure out.

A couple additional footage bits of note: I used a commercial for Curry's as well; and one video was actually supposed to be a battle between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (I believe).  The footage was very high quality, so I wanted to put it in there, but I tried to eliminate the most obviously out of place vessels.  The space battle includes new ships popping up without being seen before, and then disappearing, never to be seen again.  *cue sunglasses*

Don't expect any miracles!  But you might have a little fun watching some of the things we had planned make their way (often with alteration to accommodate available footage) into an edit.  And some stuff was never even talked about, such as the opening scene.  But it was fun to put it together, and I hope you get some enjoyment out of watching it.

Password for all four videos is: ROTJ

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

darth_ender said:

MESA BACK!  Just popping in to make a surprise announcement.  I have here the links to Return of the Jedi: The Collaborative Edit!

Alright, so before all fans of this thread get so excited and expect an amazing product, let me offer several disclaimers.  First, I don't have particularly great editing skills, software, or time.  I don't have any abilities with special effects.  This is very rough.  Second, this does not follow the script all that perfectly.  I had to make do with what was available to me.  Third, not all the source material is even of great quality, resulting in scenes with very nice special effects to rather poor material.  I did try to use at least somewhat acceptable, but eh, what can you do?  Fourth, it's not even a truly completed project.  I still have ideas for expanding it (i.e. I think I can come up with an expanded Boba Fett subplot with the available fanfilms out there!).  I will likely expand my ideas as time allows (which it really doesn't these days), and even now I realize I forgot a couple of things, like the Eclipse leaving after dropping off the Emperor at the Death Star.

Let me list the various sources of additional footage, as best as I can recollect:

The basic movie is not the original ROTJ, but rather daneditor's most recent experimental edit, and therefore you will see many changes that were his choices, most of which I approve of.

Official Star Wars sources include a few of the ROTJ deleted scenes from the blu rays, an Episode III deleted scene from the DVD, footage from The Clone Wars, and reused footage from The Empire Strikes Back (some from the SE, assuming that it would be removed from my ideal ESB edit), Star Tours, and Star Tours: The Adventure Continues.

Additional work from folks on this forum include Ronster's Last of the Jedi edit, Johannus's Collaborative Edit trailer, SSWR's ideas, the slightly improved Falcon targeting computer from Adywan's Star Wars: Revisited, and Aalenfae's funeral pyre scene.

Game footage comes from Rebellion, X-wing vs. Tie Fighter, X-wing Alliance, Homeworld 2 with the Warlords mod, and Empire at War/Forces of Corruption, The Force Unleashed II

Fan films include, but are not limited to Mackazie One, The Secret in the Sand, the Tydirium trailers, Star Wars: THX trailer, I.M.P.S.: The Relentless, Broken Allegiance, and various minor projects by individuals toying around with computer animation.  Some material was included by daneditor, and I'm not sure of the source, and I'm probably forgetting some that I should name, but am too lazy to go figure out.

A couple additional footage bits of note: I used a commercial for Curry's as well; and one video was actually supposed to be a battle between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (I believe).  The footage was very high quality, so I wanted to put it in there, but I tried to eliminate the most obviously out of place vessels.  The space battle includes new ships popping up without being seen before, and then disappearing, never to be seen again.  *cue sunglasses*

Don't expect any miracles!  But you might have a little fun watching some of the things we had planned make their way (often with alteration to accommodate available footage) into an edit.  And some stuff was never even talked about, such as the opening scene.  But it was fun to put it together, and I hope you get some enjoyment out of watching it.

Password for all four videos is: ROTJ

Part 1 https://vimeo.com/52314923

Part 2 https://vimeo.com/51964928

Part 3 https://vimeo.com/51298368

Part 4 https://vimeo.com/51457067

I'm inching through Part 1. This is very interesting. You could put this in the category of epic workprint kinda like Shroud of the Dark Side. I'll let you know more when I get through it all.

I'm going to give my thoughts as i go through this.

First off, kudos for taking this on.

1. The opening sequence that you nabbed from that fan-film. I understand why it's there; I assume you want to have some form of an action opening. But I don't know what's going on there. What ship was that? Are we to assume that's a rebel ship Vader blew out of the sky? We need more information. Such as a conversation between officers talking about Vader blasting anything out of the sky that remotely looks like a rebel ship. Again, not sure how to fix that, but it's a confusing opening as is.

2. My other problem is the sequence where the Emperor flies to the Eclipse. It's a scene that isn't needed. It doesn't push the story forward. We already know the Emp. is coming as per Vader; so it's just unnecessary and does nothing really for the story. However the shots of coruscant are quite nice and I would love to see those implemented elsewhere.

3. The Eclipse shot approaching the death star is really really bad. And again not needed. I think original shots work fine by themselves.

