logo Sign In

Star Wars Episode III: Labyrinth Of Evil (Released) — Page 2

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Just finished watching it, I've had a great time! You managed to get rid of all the tiny, irritating elements and dialogues, while cleverly repositioning scenes (the birth of the Rebellion scenes you've added back in make Bail and Padmé more interesting characters for instance).

I particularly enjoyed the fact that you totally cut out the Yoda/Palpy fight and so seamlessly edited together (while cutting out the shitty bits) all the parts from the Obi/Ani fight.

You've made a version of the movie that's not painful to watch anymore (I've never watched any other fanedit of ROTS), and I thank you for that :D

Author
Time
 (Edited)

RE: The Padme/Nooooooo thing I did suggest rejigging the conversation so Palpatine starts to explain about Padme without any prompting from Vader.

And he says. "That name no longer has any meaning for me" before a quick wipe spares us the hilarious Frankenstein walk.

Author
Time

I remember a clip from someone, possibly The Cutter, that edited that scene to similar effect. I do not remember how he got Palpatine talking about Padme in the first place, since he was answering a question using a pronoun. 

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's what I'd want to do. I could imagine, though, wiping away from the scene just as we get a closeup of Palpatine smiling, immediately prior to the infamous "Noooo" line. 

But, hey, I knew keeping the scene would be unpopular, but I think it's best for the story as a whole as I've put it. If Padme were to have died, this would've been a whole different situation.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

So the Vader "Nooooo!" is in this version? I guess it'd be hard to edit around that since he has to have some reaction.

Author
Time

Yeah, I tried jacking with it or removing it but I wasn't able to get rid of it. Personally, I think it works better in context in this version than in the original, given the new sense of irony and less-stupid previous scenes with Padme.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

Hal, just finished watching your edits, and I wanted to say thanks for doing this!  Went straight from watching the Despecialized Editions to watching your trilogy, and it flowed way better than the regular versions ever would have.  The pacing felt much more like Star Wars, and the annoyances were removed.  The deleted scenes were all great additions, especially in Episode 3, giving Padme's character much more meat to chew on.  I only wish that the official blu-rays had included deleted scenes so you would have access to higher quality versions of those for your edits.  But seriously, great work.

Author
Time

Hi, im new here but i was looking for a revenge of the sith edit and had to make an account! How do I download this? I tried using jDownloader but it is stuck on 71% and it is not downloading through the pirate bay torrent?

thanks

Author
Time

Thank You so much for your work HAL.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed these edits.

More praise later, but for now, since I imagine you're working on v2 LOE, I noticed a sound problem with my setup when playing the 720p version.  I don't have the other versions and so I can't confirm whether the issue is present in the others.

The odd sound, or lack thereof, occurs during the bridge fight on the Invisible Hand.  There are a few spots during this sequence where it sounds like the lightsaber sounds didn't make it into the correct channels, they are barely audible as Obi Wan dices the last two droids.  When viewing on my PC, the downmix to stereo made this less an issue.  But when viewing on my HTPC surround setup, the missing sounds are apparent.  I haven't seen this mentioned here, so I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this issue.  I'm using OpenELEC to play the m4v into my 5.1 setup.  The AAC track (1) plays as MULTI-IN and there is barely any surround activity at all...I can't even view the film with that track.  The AC3 track (2) sounds normal to my ear, though during the bridge fight there are those several moments when it's almost as if the sound has been turned down on several channels.  I compared the same sequence from the L8wrtr edit and the problem was not present in his AC3 mix.

I offer this not as criticism, but in an effort to help with the project.

As I said, love the edit.  Love the breathing room that you've given to the films.  I've watched back to back with L8wrtr edits and while I appreciate the storytelling there, the pacing leaves me breathless.  Your edits are my preferred.  Just watched LOE last night and I grinned at the ~28 min mark when I realized you had touched on all the essential plots and players to carry us through the film, and even cried a little at the end in appreciation of the care you've given to the characters and their future importance to the OT.

Bravo! 

Author
Time

I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed it! The audio issue you mention is known to me, and is an unfortunate casualty of removing the battle droid voices. I think I was able to improve it somewhat for v2. 

