I was privileged to watch a draft of Ryan's edit here, and I gave a lot of feedback at FE.org. I figured I should share my feedback here too in order to get others pumped about this edit.

And Ryan, I should add that the deleted material I suggest using is available from my project. Admittedly, I probably don't have the best sources for some things. Often, my project will serve better as a reference than a source. But you can look at what it has and see if there are other things that catch your fancy that you might want to get from a better source.

I know you haven't begun work on the audio yet, but I want to put in two cents while I'm thinking about it: since the music in the beginning has to drown out the Williams music, it makes it hard to hear much of the 3PO dialogue. The radio drama has many similar lines with no score in the background for portions of such missing dialogue (not all, I just checked). It could help. Fast forward in time: the same could apply for the extended speeder search for R2.

Back in time to where I was watching: Again, I still think the speeder zooming past the woman needs a little work. I mentioned two fixes, but to me only one is needed. Either show the speeder just entering the town, thus explaining the buildings in the background as he zooms by, or else show the lead up of the woman walking before she suddenly jumps out of the way, with the implication that Luke entered town in the brief moments where we didn't see the speeder. To me the buildings in the background simply don't match the desert shot we saw only a second before at present.

That said, it's a fantastic innovation. I love the whole opening thus far, especially your custom mattes and your zoom/fade in. Truly brilliant. My one suggestion might be to slow the crawl. That way we're not stuck on empty star field for too long. I believe you probably did that to keep better sync for the music you are using, and that's good. I'd just suggest you slow the crawl so the empty star field doesn't last so long.

Now to keep watching.

I like that you used the alternate take of Leia marched to Vader. You got this from Star Wars Begins, right? It looks like you probably zoomed to crop out any "Alternate Take" caption Jambe Davdar added. I suggest using the original source, just so it looks a little better and more complete (without half the stormtroopers heads cut off). And still, while I love that you're using alternate takes, I'm not sure it integrates well yet, and I'm not sure how you could make it do so either. I hope you can

Another suggestion, and it might face a similar challenge, but in The Making of Star Wars there are shots of Luke and Biggs chatting, passing a multi-armed droid. Ah, here's the clip.
[video=youtube;8j0N-GdDg14]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j0N-GdDg14[/video]

Also, I don't know how much of a completionist you are compared to me (yes, I overdo it at times), but the footage of Luke working on the vaporator and spotting the space battle is different in the BD deleted scenes vs the B/W 16 fps version Behind the Magic version. It might give a little more variety to include bits of both in your opening, and it's already degraded! And in the BD version, you see Luke repeat an adjustment on his binoculars in a manner that convinces me it's a repeat of the exact same shot. You could show one from one angle and one from another angle if you included the Behind the Magic version. Anyway, take it or leave it, I'm just trying to give helpful potential feedback. I understand that you want this to be watchable too, and too much tinkering might interfere with that.

Again, another premature audio suggestion, but I think it would be best to use the theatrical mono audio with the less familiar Beru voice and generally lower quality audio.

I'm curious as to why you re-ordered Leia's torture and Tarkin's council with the other Big Wigs? In the novelization the order is the same as the movie. Not that I mind reordering if it serves a good purpose. I'm just curious. Was that how it was originally edited before George Lucas's team re-edited it?

Another audio suggestion for your consideration, but as Williams scored a few alternate tunes, you might want to consider using those when possible, such as during the sunset scene. I prefer the theatrical music, but since this is supposedly the Lost Cut, we could speculate that the other version had been seriously considered.

I think the original Tusken Raider yell is better. It looks like you used some clip of someone trying out his costume. It looks a bit weird to me, personally.

One of the Ep III trailers contains a different take of Obi-Wan saying, "For over a thousand generations..." from the close up Ben's face rather than the further shot with Luke wielding the lightsaber. Just another shot for consideration.

I'm not sure that you should or should not do this, but again, since this is the Lost Cut, you might want to consider leaving all the pick up shots of the Mos Eisley Cantina out and keep it closer to the original. If I'm not clear, I mean all the additional aliens George filmed later, since he was dissatisfied with how the cantina scene originally went. I believe the BD already has it as it was originally presented, and I might (not definitely, but maybe) would try to keep it closer to the original.

Then again, I want to see as complete a movie as possible too, so I'm not sure I want you to be faithful in that regard.

In Deleted Magic, OCP included a slightly longer clip as Han exits the cantina after killing Greedo. It's only a second or two more, definitely lower in quality, but since you're going to crapify the footage anyway, it could be easily be made look like similar and in character with a poorly preserved roll of film. I'm not sure of the original source of this clip. A similar slightly extended shot is also available as the snitch starts trailing Ben and Luke. It's also on Deleted Magic, but I know it comes from the Holiday Special, and there are better quality versions of this available now. Again, any change in quality could be blended in, I think. Of course the aspect ratio is likely different, so maybe this won't work. It's worth a thought, anyway.