4. This isn't a deal breaker for me, but I'm not loving Jabba's new dialogue and mainly for one reason. You make him to be quite stupid, and that's not his character. The reason Luke's mind trick doesn't work on him is because he isn't weak-minded. Just food for thought.

 Now what I do like... I like the way you re-edited. I like the rearrangement of scenes.

What I loved? The scene where Vader is connecting to Luke and the whole integration of that deleted scene. Nice work.

Mostly in this first part, you have more good than bad. I'm just listing the things I had issues. But again, there is more going right with this than wrong.

I'll write more as I watch more. Thanks! 

Just a quickie...I can't take credit/blame for much of what y'all are complaining about; daneditor changed Jabba's dialogue and used the present opening sequence, which apparently you don't like.  He also did most of the Vader/Luke contact , which you did like.  I enjoyed a lot of his edit, so I used his as a base.  I recommend you PM him for links so you know what I actually didn't do.  Or perhaps I should specify what his changes were, when I've got more time.  The Eclipse I take full responsibility for, because for some reason I've really like the idea of including it.  I've also been playing with a different opening (which at the present is not fully fleshed out), so perhaps that will be different in any subsequent edits.  Overall, I am glad that you like even some of the ideas, because at this point, all my crummy little edit can serve as is a basket full of ideas.

I do want to make (or at least expand upon) another disclaimer: many of the scenes I included will look really crummy.  Many I just grabbed from YouTube rather than rely on my own ripped material (even though I legally own a bunch of the videos).  Sometimes sound was completely out of place, and so I silenced a bunch of things as well, particularly with the space battle.  And many of the shots will look really lame at times.  It's just the sources.  My editing skills and software are so limited that basically I just threw together a bunch of other folks' work.  Again, it's all for ideas, so I hope you will critique the ideas more than the visual/audio quality of anything.

That said, thanks for watching so far, and I hope you like at least some of it.  In the end, I hope it boosts peoples' interest in ROTJ edits and provides some useful ideas.  I think a lot can be done to make this movie great!  That's all I really hope for.  Again, thanks for watching any, and I hope you get through the rest :)

I've just gone through the videos. From what I've noticed the biggest changes appear to be during the battle of Endor. Lots of other dogfight material added there. The best stuff IMO is from Seeds of Darkness - it's a real shame there isn't a DVD quality version available online. We could probably scavenge five minutes of usable footage from it. Also, I laughed when Galactica showed up in the middle of the battle. :p

At 17:22 and then 17:35 in video 3 there's a couple of nice shots of the battle. Can you tell me what they're from?

The shots from that exact time came from The Force Unleashed II, I believe the Battle over Kamino.  It's good stuff there, and I was really pleased to include every second from the actual battle.

Seeds of Darkness...that's probably from your edit, actually.  There was some stuff from the battle that I didn't recognize but I did like, so I kept it.  I'll have to take a look at it now :)

Yeah, I tried to eliminate the most obvious BG stuff, but it was such a good video, I had to include some of it.  I hope you enjoyed the story overall.  I found it fun to make, and I hope to make some changes in the future at some point.

After disscusing it with darth_ender, I'd like to announce I will take over this project, atleast for the moment, to continue the concepting of this edit.  I understand everyone who has been involved are very busy (myself, included).  However, if we can continue contributing designs and can make a thorough outline, it will be easier to do by the time real work starts, which could be a goal to start in say 2 years.  I like what we've all suggested and I'm sure all of us would love to see a more radical approach to ROTJ.

Let's Go!

darth_ender said:

The shots from that exact time came from The Force Unleashed II, I believe the Battle over Kamino.  It's good stuff there, and I was really pleased to include every second from the actual battle.

Seeds of Darkness...that's probably from your edit, actually.  There was some stuff from the battle that I didn't recognize but I did like, so I kept it.  I'll have to take a look at it now :)

Yeah, I tried to eliminate the most obvious BG stuff, but it was such a good video, I had to include some of it.  I hope you enjoyed the story overall.  I found it fun to make, and I hope to make some changes in the future at some point.

I did enjoy the new stuff. I personally wouldn't have included as much space battle footage, but that's the thing about it being your edit... you make it the way that you like.

I downloaded that YouTube video from The Force Unleashed. Pretty good footage and in 720p which is a plus. I might pilfer it for my edit. Thanks.

Great news!

I'm not sure if I should put this here or in the ESB and ROTJ Wishlist thread or Unofficial Revisited thread.  However, since those are more focused on Ady's edits, and since I doubt he will utilize this idea, I'll just mention it here, since I will probably be adding it to my own little low-budget edit.