I was regrettably hasty and deleted the master source file for ROTS, and it would be a big hurdle to reobtain it. I exported the full sized mov of the finished edit and am trying a few different settings to see what looks best. I may have overdone the grain and noise a bit for v2, but I plan to utilize Emanswfan's regraded source when it's available for a ~v3. 

Has anyone listened to v2's commentary tracks?

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

Do you mean v2 commentaries for Episodes 1 and 2?  Yep, listened to them both.  Enjoyed them.  Curious thing about the 2-channel commentary track in the m4v file.  I have m4v for Ep1 and mkv for Ep2.  With Ep1 m4v there was periodic stuttering of the video stream only when playing the commentary track (AC3 soundtrack was fine).  With Ep2 mkv, there was no video  stuttering at all with the commentary track.  Seems strange, as the 1080p mkv would certainly be more demanding overall in terms of bandwidth.  I wonder if it's just something about the m4v container format.  Or it could be something about the way OpenELEC interacts with m4v.  Anyway, the Ep1 m4v commentary track itself didn't stutter at all, so I got the whole of your commentary.  It was just the video that would occasionally look like it was trying to keep up.

re: LOE v2, You've mentioned having communicated with L8wrtr.  Is it worth reaching out to see how he overcame the issue of battle droid voice removal?  As I said, I didn't notice the issue in his AC3 track and your bridge sequence pretty closely followed his from what I could tell.

Too bad about ROTS master.  I haven't seen you talk much here about planned changes for LOE v2.  Are there bits you planned to restore which would require the master again?  I don't know about Emanswfan's source, have you mentioned it before?

Oh and one question I have in terms of LOE storytelling.  Is there any way at all to allow more time for Padme to travel from Coruscant to Mustafar?  The more I've been thinking about it, I recall having the same thought after watching the theatrical release of ROTS...that despite Mustafar being somewhere in the Outer Rim Territories, and despite the plot device in Ep2 in which Padme says the Jedi will never make it to Geonosis in time because that Outer Rim planet is so far from Coruscant, Padme's travel to Mustafar in Ep3 appears to take no time at all.  ??  I haven't watched ALL the fanedits as it seems you have, so I'm assuming this is just one of those ROTS flaws for which there is not a fanedit fix.  I'd hate to see any radical reshuffling of the scene order, as you've done such a great job putting all that together already.  Just asking the question.

Author
Time

Sorry, I end up posting more at FE.org about this. 

That's weird about the stuttering with the audio. I don't know why that would be, or what to do about it. If I remember when ~v3 comes around, I'll re-encode it into whatever format the mkv's audio was. 

I have indeed worked with L8wrtr for a few things. He was very helpful in instructing me how to do the "lights off, lights on" effect for the Palpatine reveal. I also borrowed a few bits of his audio for the opening of Ep3 to remove droid voices. I don't remember the specifics, but I know I attempted to do what you suggested, and use bits of his audio in a few places. Rather than dig everything back out, I'm going to trust that I was diligent at the time. 

About the master deletion. My usual method of exporting is to use FCP7's "Share" feature. When that mysteriously stopped working, I took the internet-at-large's advice of exporting a self-contained mov at native settings, and then crunched that file down into the various release formats. So version 2 of LOE was exported in this way, and then I deleted the source ROTS file. This morning, my 720p encode finished, and it looks much better than it did before. There is still some slight aliasing, which would be there regardless. I'm happy with it and will be releasing it shortly. DVD5 and 1080p versions will follow. And when Emanswfan's sources are made available, I'll re-export my edits and treat them like gold. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

FYI - the v2 DVD5 that's up on MySpleen now is incorrectly labeled as "1080p." Thought you'd like to know.

Author
Time

No problem. I just got excited, then disappointed rather quickly because I was waiting for the 1080p. But it's okay, I was going to get the DVD5 anyway to make a copy for my uncle, so all's well!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Even as I'm continuing to encode and upload v2 of Labyrinth Of Evil, I'm preparing small changes for the eventual v3 release featuring Emanswfan's regraded video source.