I'm confused as to why you used the SE version of the Falcon takeoff since this is based on the original cut before Lucas and Co. tightened things up.

I know this has mostly been suggestions thus far, but I loved the destruction of Alderaan scene, including the missing frames from the explosion. Fantastic!

I think I've noticed a few places where it looks like you removed a little extraneous stuff, like Vader gesturing after he's done talking. This may have been because of how you combined it with another part, and if that way worked best, that's fine. However, I'm not positive but it seems there may be other brief snips here and there around this point. I'd suggest leaving stuff in. The Lost Cut was longer and supposedly far too slow, warranting the second round of editing. I'd err on the side of leaving stuff in rather than taking it out.

There is a clip from The Making of Star Wars where Ben is walking on a bridge, looks down and sees the tractor beam station he needs to deactivate on the bridge below. I don't know why he didn't just Force jump there Anyway, you see the look of realization on his face, and presumably he heads to the correct bridge. I think this may have been a behind the scenes shot and not the quality or stability of a shot intended for the actual film. Clearly it was filmed for the movie and just never made it in, but what we do have is I believe not the intended shot. Still, if it can work, you might want to consider it.

When Luke runs aboard the Falcon after taking out the stormtroopers, the editing is amazingly seamless right up to the last shot. It looks like he had already started running, then starts running again. Just start that last clip a couple of frames later.

Out of curiosity, why did you move "A day long remembered"?

When Red 10 is destroyed, you see a side shot of his cockpit with the pilot blowing up. The pilot in that shot was actually from the X-wing destroyed immediately before him. Might be better to move that side shot to the previous ship's explosion, though we don't see that pilot in any other shot, just to stick with the nature of this edit.

On the BD, I believe in the documentary about Ewan McGregor becoming Obi-Wan, there are a couple of clips with Ewan's uncle Denis Lawson (Wedge) saying lines that we hear but don't see in the actual film. They are heard over the radio from the voice that dubs him, but in that documentary we actually see and hear Lawson saying them. I believe they are lines like, "My scope shows the tower but I can't see the exhaust port," and I think there was at least one more. I imagine you'd want to reincorporate those, knowing your aim. However, they are blue screened in the rear windows, if that is a deterrent at all.

With a few of the purist-type remarks I've made, this will probably surprise, you, but it's just an idea. In the final film we hardly get to know or care about Biggs. In your edit, based on the longer original cut, we care very much about him and imagine Luke does too. It might be worth considering using Adywan's idea of putting Luke screaming, "Biggs? BIGGS!" into the radio to show that he is heartbroken at the loss of his friend.

Nice opening and closing music choices. I don't imagine you will be able to do that to the whole movie, as I don't see how you could keep in any dialogue, but as the opening and closing, it works really well. The 1812 overture is surprisingly fun and well timed. Funny keeping that outtake with Han taking a bite at the medal. I'm sure that wasn't ever going to make it in, but I'm glad you put it there anyway.

I commented as I watched and came across things, so the above may seem negative. Let me just say that this was a really fun experience. The editing is very impressive and the deleted material integrated very well. The Vader/Obi-wan duel was particularly impressive. And I have thought about it since I wrote above, that while it would be cool to keep it as close to the original as possible, this is also likely the only way we can enjoy an extended version with as much deleted material as possible and keep the quality pretty close and equal. Therefore I suggest that you continue as you were doing and keep both the original and new cantina material edited as you have. I will however leave my above suggestion typed, since you may want to take that advice anyway, and it has its place.

What other advice can I offer? Oh, in the search for R2 with the closeup, there is a slightly longer version of that scene than the BD offers. I believe it is on Empire of Dreams, and you see what 3PO says is wrong with the speeder before Luke turns around and makes an adjustment. You could probably again steal that brief second or two without much notice, since you're cutting the quality anyway. Similarly, on another version of the last deleted scene on Tatooine when Biggs says goodbye, there is a version with seriously like one extra second where you see Luke throw a pebble in his hand, not contained on the BD. Again, food for thought. And since I honestly want to see as much of the deleted material as possible, I know you don't like the grouchy old lady shouting at that hoodlum driver Luke, but I kind of think my suggestion where you see her walking more before getting zoomed past might be both easier and more complete.

In the end, all my thoughts are just advice, and I hope that at least some of them inspire you. I love this edit more and more, and I'm so glad I got to see this preview. It's really pretty amazing and fun to watch. I am extremely impressed with how well you integrated so many things. Keep up the great work, and thanks for allowing me to preview it.