This ROTJ trailer actually shows quite a few clips that differ from the film.  Most of these are very brief and could not be used.  However, a couple of them could, I think.  In particular, I've always wondered why it took so much longer for Wedge and Lando to get into the Death Star core than back out; it always seemed like such a quick exit.  Well, there is a very short clip of Wedge's profile while passing through the Death Star tunnel, and there is a unique shot of Lando in the cockpit.  I believe that using this and utilizing a bit of extra footage, I can add just a couple of well placed seconds to the whole run which would give more of the impression of a longer escape from the flames of the exploding station (along with the bit I've already added from the perspective of Jerjerrod).  It would be a subtle but interesting addition, I think.  I also think there might be a couple of other shots that could be useable.  The trailer is available in higher quality on the 2004 trilogy bonus disc.

@daneditor, yeah, I suspected my edit was a bit out of balance with regards to so much space battle.  That's the stuff I love, but I knew that if I were adding so much to it without enough other material to balance it out, it would feel strange.  Perhaps if those other two fanedits we talked about before (THX and Tydirium) were completed, we could make at least the Endor portions a bit more balanced.  My effort there was to include a lot of what was talked about when creating the script: more Mon Cal cruisers; more capital ship battles and starfigher dogfights; Z-95 Headhunter and BTL-B Y-wings; a more extensive assault on the Executor; more B-wing action and more pilot heads and chatter; a Madine sacrifice, though I accomplished this differently than scripted, but in a way that I found satisfying.  It would be hard for me to cut the space battle too much (though I'm sure I could do some), so I think the only way to fix it is balancing it with the other battles.  Most difficult would be adding to the Luke/Vader duel.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for today.

Hi is there a DVD cover for the Collaborative ROTJ ??

This project is currently nothing more than theory.  Emanswfan has plans to restart it when he is done working on the prequels, and I believe he set a tentative date of 2015.  So no movie, and therefore no DVD covers.  But stick around for a couple of years and you may see something :)

There will be something awesome, when we start this back up and get it finished.  It will be a great alternative to ROTJ:R.

Judging by your record so far and just how amazing your work is, I have no doubt it will be amazing!  I look forward to the day when it is done. :)

Interesting development.

I think it would be great if this could get off the ground ASAP a lot can change in a couple of years.

Although I want to be excited at the prospect It really needs to be right now and I mean start it now please... Lol

Well done for dusting this one off anyway.

And well good memories of all the ideas that went into the melting pot in this thread.

I have some unfinished footage and I will post it here today as I have a day off. For what I was planning on the race to the port across the death star surface.It is re-used footage and really rough but I will post it up for prosperity.

It's about time it saw the light of day.

Well, we can certainly still plan stuff out, just as long as there's not too much work on my side, I really want the time to finish my PT edits, which are proving to be very painstaking to make right now.

As promised although a day late... Or perhaps about a year and a half late or something like that.

This is what I was planning for the race to the port... I wanted to show Rebels Biting the dust / The Deathstar being a battlestation again / make more of the chase and attack run / have the falcon shooting ties with it's turrets as it was being chased / and generally making more of the deathstar making it a comparable mammoth obstacle to overcome like in the original star wars film a new hope.

Steaming Link Below

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/w6tonhc8s18e4rp/Race_to_the_port.mp4

And please bear in mind this was done with with 2, 1 month long after effects trial with little knowledge of the software and whatever footage assets I could get my hands on to rough mock-up what I was trying to achieve with limited resources. No sound it's just video.

I also intended to add deleted scene pilots and tie fighter pilots to this also and comms chatter too, but this was the footage I had left over in rough.

I would honestly like to have had a go at an edit ROTJ proper but I don't think I have the art skills enough to do visual editing but I enjoy making the ideas and rough mock ups.

Anyway best of luck with it all.

First off, I think this project is extremely interesting, and I liked a lot of the creative ideas put forward in this thread and the rough cut!

Second, I have a question regarding some of the footage. I remember seeing in one of the preview videos some additional footage of the Luke vs. Vader duel on the death star (right before Luke cuts of Vader's hand). Where is that footage from? I thought it was in the last of the four rough cut videos on vimeo, but now it does not seem to be there anymore ^^. It is also in this short youtube sequence (starting at 0:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T_L3RMxa3k. I think it would be interesting to include some of these shots for a slightly extended duel.

Oh, I loved this project, but not much has happened for some time.  I couldn't have possibly made it a reality, just a bunch of dreams.  The guy who now wants to take charge is emanswfan.  He has the skills to make it real, but he has other projects on his plate at present, so not much is happening here.

As far as missing footage goes, I originally did accidentally exclude a part of the movie that apparently no one who has watched all four parts has missed enough to notice or point out.  But I haven't made any changes to the movie since I first uploaded it.  I guess I don't know which footage it is, but I assure you I didn't take anything out that was once in.  Would you care to describe it more, and perhaps I can tell you where you did actually see it?