Because my cut does away with the duel between Palpatine and Yoda, I revisited the scene where Obi-Wan and Yoda find the security footage of Anakin slaughtering Jedi. It plays out very similarly now to Kerr's edit, removing dialogue about killing the Emperor and Vader. The way it plays out now, we do not get any indication that Yoda intends to do anything proactive other than to bide time. Obi-Wan, rather than tracking Anakin on a hit assignment from Yoda, now finds Anakin in order to confront (though not necessarily to kill) him. This, along with the change described next, eases the discrepency a bit between ROTS and Vader's line in Return Of The Jedi, "Obi-Wan once thought as you do."

Another related change will be to reinstate the dialogue between Obi-Wan and ANakin during the latter part of their duel. Allow me to offer an apologetic for this. I think their exchange has value. Obi-Wan tells Anakin he has failed him, offering a small hint at the regret that Ben expressed to Luke in Return Of The Jedi. Anakin retorts with, "I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over." In the theatrical ROTS this line was jarring because it didn't jive with Lucas' re-edit that played up Padme's impending doom as motivation for Anakin to turn to the dark side. In Labyrinth Of Evil, this line has context in which to function to cement the viewer's perception of Anakin's reasons for his turn. At least at this point in the story, Anakin seems to have forgotten about saving Padme and clung to the other reasons he had. Anakin's next line, "From my point of view the Jedi are evil," demonstrates that he has internalized Palpatine's teaching and is acting with a perverse sense of integrity. (Again, as opposed to the jarring way this dialogue played out in the theatrical cut.)

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I think those sound like really good changes.  Taking out the Yoda/Palpatine fight but leaving in the part where Yoda instructs Obi-Wan to go kill Anakin felt a little odd.  I think it will work a lot better without those lines.

And I think the lines in the final battle certainly would work a lot better in your edit, since you really made Anakin's political beliefs and struggle with the Jedi much more prevalent and logical.

I really want to see this cut now!

Author
Time

The first step is admitting you have a problem. 

I'm posting this here to hold myself accountable. I could fiddle with my edits, review other edits, and think up ideas for further tweaking. However, I really want to put a stop to this and close the door. However, I need to keep all the files in place for an eventual version with Emanswfan's sources. Therefore, I'm announcing that I am done with the edits. What lies in the Final Cut timelines is the final product, and there will be no further changes until encoding V3. The madness has to end somewhere, and I'd love to put the prequel era behind me as we coast closer to the 'big bang' of the sequel trilogy era. 

I'm in the contemplation stage of encoding what I have as V3, the finished version "for the ages," and publishing it, rather than waiting for the regraded sources. Once all three of those are extant, I will likely reencode V3 with them. That way I can mentally be finished with the PT edit project and move on. 

And as a way of leaving myself an out clause, if any worthwhile ideas for changes cross the threshold of breaking my announcement of being finished, I will post about it here. Aside from such a case, I am finished! And I'll likely be releasing V3 in the near future, once I get my Custom ANH:SE finished.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

I have to ask how are you going to introduce the chosen one subplot and still make it bend to the OT's cannon?

Author
Time

HAL retained the chosen one subplot in the V2 releases. It's not much different than the way it was presented theatrically, it's just mentioned much less often.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Good question! Let me start by answering a question you didn't ask: why I back tracked by reincluding it in the first place. 

Upon viewing V1 with some friends, it seemed very odd for the films to totally omit any information whatsoever about Anakin's father. So, removing it seems to go against my goal of maintaining a theatrical level of quality. Also, I'd bet future films will at some point reference it. While I don't particularly like the chosen one plot thread, I had sufficient doubt to think it'd be better to include at least the establishment of it. 

I did tone it down a bit, especially in Ep3 where Obi-Wan doesn't mention it during his "I love you" speech to quadruple-amputee Anakin. And I think Qui-Gon's words to Yoda, "You must complete what I could not," could be viewed as telegraphing that perhaps Luke is the chosen one after all. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

Yeah, I'm new as well and would love a download link. From your descriptions and the conversations going on about this cut, it sounds much improved. I'm excited to check it out!

Author
Time

i just want to say thank you for your brilliant fanedits of the pt. i luv them.

i listened to the commentary, too.

is it possible to add other audio tracks then english?

Author
Time

avantdark said:

is it possible to add other audio tracks then english?

 Unfortunately, no because the deleted scenes have no alternate audio. And subtitles would be a royal pain only to arrive at a total mess. English it will have to remain. 

Glad you enjoyed them!

My stance on revising fan edits.